r/canadaguns • u/Mysterious_Sleep7443 • 27d ago
News / Politics / Activism I survived a firearms seizure, s. 111 prohib application, and PAL review
***This is a post from CGN***
My firearms were seized by the RCMP 3 years ago and I just recently had them returned, including my prohib AR. It was a very long, exhausting, mentally draining and expensive process. It is not possible to navigate without experienced counsel representing you. Approx 13k in legal fees just relating to the s. 111 prohibition application the RCMP filed. They will do anything and everything in their power to ensure you lose and intimidate you into just giving up. This includes violating the criminal code, violating the RCMP act, creating false narratives that they stupidly commit to, manipulating and falsifying evidence, violating lawyer/client privilege, and abusing their authority. During this 3 year process approximately 6 RCMP members were found to have been guilty of; neglect of duty, breach of trust, and discreditable conduct on multiple counts. If they wouldn't have been caught they would have succeeded. As soon as one got caught they all started throwing each other under the bus. The file had to be reassigned to 4 different members. The last guy it got assigned to was a traffic cop that had zero involvement with the file whatsoever. I actually felt terrible for him because they fed this guy to the wolves and made him responsible for everything when he had zero involvement.
Seizure occurs in 2023 under "exigent circumstances". No criminal record, no charges laid. Half the detachment shows up running around pointing their C8's at me just because I own firearms. I obviously fully cooperate and provide them with all information, keys, trigger lock codes etc. Everything was stored above the requirements of the Firearms Act which they stated in their report. I return to my house after they finish the seizure. They had completely trashed my house to the point where it looked like it had been robbed and then intentionally trashed. Unnecessary damage to my home and destroyed personal property, they also trashed the carpets with mud and grass stains. This was the first issue that led to the superintendent having to write a formal apology on behalf of the entire detachment for how they conducted the seizure and desecrated my home. The secure room where the firearms were stored also housed approx 50k of sensitive electronic equipment for my work that was thrown around. They seized my spent primer collection, but left my XL650, primers, powder, bullets, and a few thousand rounds of ammunition. Not wanting them to show up with the circus and trash my house again, I literally just gave everything to my my friends with PAL's for free. I believe I retained counsel immediately after the seizure. RCMP immediately contact the CFO regulatory support unit to ask for my PAL to be placed under review. This is something they actively tried to hide, we were not aware of this until over 2 years later and it only came out from FOI requests that had to be made because absolutely nothing made sense. The Crown intentionally excluded it from disclosure. This is what is known as Breach of Duty. "The Crown prosecution has a constitutional obligation to provide the defense with full and timely disclosure of all relevant information."
A few months later I come home and one of the cops from the seizure that is in charge of the file (for now) is parked at my house. As I get out of my vehicle he comes up and serves me with an affidavit for a s. 111 firearms prohibition application. While he's serving me he is basically talking trash to me and trying to intimidate me and says something along the lines of "we know everything". I thank him for the affidavit and kindly ask him to serve any future legal documents to my counsel, or serve me at their detachment. Instead of showing up to wait for me and harass me at my home. Until this point I still had no idea what was going on. When I went inside I read the affidavit and it read equivalent to a 12 year old girls diary or a fictional story written by a schizophrenic person. Zero evidence other than hearsay, double hearsay, and triple hearsay. My counsel and I now start to paint a picture but still are so in the dark.
A month or two later. They messed up the affidavit so they had to re-serve me. I get a call from a new officer who is now assigned (for now) and says the previous officer is no longer involved. He asks me to come to the detachment to serve me a new affidavit. I show up and they have 3 officers waiting for me and wouldn't even let me in the front door without fully searching me. I believe all 3 were present at the seizure. I confusingly ask what is going on and what the reasoning behind the need to search me and have 3 officers present to serve me an affidavit is. The officer assigned says "We've seen your trophies, we are scared of you." I realized he was referring to my IPSC and USPSA trophies they must have all seen when they were conducting the seizure. I retired from competitive shooting in 2019 and have trophies from matches all over Canada, the US and EU. The cat is starting to claw its way out of the bag and I'm starting to realize what is happening. I thank them, leave and go home to read the new affidavit and speak to counsel. The changes in the affidavit seem irrelevant and negligible, but we have yet to receive any disclosure packages from The Crown.
