The federal government is pushing ahead with a gun buyback program that will cost taxpayers $742 million dollars.  This program will create a legal conundrum in Canada as the government has created a class of lawbreakers out of otherwise law abiding gun owners.  These are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who purchased and store their guns legally.  Mark Carney’s government has declared certain types of guns illegal, but law enforcement agencies across the country have said they won’t help the government round up the guns. So legal gunowners will now in effect be criminals even though they’ve never committed a crime.

The man in charge of this file is Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree.

From Conservative Party Communications

Below is the full transcript of the leaked conversation between Gary Anandasangaree and his tenant, where he revealed that he doesn’t believe in his own program.

Gary: I’ve got to tell you something else. You may not be happy with it. We’re launching a gun buyback plan Tuesday.

Tenant: Yeah, I know.

Gary: We’re not adding anything to it.

Tenant: You don’t need to add to it, you’re already taking everything.

Gary: What was that?

Tenant: I thought it was voluntary.

Gary: It is voluntary.

Tenant: So let me ask you this.

Gary: OK

Tenant: If it’s a voluntary buyback, some people call it confiscation.

Gary: Yeah

Tenant: So I have a couple of options. My option is to go have it deactivated. [Yeah], at my cost.

Gary: You’ll get compensation for that.

Tenant: Okay, so I’ll get compensation for deactivation so I basically have a firearm that would never be able to be used again. It’s basically an ornament. [Yeah], okay. Two is to turn it into the federal government. [Yes], or whatever agency.

Gary: It is easy, yeah, who’s collecting, a collection agency as well.

Tenant: Yeah, right for what compensation? So what’s written in, so let’s say one of my AR’s, they’re gonna be, I don’t recall the value, I think it’s around $1200 bucks, somewhere about there. But I have receipts where I purchased it at a far greater cost, and I have other receipts for, maybe I changed the bolt carrier group or a trigger or anything like that, there’s no compensation for that.

Gary: No, not for that.

Tenant: We’re just saying this is the blanket [Yeah] what you’re getting.

Gary: It’s not a flat fee though, it’s not a flat compensation, right? It’s not like it’s $400. It’s every every model.

Tenant: Make and model has a dollar value.

Gary: Exactly.

Tenant: So like my Sig and 400, I think it’s around $1,200. But I paid like $2,400 for it, or $2,200. So I’m still losing money.

Gary: Probably. Yeah, right. The idea is that, look, they’re already prohibited, right?

Tenant: Well, they’re not. They’ve never, so by the OIC in 2000, [yes], right with the stroke of a pen at the time the Prime Minister Trudeau says these are weapons of war, there’s no use for them within Canadian society, [right] this all came after the mass shooting in Nova Scotia, who was an illegal firearms person, correct?

Gary: Had mental health issues.

Tenant: But he had illegal firearms. He was able to purchase a retired police vehicle, correct? Right? [Yeah]. He made a police…..let me finish.

Gary: Don’t, don’t try, don’t ask me to explain the logic to you on this. Okay. Like it’s…

Tenant: But we’re not the problem Gary.

Gary: I realize that….

Tenant: So how many gang bangers? [Yeah] Right? Are running around that TPS, and every police force in Canada is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, in prosecuting people, investigating people, that are on the illegal side.

Gary: I get it.

Tenant: If I don’t have a piece of paper going to my gun range, I could be five years in prison, for a piece of paper. These guys, I hate to say it with your catch and release policies, these guys are caught, might spend a couple days in jail, get a bail hearing, and out they go. But you’re taking stuff away from people that aren’t the problem.

Gary: Yeah. Listen, it’s voluntary. That’s the only thing that’s….

Tenant: It’s not voluntary. So what’s the third option? So I deactivate, I turn them in, what’s the third option?

Gary: Third option is you don’t do either.

Tenant: And? Then what does that make me become?

Gary: Then it’s up to the local police.

Tenant: So what does that make me become? What’s that? A criminal?

Gary: If the police enforce it, yes.

Tenant: Well of course the police are going to enforce it because you’re going to mandate.

Gary: It’s already in the criminal code. It’s there.

Tenant: It’s already written in the criminal code. So you’re basically saying, if I don’t deactivate or return them at a loss, I’m going to be a criminal.

Gary: In your case, what are your losses? You tell me. I’ll personally offset you.

