Home > Liberal Gun Bans > Costs
Canada’s Liberal Party-led administration is preparing to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on its crackdown begun in May 2020 against government-licensed gun owners and businesses.
This page is about the direct financial costs for taxpayers. (We believe it’s the most-comprehensive page on this topic on the Internet.)
This page doesn’t cover:
- the massive destruction of personal and family wealth
- the huge costs of lost revenue to business
- the heavy and dangerous political, social, cultural, and emotional costs of the Liberal attack on honest citizens.
Note: This page covers only the costs to confiscate the rifles and shotguns targeted by executive order on 01 May 2020. It excludes other confiscations, in particular the handgun seizures begun in October 2022 (and via Bill C-21).
Have an idea or see a mistake? Please contact us.
Newest Update of This Page: 21 June 2024
Introduction: About $72 Million So Far
The Liberals estimated in an internal memo in late 2019 that their politically motivated harassment would cost $1.8 billion.
As of December 2023, the Liberals and the RCMP, which is collaborating with the Liberals:
- Had signed about $42 million in confiscation-related contracts, according to government disclosures
- Had paid or were liable for about $30 million in personnel costs for employees working on the crackdown, according to estimates by TheGunBlog.ca.
1. Administration: Employees
Full-Time Equivalent Employees Working on the Confiscations
- Estimated employee cost includes salary, benefits, pensions, overhead, and other costs to taxpayers.
Table 1.1 Employee Costs
| Department | Number of Employees | Average Annual Cost Per Employee | Total Annual Cost | Total Cost After 4 Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Safety | 60 | $120,000 | $7,200,000 | $28,800,000 |
| RCMP | 15 | $120,000 | $1,800,000 | $7,200,000 |
| Public Services and Procurement | 5.8 | $120,000 | $696,000 | $2,784,000 |
| Total | 80.8 | $120,000 | $9,696,000 | $38,784,000 |
Data Source: 2024 Mar 22: Government Response to Conservative Senator Don Plett
2. Administration: Contracts
Table 2.1: Department of Public Safety
| Award Date | Vendor | Amount | Description | End Date | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-08-21 | QMR Staffing Solutions Inc. | $24,959 (?$6,329) | Strategic advice and support | 2021-10-27 | Details |
| 2020-10-19 | Altis Human Resources (Ottawa) Inc. | $23,504 | Project Management Services | 2021-03-31 | Details |
| 2021-02-19 | Ultimate Management Group | $199,993 | Project Management Services | 2025-03-31 | Details |
| 2021-03-30 | IBM Canada | $3,750,000 | Compensation model and program design options | 2024-03-31 | Details |
| 2021-06-02 | Ekos Research | $56,400 | Opinion survey | 2022-03-31 | Details |
| 2021-11-29 | Environics Research | $249,945 | Opinion survey | 2022-03-31 | Details |
| 2022-07-25 | Qualtrics LLC | $72,090 | Individual pricelist consultation | 2023-03-31 | Details |
| 2022-07-27 | Publivate Inc. | $26,309 | Communications research services | 2022-09-30 | Details |
| 2022-09-01 | Environics Research | $158,856 | Opinion survey | 2023-03-31 | Details |
| 2022-10-17 | Samson & Associates | $782,934 | Nimble assurance of a major transformation initiative | 2023-12-31 | Details |
| 2022-11-04 | Ekos Research | $147,363 | Opinion survey | 2023-06-05 | Details |
| 2023-03-16 | Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton | $350,300 | Management consulting | 2025-03-31 | Details |
| 2023-03-30 | Veritaaq Technology House Inc. | $39,968 | Development of Privacy Impact Assessment | 2023-12-29 | Details |
| 2023-09-28 | Tiree Facility Solutions Inc. | $204,459 | Management consulting | 2024-03-31 | Details |
| 2023-02-16 | Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (CSAAA) | $707,363 | Professional services | 2024-03-31 | Details |
Discrepancies
- QMR Staffing Details shows contract value of $24,958.88.
