The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to scrap it’s gun buyback program, as they say it costs taxpayers too much while also being unsuccessful.

Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director says that the government has not been transparent with the Canadian people on the cost of the program.

“Part of the problem with that is that it’s not exactly clear how much taxpayers have been in the hole for this program. The government has said that they have about $742 million budgeted to carry out the gun ban and confiscation, but even that number isn’t very transparent. We go back to 2019, the Liberals said something like $200 million for the program, now it’s gone up to that $742 million. We’ve seen independent experts talk about $6 billion in total cost to taxpayers.”

Haubrich adds that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation does not believe that the program has made Canadians any safer than they already were.

“It’s completely clear that this program will do nothing to make Canadians safer. It’s not just us as taxpayers saying that, it’s police officers, it’s academics. Licenced firearm owners aren’t the people committing crimes with these guns, so instead of wasting potentially billions of dollars on a gun confiscation program, the government should definitely look at putting those resources back into fighting things where the crime is actually happening, such as guns that are being smuggled illegally up from our southern border.”

CTF’s call to action comes after only 25 firearms of an expected 200 were collected during a Cape Breton pilot project.

Haubrich says that the cost of that pilot project gives taxpayers a peak into just how much money is being spent on confiscating guns.

“The federal government agreed to give Cape Breton fo that pilot project about $150,000 to do their part there. So taking the 25 guns they got there, that’s about more than $5000 per gun the government spent to confiscate them in Cape Breton. So if we take that, and we look across the country, it’s clear that it’s going to be a huge boondoggle for taxpayers.”

CTF believes the government should own up to the program’s failure and listen to the experts.