In 2022, CSAAA was approached by the Federal Government regarding a confiscation program for businesses impacted by the May 2020 OIC. CSAAA was provided with two options: allow this program to be contracted out to an independent company (such as IBM), or sign a contract permitting the CSAAA to represent businesses to ensure appropriate compensation for their now dead stock/prohibited inventory.

The CSAAA has made it very clear that we will have zero involvement with individually owned firearms. Our involvement will simply be for businesses that need to offload these prohibited and unsellable items for fair compensation. Based on the wildly low compensation offered for civilian-owned firearms (provided by IBM), we were uncomfortable leaving any value decisions up to those with zero knowledge of our industry.

Any businesses that have inventory that they wish to be compensated for may contact our data collection team, and they will work with that business to gather all inventory data – we will then report this info to the Federal Government to arrange for further processing. Participation is completely optional.

The federal budget has allocated up to $707K for this program to be implemented. This is to cover the data collection costs for staff, insurance, hardware, etc. and must be demonstrated to the Federal government for the CSAAA to receive compensation.

We continue to discourage and lobby against these unjust prohibitions. The benefits to this contract are that we can have real conversations and consult with the people that form these laws and hopefully, we can try to make more of a difference in this fight. Simply working with friendly Governmental groups will not effect any change – we must engage with the political parties and organizations that oppose us.

The Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association is comprised of an elected, volunteer board of industry stakeholders that are so passionate about the hunting and firearms industry that they donate countless hours and resources promoting and protecting these businesses. Many of our board member businesses are among the largest financial contributors to consumer organizations fighting the same battle.

In 2017, we developed a mandate to attain industry self-regulation; as any other major industry has done. This is another step towards that goal. Our stakeholders must have a voice to ensure our future; if we leave important decisions to the uninformed or opposed, the results will be highly detrimental to our industry.