LETTER: Premier needs to bow out of gun buyback program

Shared letter to Premier David Eby:

I’m writing as a taxpaying resident of British Columbia, who cares a lot about public safety and about whether our government is spends time and money on things that actually work. In my community, Maple Ridge, the biggest public safety issues aren’t law-abiding firearms owners. They are the mental health and addiction crisis, repeat violent offending, and the day-to-day strain on police, courts, and frontline health care.

That’s why I’m asking you to take a clear position: British Columbia should not administer, support, or sign on to Ottawa’s “Firearms Compensation Program” (the federal “gun buyback”), and B.C. should not allow provincial policing capacity to be diverted into it.

The Cape Breton pilot shows the problem.

Ottawa’s own pilot in Cape Breton was supposed to test whether this program could work at scale. The program aimed to collect 200 firearms over six weeks, but the results publicly reported were 25 firearms from 16 participants out of a possible 3,500 licenced owners, at an administrative cost of over $149,760. That isn’t a serious return on effort and it’s a warning that the national rollout risks becoming a long, expensive administrative project that produces no public safety benefit. Even the program’s own rollout has been dogged by resource and readiness concerns.

Media reporting on a leaked audio recording described the federal public safety minister privately expressing doubt that municipal police have the resources to enforce the program, and he suggested the entire program was based on optics of political pressure within Quebec. Separately, reporting indicates our BC Police Chiefs’ Association has raised concerns about resourcing and preparedness, citing its members questioning the burden of this program on B.C. policing resources. That’s not what a confident, well-designed national public safety program looks like. Police leaders have been consistent: don’t dump this on frontline policing.

Police leadership has been warning for years not to load this kind of program onto already-stretched agencies. A Canadian Press report in 2022 captured chiefs urging the federal government not to rely on resource-strapped police to carry out a buyback. And in federal committee testimony, Regina Police Chief Evan Bray described the buyback process as a “massive amount of work.” The National Police Federation has also argued that the buyback would pull attention and resources away from higher-impact priorities like illegal guns and organized crime.

B.C. cannot afford to weaken frontline capacity — not with the crisis-level calls we’re already dealing with in communities like mine.

The data points us toward a different target. Statistics Canada’s latest Juristat shows firearm-related violent crime has risen sharply since 2018. In 2023, handguns were present in about half (49 per cent) of firearm-related violent crime incidents, while rifles/shotguns were merely 15 per cent. That matches what police leaders often say publicly: the real driver is illegal guns and smuggling, not securely stored firearms sitting in the homes of vetted, compliant owners.

For example, the Toronto Police Association president testified that at least 85 per cent of seized crime guns traced back to the United States. So, if the goal is fewer shootings and fewer victims, the most direct path is: border enforcement, anti-smuggling investigations, gang disruption, and mental-health/addiction interventions — not a program aimed at people who already follow the rules.

B.C. wouldn’t be alone. Multiple provinces and territories have publicly pushed back on administering or participating in the buyback, including Manitoba (Premier Kinew called it inefficient and not well run), New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Yukon, among others. Even federally, all five NDP leadership campaigns reportedly told the National Post they oppose the buyback approach.

My request; Premier, I’m asking you to: Publicly state that B.C. will not administer or participate in the Firearms Compensation Program and will not sign agreements that download costs and staffing burdens onto B.C. policing and provincial systems. Press Ottawa to redirect effort toward illegal gun smuggling and organized crime, and toward mental health/addictions treatment and crisis response – the things B.C. communities like Maple Ridge feel every day. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you — or with your office — in a short call or in-person meeting. Thank you for your time and for your work on community safety. I hope you’ll take a clear, practical stand on this and keep B.C. focused on what will actually reduce violent crime.

Greg Fraser, Maple Ridge