The provinces joined together at the 2022 meeting of Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice and Public Safety to discuss the federal government’s plan to use police resources to confiscate legally acquired firearms.

New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba called on the federal government to halt plans to use scarce RCMP and municipal police resources to confiscate over 100,000 legally acquired firearms from Canadians. The Prairie provinces had already written to their RCMP divisions indicating that provincial funding should not be used for that purpose.

The four provinces also called on the federal government to ensure that no funding for the Guns and Gang Violence Action Fund or other public safety initiatives be diverted to the federal firearms confiscation program. Instead, they said, funding should be used to fight the criminal misuse of firearms by addressing border integrity, smuggling and trafficking.

The four provinces also called on the federal government to direct all communications related to the federal firearms confiscation program through appropriate channels.

Public Safety Minister Kris Austin said “New Brunswick’s bottom line is this: RCMP resources are spread thin as it is. We have made it clear to the Government of Canada that we cannot condone any use of those limited resources, at all, in their planned buyback program.”