A few months later a disclosure package is finally sent. Cat is out of the bag, except the cat is dead. If you guessed that this had something to do with an ex-girlfriend up until this point, you deserve a beer. But it gets so much crazier from here on out. When they seized my firearms because they were seized under "exigent circumstances" and not with a warrant. That only allowed them to search and seize the firearms. Turns out they went through everything they could get their fingers on while they were in my house unsupervised. Not only did they go through all my lawyer/client protected court documents from an ongoing civil supreme court lawsuit. They found a handwritten note in one of my drawers that was written by my ex-girlfriend before our final breakup. The note read; "I'm sorry. I love you. I didn't want any of this. Still and always here for you, promise." That note was written well before any of this and the relationship continued for months after it was written. When the RCMP "accidentally" found this note during the seizure they determined it to be a suicide note written by me. They never questioned me about it, they just incorrectly assumed. I'm sure you guys can see the road this is heading down by now.
S. 111 hearing date is scheduled for 2 years later.
Counsel starts to get really active and gets to work. He gets the RCMP to amend their false police report regarding the note and we start going after the officers involved for the other issues. The officers try to double down and it fails. He eventually learns The Crown won't touch my ex with a 40' pole. The S. 111 full day hearing approaches and we are excited. As the hearing date approaches Crown becomes desperate. They have no evidence against me so they release a new disclosure package that includes PRIME-BC records. These are like journal/diary entries from officers that cannot be used in court except in extremely limited circumstances. It's pure hearsay. One of their arguments for why I shouldn't own firearms was a PRIME-BC record where someone reported me for "brake checking" them on the highway. However the night before the hearing The Crown notifies us they are withdrawing their application citing they have no argument as to why I shouldn't be allowed to possess firearms. Their disclosure also said that I had a valid PAL, but mentioned nothing about my PAL being under review even though they were the ones to initiate the review. So Counsel and I think they must return everything now.
IT'S OVER! WE WON RIGHT?...No you idiot, they are just getting started with you.
The Crown withdrew the application instead of asking for it to be dismissed. They did this because if it was dismissed the judge would have issued a dismissal order which would aid in forcing the RCMP to return my personal property. I do as my counsel instructs and attempt to arrange to pickup my property after the application was withdrawn. They only allow me to pickup my physical valid PAL. I continue to get the run around for weeks. After persisting the officer asks when I would like to pick them up. I tell him and then get a reply. "I have been instructed by the evidence clerk and my ssgt to not release your firearms under any circumstances as your PAL is under review." It is now almost 3 years later and we are just finding out my PAL is under review. FOI requests later reveal the RCMP initiated the review immediately after the seizure. It was at this point I became quite frustrated, upset, and felt completely defeated. I felt that if I had known that my PAL was under review I would have not put myself through all the trouble and just had everything non restricted transferred to a friend and have counsel argue to export all the restricted/banned firearms to the US via a broker.
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u/looloopklopm 27d ago
Wow what a story.
Bit confused on the ending. Your PAL is in review so you'd rather give up all your guns and send them away?
Sounds like you did nothing wrong. Why does this change anything?
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u/HatchingCougar 26d ago
There’s a part 2 explaining the sage coming which the original poster on CGN mentioned (he has his firearms back now), which the OP didn’t mention
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26d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Content_Sky_2676 26d ago
People get worn out. It's one of the main ways the police or government punish you when they don't have any evidence. They put you through legal hell and bankrupt you. Hence the phrase: "the process is the punishment."
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u/deepbluemeanies 27d ago
As a firearms owner in Canada I think it is imperative to invest a couple hundred a year into legal defense insurance. There is a company that offers firearms owners up to $1 million in legal fees coverage for any firearms charge, including licensing, seizure (like this case), etc. I hope I never have to use it but it is good knowing its there as we all know the Crown will do all it can to wear the defendant down financially to secure a guilty plea.