- Samson & Associates Details shows contract value of $952,434.
- Environics and Ekos contracts were omitted from government response to MP Cheryl Gallant in December 2023.
Table 2.2: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
| Award Date | Vendor | Amount | Description | End Date | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-10-12 | Multishred Inc. | $361,186 | Heavy-duty shredder and conveyor-belt system | 2024-02-29 | Details |
| 2023-10-23 | Accenture | $29,000,000 ($516,523?) | API development | 2024-05-21 | Details |
Discrepancies
- Multishred Details shows contract date of 30 August 2023.
- Accenture’s $29 million contract couldn’t be found in the government’s Contracts database. The RCMP, Department of Public Safety, and Accenture all declined to comment on the contract when the TheGunBlog.ca requested information about it.
3. Compensation
The Liberals don’t have any plan to compensate the victims of their confiscations, although have been talking about one for four years.
They imagine they’ll pay about $206 million based on:
- low price proposed to gun owners who voluntarily surrender their valued gear (the so-called “Price List”), and
- low estimate for the number of guns to be collected (CSAAA estimates about 518,000 firearms are affected vs. Liberal+RCMP estimates of about 150,000)
- low compliance
Table 3.1 Compensation to Confiscation Volunteers
| Firearm Model | Quantity (Estimate) | Proposed Compensation | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| AR-15, AR-10, M4, M-16 | 102,148 | $1,337 | $136,571,876 |
| Ruger Mini-14 | 16,879 | $1,407 | $23,748,753 |
| U.S. M-14 | 5,248 | $2,612 | $13,707,776 |
| Vz. 58 | 11,313 | $1,139 | $12,885,507 |
| .50 BMG | 1,849 | $2,819 | $5,212,331 |
| Robinson Armament XCR | 1,837 | $2,735 | $5,024,195 |
| SIG Sauer MCX, MPX | 1,067 | $2,369 | $2,527,723 |
| CZ Scorpion EVO 3 | 1,844 | $1,291 | $2,380,604 |
| Beretta CX4 Storm | 1,559 | $1,317 | $2,053,203 |
| SG 550, SG 551 | 298 | $6,209 | $1,850,282 |
| >20 mm | 74 | $2,684 | $198,616 |
| Total | 144,116 | $206,160,866 |
4. Exclusions and Omissions
4.1 Financial Costs
The tables above omit financial costs such as:
- Costs to hire confiscation agents to execute the forced seizures via home raids against unwilling, uncooperative (and potentially hostile) targets
- Costs to securely transport, store, and destroy collected firearms (Could be low, given expectation of mass opt-out)
- Costs to enforce confiscations against gun owners and businesses who opt out (Could be high)
- Costs of six challenges in Federal Court (lawyers, assistants, judges, clerks, …)
- Costs of challenge in Federal Court of Appeals (lawyers, assistants, judges, clerks, …) (Estimate: $2 million)
- Costs of roughly 200 challenges in provincial courts across Canada (lawyers, assistants, judges, clerks, …)
- Costs of billions of dollars in personal and family wealth that dropped to zero when the firearms were prohibited.
4.2 Non-Financial Costs
- Destroyed trust in politicians, the political system, and government institutions, and fueled overt hostility toward them
- Destroyed trust in the anti-firearm regime (licensing of people, registration of firearms)
- Destroyed trust in the RCMP as the administrator of the anti-firearm regime over its assistance with the confiscations
- Weakened personal and family safety, since we can no longer train with our gear or get replacement parts for it
- Weakened public safety and national security, since we can no longer train with our gear, since we can no longer train with our gear or get replacement parts for it
5. Sources of Information and Data
- TheGunBlog.ca
- ATIP (Access To Information and Privacy) documents shared with TheGunBlog.ca
- Canadian Government Contracts Over $10,000
- 2023 Dec 12: Government Response to Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant
- 2024 Mar 22: Government Response to Conservative Senator Don Plett