Feds to proceed with promised review of firearms classification regime, minister says

OTTAWA — The federal government will move ahead with a promised review of Canada’s firearms classification regime that will include consultations with Indigenous communities on the SKS rifle, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said.

The classification review, first announced in March, will take a broad view of the legal framework for firearms, ammunition and magazines while emphasizing simplicity and consistency, Anandasangaree said in a media release.

The government has been heavily criticized by gun control advocates for not including the semi-automatic SKS in its list of banned firearms.

Since May 2020, Ottawa has outlawed approximately 2,500 types of guns on the basis they belong on the battlefield, not in the hands of hunters or sport shooters.

The government says a federal buyback program will provide owners fair compensation for their outlawed firearms.

Ottawa has budgeted more than $700 million for the buyback effort.

Firearm rights advocates and the federal Conservatives have described the program as a poor use of taxpayer dollars targeted at law-abiding gun owners.

The SKS is commonly used in Indigenous communities to hunt for food and has also been used in police killings and other high-profile shootings in recent years.

Gun control group PolySeSouvient has called on Ottawa to ban new sales of the SKS, remove from circulation modern, assault-style versions of the rifle, and implement a voluntary buyback of older models while making their registration mandatory and prohibiting their transfer.

The group advocates an exemption for Indigenous hunters who use the rifle primarily for sustenance.

PolySeSouvient said it was encouraged by the federal plan to proceed with the classification review and the specific mention of the SKS.

“However, we are concerned about the lack of a precise timetable since new SKS sales should be banned by the time the financial compensation of the buyback starts being rolled out,” the group said in a media release.

While the SKS might eventually be prohibited, “until such time as the government ends its future sales, Canada will not have a complete ban on assault weapons nor a successful buyback program,” the group added.

PolySeSouvient was formed after a gunman killed 14 women on Dec. 6, 1989, at Montreal’s École Polytechnique. Politicians including Prime Minister Mark Carney will join family members of the victims Saturday in a vigil to mark the 36th anniversary of the mass shooting.

The federal classification review would fulfil a recommendation made more than two years ago by the Mass Casualty Commission, which examined the shooting spree in rural Nova Scotia in April 2020 where a gunman killed 22 people over several hours.

“We will ensure that the views of Canadians are considered throughout this review,” Anandasangaree said in the release. “Perspectives of firearms experts, Indigenous peoples, industry and firearms owners will be integral to its success.”

The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights called the federal statement insulting and disingenuous, adding in a statement “we have seen numerous times that the perspectives of lawful firearms owners are devalued and discarded by this Liberal government.”

Anandasangaree also said the government is taking the next steps on regulations to flesh out federal gun-control legislation passed in 2023.

One measure in the bill would make anyone subject to a protection order — a legal order often issued in domestic violence cases — ineligible to hold a firearms licence while the order is in effect.

On Friday, the National Association of Women and the Law repeated its concern that the proposed regulations would narrow the scope of the protection order measure by limiting firearm licence ineligibility to those under civil protection orders.

That would exclude orders that are not civil in nature, such as peace bonds made under section 810 of the Criminal Code.

Anandasangaree said work is “actively underway to address feedback from victims, such as the inclusion of peace bonds.”

The legislation also makes a person convicted of an offence involving intimate partner violence or family violence ineligible to hold a firearms licence.

NAWL has expressed concern about the federal interpretation of this provision. The group says the government has adopted the view that it affects firearm licence applications only from those whose conviction for a domestic violence offence was entered after the provision came into force early last April.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2025.

Jim Bronskill and Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press