Saskatchewan amends legislation to skirt federal gun buyback program

Saskatchewan is using new legislation to skirt the federal gun buyback program. Keenan Sorokan explains.

The province is pushing back against the federal government’s mandatory gun buyback program with new legislation to protect gun owners.

Amended and enacted as of Friday, The Saskatchewan Firearms Amendment Act, 2026, allows gun owners and businesses to apply for certificates of exemption and continue possessing and storing their lawfully-owned and prohibited firearms on behalf of the province.

“Saskatchewan property owners know that nobody’s coming for their gun,” Minister of Justice and Attorney General Tim McLeod said Monday announcing the changes.

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To receive a certificate, residents or businesses must request an appraisal, or certificate of value, through the province’s new Firearms Verification and Appraisal Service — operated by the Saskatchewan Firearms Office.

To do so, gun owners can log in or create a Saskatchewan Account and then request an appraisal. The firearms office will then verify the gun is impacted by federal legislation, and provide certificates of value outlining what compensation firearms owners should receive from the federal government.

McLeod says this will legally protect law-abiding gun owners from what he called “a flawed program.”

“In order to seize a firearm in this province, you need to be a licensed seizure agent — and there are none,” McLeod said.

“A firearm is deemed worthless by the federal government. We call that a seizure. If a firearm is now deemed seized, that entitles the owner to fair market value, not the arbitrary value that the federal government might be putting on that gun.”

After years of talks, Ottawa formally launched its Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program to obtain the more than 2,500 makes and models of assault-style firearms banned since May 2020.

The program requires businesses and gun owners to safely dispose of or permanently deactivate their assault-style firearms before the amnesty period ends on October 30, 2026.

The new provincial process will protect gun owners from criminal prosecution for possessing illegal firearms once the October deadline passes. McLeod says the federal government has made it clear to the provinces there is limited funding and a cap on compensation being offered, which is expected to be much lower than full market value.

Without full compensation, the province plans to keep those guns with their owners.

“When the individual would have to be satisfied with whatever compensation is being offered, and inform, through the process, the Saskatchewan Firearms Office before it could be seized or destroyed,” Saskatchewan Firearms Office Commissioner Blaine Beaven said.

Police are pleased the legislation will prevent using resources to seize guns and abide by the program, while allowing them to focus on the guns that are moving through the province illegally and are being used in crimes.

“It all comes down to prioritization,” said Patrick Nogier, the President of the Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police.

“What can we do to make sure that the precious resources that we have with front line policing can concentrate on the things that really mean [something] to our communities?”

Nogier, the chief of the Prince Albert Police Service, says 220 guns were taken off the street in 2024 and 2025 in his community. That is where resources should be focused, he stressed.

“If you start comparing the number of firearms that are coming off the streets that are being used for a criminal purpose — that’s more than enough to keep a fully funded unit busy 24/7, 365 days out of the year,” Nogier said.

Beaven said the province isn’t able to handle applications for estates. When a gun owner dies, the executor of the estate doesn’t need to have a gun license to lawfully possess the firearms being passed down. However, without that license, the province isn’t able to track down who has those guns and can’t issue a certificate.

“The intention will be for those firearms, we’ll be taking them into storage,” Beaven said. “So people don’t have to worry about being criminalized for possessing prohibited firearms.”

McLeod says while the federal government has jurisdiction over firearms legislation, the province has jurisdiction over personal property legislation. If guns are being taken away, he says the federal government better be prepared to pay what the gun is worth.

“Unfortunately, the federal government, they know that these firearms are worth more than what they’re offering,” McLeod said.

Now that Saskatchewan has officially opened for application of exemptions, McLeod expects other provinces across the country to follow with similar legislation.