Tenant: That’s not the point Gary. I appreciate that, but it’s not the point. The point is, since 2000, my firearms, I have a huge safe here. My firearms are locked up [right]. I reload, I make my own ammo…

Gary: What do you use it for?

Tenant: I go to the range and shoot, okay. That’s it, right? My other firearms I have, I hunt, right? I have my, I have my PAL, obviously you don’t. I have my RPAL as well. I have to say, whoever that Conservative guy was, when you’re in the House, you were first in the role, you didn’t want to get it.

Gary: That was bad, I know that. But it’s three weeks on the job, man. I never….

Tenant: What do you know about the system now? If you don’t mind me asking?

Gary: I know a lot more. I’m not an expert on this, right? I’m not an expert.

Tenant: So I understand when you let the genie out of the bottle, it’s very hard to put that cap back on the genie.

Gary: I get it

Tenant: And nobody wants – the government definitely doesn’t want people to say hey we’re turning things back or the special interest groups saying hey you’re going back. Nope, it doesn’t matter what happens in the world, the van incident on the street, right? We’re not banning white vans, or renting, or banning people renting vehicles. [Yeah] Impaired drivers, we’re not, okay, we’ll take your vehicle off the road for a certain day, we’ll suspend you for a year and you’ll pay a fine. [right], I just don’t understand that legal firearms owners are a very, very small problem. And I’m going to say this: are there legal firearms owners out there that have committed acts of domestic violence or suicide? Absolutely, it happens. And it happens, doesn’t matter what it is [yeah] whether it’s a van, whether it’s a firearm, whether it’s a knife. People, people with mental health issues will do things. [yeah] But you’re gonna roll out this confiscation, I’m gonna call it, on Tuesday, I think you said. And what’s the timeline?

Gary: It’s a pilot in, um, god where is it, Cape Breton, right?

Tenant: Okay, well that police force said yes to it. But the OPP said no. [Yeah]. Toronto police said no.

Gary: The Toronto police hasn’t said anything yet.

Tenant: Okay, I just know some people in Toronto police. [Yeah, yeah] They’re on the fence, [Yeah] but, anyway, even if the Chiefs of Police Association are saying this is not going to have a meaningful impact, probably less than half a percent of legal people. That probably shouldn’t happen, right? I agree with that one hundred percent. I think, so I have a firearms license [Yeah], (Partner) does not. [Right. Right] She can’t, she doesn’t have a combination to the safe, she doesn’t have access to anything. I think if the government would have mandated safe storage laws, like way above and beyond what we have, like I can have a firearm, as long as it’s not loaded, doesn’t need a trigger lock, just leaning up against my wall, right? Provided it as a non-restricted, right? There’s no ammunition, not readily accessible. I think if you were mandated within whatever time frame that you must have a certified safe, has to meet certain standards, for you to have any restricted firearm, right? That way you eliminate someone breaking into my house, right? [yeah] and saying, “Oh, it’s just sitting here in a case. It’s locked.” [let me take that] But I could walk out the door with a case. If you mandated that, it would be a huge cost to a lot of us. I mean, I think a proper firearm safe is not cheap. Mine is like $7,500. I think they would have gone that way and saying to eliminate the potential of domestic violence issues and somebody having access to, or possible break and enters, and those criminals now taking your legal firearm and using it for illegal purposes. I think you would have had the firearms community on board with that. Ultimately, what the government has done in the last five years is made criminals out of the most vetted… I have a criminal background check on me every single day. If I get into an argument with (Partner), my firearms would be gone. [yeah] If I forget a piece of paper going to my range and I were to get stopped, right? I’m going to prison. [yeah] I have to leave my house, put myself in my truck, and I have to drive right from here, right to a range, I can’t stop for gas. That’s why I’m driving the Audi. So like I can’t even deviate, I can’t stop for gas, I can’t stop for lunch, because the law states I have to go from here to there, there and back. So, we’re not the problem. So, as the Minister of Public Safety, what do you think may have done that? I mean, it’s been rolled out anyways.

Gary: Look, I’ll tell you, if I were to redo this from the beginning, like I’m picking up where it was left off,

Tenant: But you have the power to roll it back.

Gary: But this is the mandate I was given by Carney to complete this.

Tenant: Yeah, ’cause you guys would look like fools rolling it and stepping back.

