Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger told a House committee they have serious safety concerns over their proposed involvement
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OTTAWA — The head of Canada Post says the Crown agency wants nothing to do with the Trudeau government’s gun grab, despite efforts by Ottawa to enlist the postal service in the “buy back” plan.
Testifying before the House operations committee on Wednesday, Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger said the Crown corporation had serious concerns over its involvement with the program, which would see firearms owners turn in their now-outlawed firearms to Canada Post locations.
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“It’s my clear responsibility to keep our employees safe — and the public safe, because post offices are public locations,” Ettinger said during Wednesday evening’s committee meeting.
“We did an internal safety assessment, and we are not comfortable with the process that was being proposed in ongoing discussions over the past few months. Our position is that with the the elevated risk, we’re just not comfortable with it.”
Anticipated as a key partner in the Trudeau Liberals’ now four-year-long struggle to confiscate certain legally purchased firearms from licensed owners, Canada Post has publicly balked at being a part of the program.
In April, CBC News reported the Crown corporation would refuse to collect firearms banned under a 2020 order-in-council.
In a letter to the federal government, Canada Post cited safety concerns with its employees and facilities if compelled to act as the collection point and shipper of surrendered firearms.
Ettinger reiterated that point Wednesday evening.
“The elevated risk? We’re just not comfortable with that,” he told committee members.
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“Our buildings are not set up with security, with proper storage. Our buildings aren’t that secure overall, the way I would like them to be. This is not in our expertise — this should be best left to those who know how to handle guns, know how to dismantle them, and know how to manage them so no one gets hurt.”
Bu the federal government seems intent on including Canada Post in its confiscation scheme.
Last week, the Liberal government quietly proposed regulations that would allow the shipment of prohibited rifles and shotguns through the mail if they’re being turned in for destruction.
That move corrects a 1998 amendment to the Firearms Act that made it a crime to ship prohibited rifles and shotguns via Canada Post.
In the four years since the Liberals introduced their May 2020 order-in-council that instantly reclassified around 1,500 popular firearms to prohibited status, including so-called “military-style” or “assault” firearms, the government has struggled to make the gun grab a reality.
Initially meant to come into force in April 2022, amnesty for gun owners was extended until Oct. 23, 2023, and again until October 2025.
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Despite not yet collecting a single firearm, the long-delayed program has so far cost taxpayers $42 million, the National Post reported in March.
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Around $2.27 million of that contract was awarded to IBM to develop, design and implement the program.
Dozens of public servants from across multiple departments and agencies are also working full-time on the project.
Phase one of the confiscation began last April, which included the government entering into an agreement with the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (CSAAA) to assist retailers navigate the program.
Preliminary work on phase two — confiscating legally purchased firearms from their licensed owners — began in January.
Association president Wes Winkel told National Post last month the federal government didn’t realize what it was getting into, and is having a hard time dealing with the logistics of classifying and confiscating the massive number of firearms parts and accessories potentially captured under the legislation.
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Nicolas Johnson, a firearms policy analyst and editor of thegunblog.ca, told National Post that Canada Post’s refusal to take part in the confiscation backs up that assertion.
“They promised these confiscations without any idea of how to execute them, and with every passing day and every passing measure, we see them absolutely scrambling to get this thing done,” he said.
The safety concerns brought up by Ettinger, Johnson said, are valid.
“One is the risk of theft, that these things get into the wild — possibly from crooked employees or bandits waiting for people to show up at the post office,” he said.
Making Canada Post the public-facing representative of a highly contentious government program would also put their employees at risk, Johnson said.
“This is a forced confiscation, so there’s also a risk of angry people coming into the post office and taking it out on what they view as an easily identifiable agent of the federal government,” he said.
National Post
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