r/canadaguns • u/Mysterious_Sleep7443 • Aug 17 '26
News / Politics / Activism New 'Canadian Firearms Exchange' launches, promises to be marketplace for 'law-abiding' gun owners
CFE founder Jacob van der Merwe says the sites dedication to security and identity verification will provide a one-of-a-kind marketplace for Canadian firearm enthusiasts
A new marketplace purporting to be a haven for Canadian "law-abiding firearm owners" has launched and promises to be a market that will allow firearms enthusiasts to buy, sell, and trade firearms and firearm-related equipment.
In a statement provided to the Western Standard, Jacob van der Merwe, the founder of the Canadian Firearms Exchange (CFE), touted that the marketplace was "created for law-abiding firearm owners who are tired of being treated like the problem."
The statement continues, saying that the Exchange "gives responsible hunters, sport shooters, ranchers, collectors, and licensed owners a secure place to buy, sell, and trade firearms-related gear while reinforcing the rules lawful Canadians already follow every day."
On their website it explains that the CFE is not a retailer but a "private community of Canadians buying, selling, and trading the firearms, optics, ammunition, and hunting gear they actually use."
The website states that every member will be required to have their identity verified and be someone residing in Canada, and the site will be geolocked to only allow Canadian traffic.
"The platform includes identity verification, PAL/RPAL compliance reminders, listing review, secure account protections, and in-platform messaging — not because licensed owners are the problem, but because responsible Canadians continue to prove they hold themselves to a higher standard," the statement from CFE reads.
The launch comes as Canadians are finding it more and more difficult to find ways to buy, sell, and trade firearms while obeying the ever-changing laws.
In an interview with WS, van der Merwe stressed the importance that the CFE could have in the Canadian firearms community and noted the importance that the geo-block feature on the website will have to prevent scams and foreign actors.
"To ensure that everyone (buying and selling on the exchange) is Canadian, we use technology to geo-block the site, so if you're outside of Canada, you'll be able to see the page, but you won't be able to open an account."
Van der Merwe noted that the exchange also makes new members send an e-transfer of $0.01 to the CFE to verify that they have a Canadian bank account, and the bank account name matches the name provided on the account.
'We use the Interac e-transfer platform to verify that people have given us their actual name and that they have an active Canadian bank account. The Interac system only exists for Canadians who bank in Canada."
"So even if you've used a VPN and spoofed your way into the site, you won't get past the verification layer." van der Merwe said when asked about the security of the site.
He also added that the CFE does not take any commission or make any profit on transactions between members, van der Merwe added that if the site gets big enough, he may sell ad space on the site but said he won't "nickel and dime" members.
Van der Merwe stated that while he is aware that his site is not the first of its kind in Canada, he stresses his 30 years of experience in IT have allowed him to build a far more user-friendly interface as well as a far more secure site in terms of user safety when buying and selling.
When asked if he could sum up what the CFE will bring to Canadian firearms enthusiasts, van der Merwe said, "trust, compliance, security, and ease of use."
"I want to make it possible so when you join the site you are confident that you are dealing with verified people on the other side."
It is estimated that there are currently over 12.7 million civilian firearms in Canada, two million of which are registered and over 10 million that aren't.
Canada has a long and storied firearm history and culture, with Canada ranking as the country with the seventh highest firearm-per-capita rate in the world.
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u/aero_universe Aug 17 '26
tldr a bit confused. How is this diff than the gunpost?
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u/16gaugeguy16 Aug 17 '26
Seems to have more scam protection and caters less to scalpers.
There is really no verification process on gun post other than what individual users do and trusting someone based on reviews.
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u/mwmwmwmwmmdw Aug 17 '26
There is really no verification process
its a balancing act. CGN's EE basically became a ghost town because their ability to be able to post there was a whole long winded process and required a cantankerous fudd boomer to be in a good mood when they saw your application to approve it. but before the early and mid 2010's they where the only game in town.
gunpost in the early days had zero safeguards in place beyond manual reporting of scammers. but it took the scammers awhile to learn how our laws somewhat work to get good enough for their scams to work and start becoming a real problem.
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u/LeviathanOfLiberty Aug 17 '26
It’s worse than Gunpost if you’re worried about a gun registry.
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u/TescoValueSoup Aug 17 '26
Collecting real names and storing purchase and sales history is a huge turnoff.