Gary: And not revisit this. That’s my objective, right? Just to put an end to this and move on with other additional criminal justice tools, including on bail, including on increasing penalties for people who have illegal and you know unlicensed firearms. So a range of things that we are already going to be doing,

Tenant: But this is not new. Because this has been happening over a decade.

Gary: I’ll tell you, going forward, it will be a different approach. This is completing something that was started five years ago that, you know, frankly..

Tenant: But as the minister, you could sit down with Mark and say, listen, there’s something, we need to address these core issues.

Gary: We’ve had all these conversations. Like I’ve had for the last four months, it’s been like constant, constant discussions on this to see what’s next, right? And the conclusion is let’s finish this because we committed to it in the campaign, like…

Tenant: But campaign promises have always been broken in the past.

Gary: I know.

Tenant: So why must you go through this one?

Gary: There is, look,

Tenant: Just say it.

Gary: The Quebec-

Tenant: You know it’s wrong.

Gary: Quebec, for example, is in a very different place than Ontario, right?

Tenant: We’re talking about Canada, it’s a federal, it’s not provincial.

Gary: I get it. Quebec is in a different place than other parts of Canada, right? And this is something that very much a big, big, big deal for many of the Quebec electorate that voted for us, right? And that’s one of the major things. I think it’s, I saw, I’m sure you’ve seen these articles where people said, you know, this is one of the things we should not execute, like as a change from Trudeau’s policies, but we’ve made the decision to go ahead.

Tenant: You know something? You have a minority government right now. And there’s a lot of moving pieces on the chessboard. Absolutely. We’re worried about the longest undefended border between Canada and the United States. And we know where the firearms are coming from. And more than 95% are traced back to….

Gary: The US, the US. Absolutely. 100%. 100%. Like I brought it up to Secretary Noem, I met her like, you know, like a week and a half ago in London, right? And they said, and she was actually surprised because she didn’t know.

Tenant: People, evil people, are going to do evil things. And there’s nothing that you or I or anyone else can do to prevent that, cause you can’t fix what you don’t know. Absolutely, 100%. But…

Gary: Listen, the thing that I can make to you, is that going forward you will have much better…

Tenant: No, you’re going to turn me into a criminal Gary, because you know I’m not gonna turn mine in. I’m telling you right now. I refused it.

Gary: Yeah and that’s fine. I’m not gonna argue with you on this.

Tenant: I mean, you’ll just send the police to my house.

Gary: I’m not gonna send the police to your house.

Tenant: Well, no, but the police will come to my house at some point, because what’s registered. They know who I am, they know where I live, they know where they are, they’re locked up in my safe, I’m gonna refuse to hand ’em in. They’re gonna come in, rip open my safe, right? Take those firearms and put me in handcuffs.

Gary: I doubt very much is going to go that far, like this.

Tenant: Absolutely it’s going to Gary because when you’ve given a mandate as the minister that these firearms are no longer allowed to be in these people’s possession. [Yeah] and you have…

Gary: Okay, I will come and bail you out if that happens. I will. You call me.

Tenant: I don’t want to be bailed out Gary. But now I have a criminal record. Now I have a criminal record. Are you gonna pardon me?

Gary: That I can’t, I don’t have the power to do that, but…

Tenant: But, but, I’m going to have a criminal record. Which means I’m going to lose my job,

Gary: It’s not going to go that far. Like, let’s be frank about this, right?

Tenant: I don’t know Gary. I don’t know.

Gary: Municipal, I just don’t think municipal police services have the resources to do this.

Tenant: Well, I mean, how many billions of dollars in debt are we? We’re just going to keep adding to the debt. How much do you guys think this is going to cost, realistically?

Gary: The budget for this was $742 million.

Tenant: $742 million, three-quarters of a billion dollars?

Gary: That was the budget.

Tenant: That’s their budget. So let’s double it. Let’s be honest.

Gary: No, no, we won’t go that far. We’re capping it. That’s it. We’re not…

Tenant: Oh, so let’s say you take the firearms you said in New Brunswick, [Yeah], You start with that. [Nova Scotia] Sorry, Nova Scotia, You start with them at whatever the cost that is, and you work across the country however way you want to roll the program. I mean Alberta, Danielle, she’s really telling you go “f” yourself. At one point you say, “Okay, that’s $750 million.” Sorry, do you say, “Okay, we ran out of money, so we’ll take yours, but you guys just don’t get….we ran out of money”

Gary: It’s a capped, it’s a capped buyback, right? It’s voluntary. It’s capped.  It’s voluntary.

