Bill C-21 Update

As we move into the Q4 of the 2022, there has been some developments on Bill C-21 and the Canadian Airsoft Industry. Some of the developments are common between our Airsoft industry and the Canadian Firearms market, which have affected both simultaneously.

The first major development in the last few months was the implementation of a “temporary National Handgun Freeze” in early September 2022. This “freeze” was enacted through a combined regulatory measure of the “Export and Import Act” and by the Office of Foreign Affairs. This temporary ban is separate from Bill C-21 as is only designed to stop imports of live handguns. However, during this time our Airsoft industry was impacted as we discovered that many imports that contained Airsoft pistol replicas were also seized. There has yet to be a definitive condition as to why the imports were seized by CBSA, we can only assume that the seizures are most likely from the CBSA’s inability to differentiate real and fake guns. This seizure has affected many of our members and other retailers. We hope that this is only a temporary measure as stated by the Liberal government. Only time will tell, and the final result of C-21 will be a definite contributor to this handgun freeze.

Yesterday 4 Oct 22 the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (SECU) held a committee debate on C-21. There was a strong demand for evidence that Airsoft was a contributor to crime and national security by the SECU committee. Many members both from Law enforcement and government testified regarding these issues. As we expected there were a lot of “politically corrected answers” and deflection. On the positive side, we saw strong support by CPC and NDP parties. The internal committee is also in consultation with the industry to work on solutions.

What we got out of this SECU debate was that there were concerns by the Liberal government and some from Law Enforcement that Airsoft could pose an individual safety risk. However, there was a stronger support in stating that Airsoft is a safe and well-regulated sport, practiced by many nationwide; and that the collapse of this industry will significantly affect business owners.

That being said, we must continue this momentum and keep pushing our local respective MPs on this issue. We see that public pressure is affecting our MPs performance and stance on the problem, and we recommend getting your respective customer base to continue to contact their MPs and place pressure. We believe this is the hope that we can continue our industry, but we must continue the public pressure.

Full debate can be viewed here: