Ottawa extending amnesty for 'assault-style' firearms again, until October 2025

The federal Liberal government says it will extend by two years an amnesty order on guns it prohibited in the wake of the deadly 2020 Nova Scotia shooting rampage.

Public Safety Canada quietly updated its website about the yet-to-be-developed firearms buyback program on Wednesday, saying the amnesty period that was set to expire at the end of the month will remain in place until Oct. 30, 2025.

The amnesty applies to those who own one of the more than 1,500 models of guns that Ottawa announced it was banning, saying "assault-style" firearms, such as the AR-15, have no place in communities.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the ban in May 2020, days after a gunman in Nova Scotia committed the deadliest mass shooting in modern Canadian history.

At the time, the Liberals promised to compensate those who own such weapons through a buyback program, which the parliamentary budget officer said in 2021 would cost upwards of $750 million.

The amnesty order was initially set to expire in spring 2022, but the Liberals extended it to this October, saying that a buyback program was still in the works.

Former public safety minister Marco Mendicino announced in April that his department was beginning to work on the first phase of that program, starting with sorting out how to compensate retailers.

The Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association, the group Ottawa says it is working with to craft its commercial buyback program, celebrated Wednesday's news.

A statement posted on its website said it had encouraged officials to extend the amnesty order.

In a statement, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the government is "committed to putting in place a firearms buyback program that will allow law abiding gun owners to turn in their firearms and be compensated."

"While we work on putting it in place, we made the decision to extend the amnesty order to October 30, 2025," Jean-Sebastien Comeau said in an email on Wednesday.

Trudeau had promised to ban what the Liberals called "military-style assault" firearms and establish a buyback program during the 2019 federal election that won him his second mandate.

The Liberals made a similar promise during their last successful election campaign in 2021.

Elections law stipulates that the next fixed date for a federal contest is Oct. 20, 2025, though an election could be called before then.

Gun-control advocates blame government for lack of action

"The lack of progress to implement the buyback program, three-and-a-half years after the initial prohibitions were announced, is extremely disconcerting," PolySeSouvient said in a media statement.

The prominent gun-control advocacy group includes students and graduates of Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique, where a gunman killed 14 women with a Ruger Mini-14 in 1989.

It said the amnesty extension "is a testament to the government's overall mishandling of the assault weapon file," including Bill C-21.

That legislation, which the Senate is still considering, was panned by many firearms owners, the Assembly of First Nations and the federal Conservatives for trying to ban rifles commonly used by hunters.

The bill's progress through the House of Commons was sidelined for months amid a backlash over a proposed definition that would have extended the ban to cover an additional 482 models of guns.

The government ultimately pulled that definition and opted instead for a regulatory approach that would ensure guns are classified correctly before entering the Canadian market.

The Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns, another gun-control advocacy group, said in a statement on Wednesday that it was "disappointed in the absence of a clear plan for the buyback to accompany the extension of the amnesty."