In May 2020, the federal government announced a ban on 1,500 types of what it called “assault-style” firearms. As part of this ban, it has promised to provide “fair compensation” to gun owners whose firearms it confiscates.

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Gage Haubrich: New Zealand’s gun buyback suggests Ottawa’s won’t work Back to video

The ban’s aim is to keep Canadians safe. “Enough is enough,” federal government then-minister of public safety Bill Blair. “Banning these firearms will save Canadian lives.” But will this scheme actually make Canadians safer? And what will it cost? The government of New Zealand recently completed its own gun ban and buyback. It provides a good case study of the effects such a program can have.

Like Canada, New Zealand has a substantial number of firearms and firearms owners: 26.3 firearms per 100 persons, compared to Canada’s 34.7. In 2019, in response to a tragic mass shooting in Christchurch, the government banned certain guns and implemented a buyback. Unlike Ottawa, however, which has focused its ban on specific “assault-style” firearms, New Zealand banned almost all semi-automatic firearms.

The buyback ran from June to December 2019 and involved confiscation of over 60,000 firearms, though New Zealand police have estimated the total number of prohibited firearms in the country might be as many as 240,000. The buyback wasn’t cheap. The police initially budgeted $16 million (in C$) for the administrative costs of the program. In the end, the country’s auditor general found, costs had almost doubled, to about $31 million. But that was just for administration. The cost of compensating gun owners was about $106 million, which works out to a per firearm price of about $1,800. Those numbers are for a country with a population of just over five million — one-eighth ours.

After the guns were bought and removed from the hands of New Zealanders, what happened to gun crime? Violent gun crime actually went up. During the decade before the buyback violent firearm offences averaged 932 a year. In 2019, the year of the buyback, there were 1,142 offences; in 2020, 1,156; in 2021, 1,338; and last year, 1,444. That’s up almost 55 per cent over the pre-ban decade. New Zealanders evidently did not become safer because the government took away firearms from law-abiding gun owners.

This confirms the suspicions of many Canadian experts. The National Police Federation, the union that represents the RCMP, says Ottawa’s buyback is costly legislation that does not address current or urgent threats to public safety. “In fact,” the union says, “it diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”

What’s the likely cost of Ottawa’s buyback? In 2019, the government said it would be $200 million. But history and independent estimates suggest a much higher bill than that. The last major gun control program in Canada was the long-gun registry. The government initially promised it would only cost $2 million. The final tab was over $2 billion.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that just confiscating the guns, not including any associated administrative costs, would leave taxpayers on the hook for up to $756 million. In 2022, the government had already spent $3.7 million on the buyback — even before confiscating a single gun.

In April, Ottawa announced it will be implementing the first stage of the program, buying banned guns from retailers. Wes Winkel, president of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (CSAAA), which is working with the federal government on this part of the buyback, announced the cost will be in the billions of dollars.

New Zealand’s experience shows gun buybacks don’t reduce gun crime. The federal government shouldn’t be wasting taxpayer dollars on an expensive program that is unlikely to work. Ottawa needs to scrap the gun ban and buyback. There are better ways to fight crime.

Gage Haubrich is prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.