The head of the Canadian Coalition of Firearms Rights is blasting the federal government’s gun buyback plan after an independent report revealed higher than expected costs..A recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer suggested the federal government would have to pay gun owners up to $756 million in the gun grab buyback program, but no estimate was made of administrative costs..This sounds too much like the 1990s gun registry to Rod Giltaca, CEO of the CCFR..“I’m not surprised. I’m reminded of the long-gun registry where it was supposed to cost $2 million and ended up costing $2 billion,” Giltaca said in an interview with Western Standard..“The one variable is the government has no idea how many of these firearms there are. They also have no idea what the participation rate is going to be. So they could end up with a massive bill for buying back these firearms. Or they might be sitting there wondering why they built so much infrastructure to collect them.”.Cost aside, Giltaca believes the idea is a bad one for many reasons..“For me, the problem has always been the government has decided that they will not justify why they’re doing this in the first place,” Giltaca said..“In these days of unprecedented social division, I’m not sure why the government would choose to make hundreds of thousands of Canadians furiously angry.”.It’s easy to understand why gun owners are upset, Giltaca said..“People jump through the hoops, they pay the fees, they paid the taxes on the purchases of these things, they pay the taxes on the purchases of ammunition, and they pay the taxes on the purchases of gun club membership. And then the government says, ‘Well, thank you very much. You know what, we’re just going to take that property anyway. We’ve changed the rules yet again,’” he said..The Canadian Taxpayers Federation estimates $756 million could pay 1,200 new police officers for five years. Giltaca says the federal government doesn’t seem interested..“Number one, they have shown no intention of addressing root causes of violence. They’re not worried. It seems that they act like they’re not worried about the ongoing and escalating violence in cities and in rural communities. If they were, their actions would look a lot different,” he said..“But not only does more violence help them, help people give them more power, give them more authority, give them more budget, give them more latitude in the things that they do to curtail freedom, but they also don’t like anyone having guns but them.”.Budget 2018 promised $327.6 million over five years, and $100 million ongoing for the scheme..Giltaca provided the Western Standard with documents from Public Safety Canada sent April 14 that showed that the department was only allocated $214 million and about $96.3 million had been spent..“I have a friend — Marcel Wilson has a group called a One-by-One Movement — and he’s done a tremendous amount of work to formulate and create programs in inner-city Toronto to keep kids out of gangs and to deal with hate groups and all this stuff. He hasn’t gotten a single dime from the federal government for these programs yet,” he said..“They haven’t given out any money, but they’ve got a billion dollars for a gun buyback gun grab. It’s insane. Their actions are not consistent with what they’re saying. And that should be a problem for everybody.”.Giltaca and CCFR VP Tracy Wilson met Public Safety Minister Bill Blair in person two years ago and asked what evidence showed gun owners were more likely to commit criminal acts. None was provided..“You’d be insane to trust these people. They lie to you every single day about everything. You know, I don’t know how anybody is weak enough to trust these people. They’re just monsters. It’s horrible,” Giltaca said..Harding is a Western Standard correspondent based in Saskatchewan