Tenant: How is it voluntary? I do not want to give it to you.

Gary: Okay, then that’s your prerogative, right?

Tenant: But the consequence for not following your directive, I have to go to jail.

Gary: If you want money back, then..

Tenant: I don’t want money back. I want what I legally can own. I’ve been able to use for years. I have no issues with the regulations surrounding them. So let’s look at my AR. It’s a .223 calibre semi-automatic rifle. I cannot use it for hunting. I can only use it at the range.

Gary: Lets go out, I have to get going soon.

Tenant: But I also have a .233 bolt-action rifle that I can use for hunting. It’s the exact same round, same velocity, they want to make it different, it’s the action, right? I’m limited to a five-round magazine. I’m limited to a five-round magazine on my bolt action. Nothing’s different. It’s a few bad actors who’ve done really horrible things, and do we need to tighten up, you know, the PAL locks?

Gary: Listen, I told you, if I were to redo this from scratch, I would have a very different approach to this.

Tenant: What do you think you should implement? If you could start from scratch, what would be the first thing you would do?

Gary: What I would do is, like, and it’s going to happen, Fraser’s already working on it, right? So I think on firearms possession, without a license, the illegal firearms when we talk about that kind of thing. Anyone caught with it or caught close to it should face jail time.

Tenant: Where are you gonna house all these guys Gary? You don’t have the space. So let’s start there. So that’s not going to work.

Gary: So that’s one of the things we need to do, right?

Tenant: So we’re talking a twenty-year term to start building all these prisons.

Gary: No, it’s not.

Tenant: But to house these people?

Gary: No, but right now they’re not, the consequences are not there for them, right?

Tenant: How about this? For the JPs that let these guys out on bail repeatedly, how about we hold the JPs accountable? But you can’t because under C-75 you said ‘least onerous restrictions’.

Gary: I, I those are being changed. Those will be changed.

Tenant: Yeah, but how many strikes do we have to give them before we actually do something?

Gary: That’s going to be changed.

Tenant: Right, so I know if I leave my house with a firearm and whether it’s restricted or non-restricted, if I don’t follow the storage laws and transportation laws, right? I go to jail. Now will I get released? Most likely, most likely, I don’t have a criminal history, it was an error on my part, but I know the rules and regulations…

Gary: How do you make sure this is happening every year for something like this, for not having the paperwork?

Tenant: That I don’t know. I’m going to say very few because…

Gary: I’ll get those numbers for you.

Tenant: I’m going to say very few because we know what we have to do and we know the consequences by not following everything from A to Z, right? No, if I walk into my house with a firearm, I grab a shotgun and I’m just going to walk to my house, I don’t have it in a case, most likely someone can call the police and say, “Hey, there’s a guy walking around the neighbourhood with a firearm.” They’re going to come and investigate and say, “Hey, there’s nothing, you’re legitimate, you’re legal, we have your paperwork, you got your PAL, you’re doing everything.” But ecause you’ve created a concern in the community, maybe I should charge you for that.

Gary:  Even though you’re licensed and everything.

Tenant: Yeah, but nowhere in storage or the transportation laws say, I have to have it in case. Right? Now, I don’t… When I move firearms from my safe to my truck, I bring my truck up here. Right? Number one, I don’t want people knowing what I have, right? The less people know what I have, the less people gonna say, “Hey, that guy’s got guns, let’s go breaking into his house.” We have to be smart as firearms owners

Gary: Listen, man, I gotta get going.

Tenant: All right.

Gary: Because I have to pick up my daughter. Listen, I appreciate you. I will, um…

Tenant: Not looking forward to your announcement on Tuesday.

Gary: I know, I know. Cut me some slack, okay?

Gary: Well, something Gary, hold your feet to the fire. We are.

Gary: Yeah, certainly.

Tenant: And, right? I mean, we are. Ultimately on election time, that’s when it comes down to it.

Gary:  We had one four months ago.

Tenant: Yep.

Gary: Take care.

Tenant: Alright, drive.

Gary:  Cheers.

Tenant: Take care.

Gary:  Thank you.

Tenant: Alright, appreciate it, and we’ll talk soon.

Gary: I’ll follow up with you.

Tenant: Thanks Gary. Thanks Gary.