That and the website being AI slop
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u/LeviathanOfLiberty Aug 17 '26
I’m not even going to criticize him too much for enlisting Mr. Claude to help (I’ve done it too). But the implementation here is half assed and certainly doesn’t speak to a web developer of “30 years” using AI to help guide his development. Of course he fundamentally misunderstands what the current mood of the firearms community in this country is and our level of mistrust for the government. No, we don’t actually want more surveillance lmao. We’re not all the boomers at the local rod and hunt club talking about “no more than 10 rounds per minute!!!!”
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u/Otherwise_Rub_9515 Aug 17 '26
Can you elaborate?
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u/LeviathanOfLiberty Aug 17 '26
Private NR firearms sales involve getting a CFP reference number. No gun info or quantity of guns is recorded. So a record of a transaction of some kind is recorded, but the RCMP does not know what was transferred (if at all, as these numbers are frequently generated without any transaction occurring).
This makes both parties verify identities and then keeps all communications between said parties on a platform where you are prompted to get a CFP reference number with a specific firearm attached to the transaction. If the records are not destroyed or if the transaction is not P2P encrypted with the admin unable to decrypt messages without getting keys from one of the two parties, this is a backdoor gun registry.
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u/Clover_Lawn_4440 Aug 17 '26
Its a crappy website for someone in IT for so long. GunPost has a much better search function.
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u/LeviathanOfLiberty Aug 17 '26
And GunPost imo has a pretty shit search function. That’s how bad this site is. No sorting by “x” in 2026 is crazy lmao.
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u/ManufacturerMuch5116 Aug 17 '26
idk im just gonna keep using gunpost
its unbelievably easy to not get scammed on there
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u/BSDnumba123 Aug 17 '26
How do you ensure not getting scammed? Seems like it would be easy to get scammed. Unless you insist on local sale only I guess.
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u/ManufacturerMuch5116 Aug 17 '26
Look at the seller/buyer's reviews and current listings. Make sure those reviews look legitimate and aren't just bots or alt accounts. Look at their grammar, spelling and punctuation and learn to recognize patterns in them. Good rule of thumb that I follow is if you're the buyer, the shittier the picture is on the listing you're interested in, the more credible it is. I avoid anything with a picture that looks professionally taken. Never been scammed.
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u/TheBulletBuddy Aug 17 '26
5.56 for under 10 cents a round? Cmon man, thats gotta be legit. All they need is my SIN and a copy of my passport.
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u/Lumindan Aug 17 '26
Listen, when the son of the deposed King of Nigeria e-mails you directly asking for help, you help.
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u/LeviathanOfLiberty Aug 17 '26
So what exactly is van der Merwe’s policy on cooperating with a demand to review transaction records? At minimum given the “requirements enforcement” that is envisioned by keeping messaging on-platform, I certainly would not be comfortable with any solution that does not verifiably delete transaction records or use E2E with keys only accessible to the two parties involved.
If law enforcement are given access to this site it will function more as a backdoor registry than the existing private sales regime for NR firearms outside of Quebec, as the transfer of a specific firearm (with S/N often exposed in product images) from one party to another can be documented.
If the stated intent was to make gun owners feel like they’re “not the problem”, this overbearing system certainly isn’t it.
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u/dgod40 Aug 17 '26
So cheesy,, when they keep repeating "not because licensed owners are the problem," or "created for law-abiding firearm owners who are tired of being treated like the problem."
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u/TescoValueSoup Aug 17 '26
It’s because it’s been made by AI, I’m guessing all his talking points for the article were.
IMO looking to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
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u/milanskiv Aug 17 '26
He had “bonded and insured” and “fintrac compliant” on the site and when called out on it his response was “well it will be when it launches” lol
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u/TescoValueSoup Aug 17 '26
Where was this? No idea who this guy is
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u/milanskiv Aug 17 '26
He posted here introducing this site about a month ago
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u/TescoValueSoup Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
Must have missed that. Got a link? Search isn’t giving me anything relevant
this one? seems like a different site/person https://www.reddit.com/r/canadaguns/comments/1u4e7jt/new_gun_classified_ads_alternative_with_ecrow/
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u/ReturnOk7510 Aug 17 '26
Ok, just enter your PAL and address and a verification photo...aaaaand it's breached.
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u/PinkLincoln00 Aug 17 '26
What’s wrong with CGN? Was there some scandal I missed where a website like this would be needed?
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u/ManufacturerMuch5116 Aug 17 '26
Gunpost is the best one. CGN is just obnoxious to navigate.
