Gun control is widely supported in Canada—so why is a major buyback facing backlash?

By Muhammad MubashirPublished On 16 Feb 2026

The deadly mass shooting at a school in British Columbia came as Canadian authorities face significant obstacles in rolling out a nationwide firearms buyback that is mired in practical and logistical complications.

Canada already has far stronger gun laws than the United States, and mass shootings are extremely rare. The government brought forward major reforms and bans on assault-style weapons after the country suffered its worst-ever shooting attack in 2020, when a man impersonating a police officer killed 22 people in northern Nova Scotia.

In January, Canada began implementing one of those reforms: a long-awaited, hotly debated program to compensate the country’s gun owners for their now-banned firearms. Yet the buyback program has suffered yearslong delays and pushback from police, provincial officials and gun owners.

In September, audio emerged of Canada’s Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree, the official responsible for implementing the legislation, questioning the ability of police departments to enforce the buyback. Anandasangaree later said the recording was made without his knowledge, and said the comments were “misguided.”

Under a framework unveiled last month, Canadians who own any of the 2,500 prohibited makes and models of assault-style weapons have until March 31 to sign up to turn in their guns and possibly receive money in return.

If they sign up after that date, gun owners won’t be compensated – but they’ll still have to give up their guns or permanently decommission them by October 30, 2026, or risk criminal liability for the illegal possession of a prohibited firearm.

A ‘vibrant gun culture’

Complicating the buyback is the fact that Canada has plenty of guns, more than the program alone can collect. The federal government estimates that it has the funds to buy 136,000 firearms, but Canada has roughly 2 million registered and 10 million unregistered guns, according to a 2017 release from the Small Arms Survey, an independent research group based in Switzerland.

“Canada actually has a fairly high rate of civilian gun ownership compared to any other advanced democracy,” said Blake Brown, a gun control expert and professor at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia.

Brown said the buyback has proceeded “very slowly,” in some cases due to opposition from gun owners, despite overall support for gun control among Canadians.