Following the prairie provinces’ lead, the New Brunswick government announced they will not obey Trudeau’s gun grab scheme and have instructed RCMP officers to disregard the order.

Kris Austin, New Brunswick Public Safety Minister, said the province has more important things to focus on than Ottawa’s gun grab.

“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.” 

Alberta and Saskatchewan had already informed their RCMP divisions to ignore the order. Manitoba has told Ottawa it does not want its policing to be redirected to the buyback scheme.

The federal government wants the provinces to allocate RCMP officers to serve as gun confiscation officers.

Last month, Liberal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said Alberta was being “reckless” for defying the order.

Nonetheless, four out of ten provinces have decided to essentially snub the gun-grab scheme.

Additionally, these provinces called on the feds to refrain from reallocating funds from the Guns and Gang Violence Action Fund and other public safety funding for the buyback program. 

“Instead, funding should be used to fight the criminal misuse of firearms by tackling border integrity, smuggling and trafficking.” 

Last month, Alberta’s Minister of Justice Tyler Shandro boldly denounced the gun-grab scheme.

“Alberta is not legally obligated and will not offer any provincial resources to the Federal Government as it seeks to confiscate lawfully acquired firearms,” he said. 

“The decision to ban over 1,500 models of different firearms, simply because the “style” of the firearm was deemed to be aesthetically displeasing, is offensive and suggests to us that you are uninterested in meaningfully addressing gun crime.” 

On top of nearly half of all Canadian provinces defying the gun grab, most Yukon MLAs oppose the plan.