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u/deepbluemeanies Aug 17 '26
You just sign up, click on "equipment exchange" and firearms are subdivided by type (milsurp, hunting, black...). It's really straight forward. Each participant is rated with comments from each transaction.
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u/hectop20 Aug 17 '26
Some questions from a brief look at the site:
- Most importantly, where is the site and data hosted? Secondly what data security is there?
- Under who can join, you state "Canadian residents who hold a valid PAL or RPAL,..." but under do you check my license you state "We do not act as a licensing authority. Licence checks happen between the buyer and seller..." This seems to negate the requirement to hold a valid PAL/RPAL to join.
- How will you restrict the posting of prohibited items?
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u/LeviathanOfLiberty Aug 17 '26
Site created with lovable l m a o.
Site preview image: https://pub-bb2e103a32db4e198524a2e9ed8f35b4.r2.dev/21e282471d8ee50de34850497a0b9885/id-**preview-3be1196f--d6895f59-c979-468b-99b1-484013190658.lovable.app**\-1786981028291.png
Another preview image: https://pub-bb2e103a32db4e198524a2e9ed8f35b4.r2.dev/fa15d6d0a56b95171348838ba3450816/id-**preview-36453527--d6895f59-c979-468b-99b1-484013190658.lovable.app**\-1786981271532.png
30+ years IT experience my ass.
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u/TescoValueSoup Aug 17 '26
He's got test ads on there, he doesn't even have a staging or test environment.
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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 Aug 17 '26
If he does not charge for the site, how is it sustainable?
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u/deepbluemeanies Aug 17 '26
Hopefully not your data...but it's asking for your id/pal/photo... I wouldn't touch it with a barge poll personally.
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u/ManufacturerMuch5116 Aug 17 '26
Ad revenue, same as all the other ones.
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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 Aug 17 '26
Says “he may sell ad space” so I guess he’s doing it for free for now.
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u/LeGaspyGaspe Aug 17 '26
That's what I want to know.
I don't mind any service I use wanting to be profitable. The people who make the site deserve at least, to have their expenses covered, if not to make a tidy profit for themselves if the service is something that makes my life better. I also want to know that the service isn't just gonna get spun off to PE or shut down abruptly, leaving me and other users in the lurch.
What I don't like is intentional obscurity about that. So is it selling data? Is it ad revenue? It's certainly not gonna be the goodness of their hearts and charity of their pocketbooks, not forever. So I want to see a clear outline detailing their path to profitability.
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u/Mysterious_Sleep7443 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
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u/StairwayHiker Aug 17 '26
FYI…. Delete the link or the moderators will ban your Reddit account completely…. It happened to me.
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u/Mysterious_Sleep7443 Aug 17 '26
It is a link to the website related to the news article
This was not to a specific item for sale
The article should have a link to where the information is sourced from should it not ?
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u/StairwayHiker Aug 17 '26
No, any direct website link to any store or buying and selling forum will get you banned.
Read the subreddit rules
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u/deepbluemeanies Aug 17 '26
Gun Post has lots of sketchy postings, but I have had no problems buying/selling on CGN.
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u/ManufacturerMuch5116 Aug 17 '26
I have genuinely never had an issue with gunpost. I've only seen a couple guys get scammed and it was 100% their own fault.
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u/3e_Design Aug 17 '26
good. Gunpost charges unreasonable fees if you are a small business; it only makes sense if you have hundreds of listings....and people tend to hate you if you do.
as with everything else, competition should help stabilize pricing.
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u/TescoValueSoup Aug 17 '26
whats unreasonable? that piece of GP has always been a bit nebulous to me
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u/BrotherLefthand Aug 17 '26
How is it unreasonable?
Make your own webshop and advertise on GP with a single post. It ain't hard to use your brain.
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u/Haunting-Pool708 Aug 17 '26
They should limit the amount of things that a business can post anyways. I keep getting bumped down to page 3 in one day by some asshole selling fucking Cooey parts and junk for old guns.
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u/3e_Design Aug 18 '26
it is unreasonable because if I make even one post...yes, just one... it gets taken down with the demand that I buy a business listing. the things I sell do not have a $300 margin to eat that cost up.
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u/BrotherLefthand Aug 18 '26
Why is it GPs problem that your business doesn't make money?
Like, I get your frustration, but c'mon man.
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u/zaphodbssecondhead Aug 18 '26
I’ve seen emails of a gunpost mod / admin trying to export $50 from a non-business member before so I’m sure there’s more to this story.
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