A vendor lifts a SIG Sauer MCX rifle at the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries trade show in Ottawa on May 28. The model is one of the firearms included in the federal government’s buyback program.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
The Alberta government on Tuesday announced it is directing law enforcement agencies in the province to not enforce Ottawa’s gun buyback program, using Premier Danielle Smith’s flagship sovereignty legislation to circumvent federal laws it considers unconstitutional.
The Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act has not been tested in court and experts have called it constitutionally dubious.
The plan to shun federal rules comes just five days after Ms. Smith heralded a new era of co-operation with Ottawa when she and Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared side by side with a landmark energy accord, easing years-long tension over energy and environmental policy.
Alberta passed firearms legislation in 2023, when the federal buyback program was announced, that gave the provincial justice minister the power to license “seizure agents” and oversee gun-related funding agreements between Ottawa and municipalities – including their police forces.
The new regulations will instruct all provincial entities to not participate in or enforce the “Federal Firearms Seizure Initiative,” the Alberta government’s name for the buyback program. Text of a government motion released Tuesday contained few further details on how the move would be implemented.
Justice Minister Mickey Amery also announced Tuesday that the province is instructing prosecutors not to pursue cases where individuals have defended themselves from intruders.
Gun buyback pilot to launch in Cape Breton, with plans to expand nationwide
New guidelines for prosecutors will make it clear Alberta has “no public interest in prosecuting individual homeowners from protecting their homes, their loved ones, and themselves from the threat of somebody coming into that home,” Mr. Amery told reporters.
“That is sacred to us.”
Ottawa first announced its gun buyback program in 2020 in the wake of the mass murder in Portapique, N.S., where a gunman killed 22 people. The program has since faced numerous hurdles and resistance, including pushback from hunting and firearms enthusiasts, and First Nations communities.
So far, Ottawa has banned more than 2,500 models and variants of assault-style weapons with the promise of buying back firearms that are turned over to law enforcement. A pilot project began in Cape Breton in October, and the program is expected to be implemented nationwide by the end of the year.
The federal government has said the buyback period will last until the end of October next year, during which gun owners will be able to turn in banned weapons for compensation.
Owners who don’t turn over their weapons by the end of the amnesty period will be breaking the law. In order to remain compliant with the law, guns on the banned list will need to be deactivated or turned in to police without compensation.
Simon Lafortune, spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, said Canadians expect their governments to work together on community safety.
“Any unwillingness to co-operate on this voluntary compensation program will make it more difficult for law-abiding gun owners to be compensated, leaving residents caught in the middle – still subject to federal law, but without the clear, federally supported pathway to compensation that will be available to Canadians in participating provinces,” wrote Mr. Lafortune.
Alberta’s directive for police to not enforce the program could be considered constitutional and the province’s plan will likely force the federal government to use its own powers to pursue the buyback plan, said Gerard Kennedy, a legal scholar at the University of Alberta.
Alberta’s bid to exempt itself from Ottawa’s buyback program mirrors the province’s 1995 challenge of then-prime minister Jean Chrétien‘s introduction of the Firearms Act, said Noah Schwartz, an assistant professor in political science at the University of the Fraser Valley who researches Canadian gun control policy.
Alberta lost that challenge in the Supreme Court, which decided parliament had jurisdiction over criminal law, despite the province’s objections that property rights – including firearms ownership – were provincial jurisdiction. Mr. Amery made a similar argument on Tuesday.
“That’s the historical parallel for this … if I were placing bets on this, I would bet that the Supreme Court would probably find the same thing,” said Prof. Schwartz.
Meanwhile, the province has introduced new guidelines for the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service that say it’s not in the public interest to criminalize a “reasonable” use of self-defence.
The guidelines follow an outcry this summer when charges were laid against an Ontario man who violently assaulted a crossbow-wielding man who allegedly broke into his apartment.
In response to the Ontario case, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said at the time that the federal government needed to amend the Criminal Code so that use of force is presumed to be reasonable to defend one’s home should someone break in.
Premier Smith, when asked about the incident in August, said: “If you don’t want to get shot or beaten up, then don’t break into people’s houses.”
She echoed that line in her speech at the UCP annual meeting over the weekend, proffering similar advice to “low-life criminals.”
Mr. Amery said Alberta will continue to fight policy it believes is flawed.
“We will certainly stand by and will be great partners in Confederation, but where something is inappropriately targeting and disproportionately creating criminals out of law-abiding Albertans, we will stand opposed through and through,” he said.