r/canadaguns • u/CurlyWurly61 • Apr 24 '26

Milsurps / Prohib I learn something new everyday

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

I never knew there was another Semi-Auto other than;

BAR

SKS

Citadel

M1 Garand

I wish I had the $$ to drop on this sexy rifle

127 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

61 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Ace_And_Jocelyn1999 Apr 24 '26

I’m always shocked that these somehow slipped past the ban. I would have thought the government would have loved to say “we got AK-47 variants off the streets.”

10

u/Prestigious-Tap-1329 Apr 24 '26

The government is the one who brought them into the country for the natives

2

u/Ace_And_Jocelyn1999 Apr 25 '26

But why? Of all the hunting rifles out there, why these ones?

6

u/Murray3-Dvideos Apr 25 '26

Why not? What could possibly be a better and more robust choice for Arctic hunting and predator defense then a .308 AK designed and produced by Nordic people ? Lol

1

u/Flat-Dark-Earth Big Bore Specialist Apr 25 '26

Because they banned their AKs.

3

u/WillyBillBilson Apr 25 '26

I asked this question here about a year ago. It turns out that the Valmet would be automatically banned as an AK-variant, but it is exempted by name in the Firearm Act. Any OIC that would try to ban them right now would do nothing because of that law.

I wonder if we'll see this the exemption removed by an amendment now that there's a majority. I hope not, because they're sweet-as rifles.

5

u/Cre_AK47 Name Prohibited by OIC Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

There were previous discussions on this topic before in this sub, but they were originally encapsulated in the 1992 prohibition of all AK pattern rifles by the Mulroney/Campbell government. For some reason the Jean Chretien government exempted this specific model with in law in 1995, with the reclassification by an OIC done in 1998 that prescribed the Valmet as non-restricted instead of prohibited.

There's likely a political reason why they have not been re-prohibited yet. To top it off I don't even think the NFA or PolySeSouvient (who both lobbied VERY HARD against and for C-68 and would be aware of the intricacies) probably don't even know why this specific rifle was added as an exemption.

My granddad last summer did Window/door work at Jean Chretien's home in the Nepean area of Ottawa. Maybe next time I should get my gramps to ask him why they exempted it, if he'll even remember a policy decision from almost 30 years ago... 😋

1

u/TsubojiriStation Apr 25 '26

My understanding was that to ban it apparently they would need to repeal the 95 law?

3

u/Cre_AK47 Name Prohibited by OIC Apr 25 '26

Yes they would have to. They could have done that with C-21 though. They don't have to repeal the entire law. They just have to repeal the section that prescribes that rifle as non-restricted. It's still changed by OIC but the legal authority changes from the executive branch to the legislative branch.

From there they would have to explicitly then prohibit it by name through an order at Council by the executive branch/Governor general or add that prohibition to the Firearms Act through an amendment via a legislative change (C-21 as an example), as obviously if it's not specified as prohibited, then the default classification rules apply, which would be non-restricted as long as the barrel is 18.5 in. and OAL is 26+ inches.