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u/Content_Sky_2676 26d ago
For anyone wondering, this is the company. https://firearmlegaldefence.com/
Buy the premium package, you can easily end up needing the extra coverage. Membership in the CCFR or CSSA gives discounts.
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u/Clover_Lawn_4440 26d ago
$13k at $500 per hour means the lawyer basically worked 3 full days over 3 years on this guy's case.
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u/Natural_Comparison21 26d ago
Is that a little or a lot? I guinely don’t know. However that 13k figure does seem pretty low ngl…
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u/expatsaffer 26d ago
It's a not lot at all. The lawsuit by the Springfield Gun Club in New Brunswick cost $52k and that was with the first round being done free. The lawyers only did a bit of prep work, sent a few emails, and showed up in court.
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u/Mysterious_Sleep7443 26d ago
What happened with the gun club?
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u/expatsaffer 26d ago
You can read all about it here: https://www.frsa.ca/FRSA-vs-NB-CFO
The CFO imposed conditions on range approval, which was outside of their mandate. The club sued them and won.
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26d ago
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u/Natural_Comparison21 26d ago
Dang. I thought it would be more for some reason. However the 100k figures from what I have heard are for rather outlier cases.
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u/Littleringtrue 27d ago
Did he eventually get his guns back?
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u/HatchingCougar 26d ago
Yes. The guy who wrote this on CGN did mention that and that there is a part 2 explaining the saga coming (the OP here has failed to mention that).
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u/RodgerWolf311 26d ago
And they wonder why the public doesnt trust the police any more.
They do this to innocent citizens (all that time, effort, money just wasted), but completely ignore real hardcore criminals that go hog-wild on the streets doing anything they want without real repercussions.
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u/InitialAd4125 26d ago
"And they wonder why the public doesnt trust the police any more."
Frankly anyone who ever pays attention should never trust the police. All they're good at is being armed thugs for the state who'll kill you if you get out of line.
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u/FedInformant 27d ago
What a crazy country we live in.
Although it would be cool to see the whole story.
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u/ItchYouCannotReach 27d ago
PRIME records are just records of calls involving whoever made this post. They're not "journal" entries. And PAL review status is often automatically triggered by the records system shared by the CFO and police of jurisdiction. There's an automated notification set up for the CFOs for subjects possessing PALs who are involved in specific types of files as a subject of complaint.
Obviously it sucked ass for whoever this guy is but we're only getting his side of how this went down. It's very likely there's a lot being left out.
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u/i-Hermit 26d ago
Yeah, there's also nothing really about the charges against the officers. I'd think charges against 6 RCMP officers would be news, wouldn't it?
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u/Global_Theme864 26d ago
He didn’t say they were charged, he said they were “guilty of” in his estimation. I do administrative investigations for a living (not criminal) and get a lot of language like this from complainants.
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27d ago
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u/CringelordCameron 27d ago
I know a guy who has had his entire firearms collection seized twice in the last 5 years. This guy has hundreds of guns, including a significant number of old 12(3), 12(5), and 12(6) prohibited firearms. After 50k plus in legal fees for both seizure incidents, he recently had his guns returned again. The entire experience started because a shitty neighbor felt threatened by him owning a huge number of guns. He did absolutely nothing wrong, but had to take a huge financial beating to get his stuff back.
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u/Blackwalls69 26d ago
You should be able to sue rhe neighbor for that cost. We'be earn the right to keep our property by following the laws.
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u/_Pray_To_RNGesus_ 26d ago
I'll never understand the thought process for those people. You are scared of someone who knows where you live, and your first choice is to piss them off?
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u/outline8668 26d ago
Yeesh another reason to never disclose firearm ownership to anyone who knows where you live.
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u/Mysterious_Sleep7443 26d ago
Once again......
More to that story
The police dont enter your home and take your firearms for no reason
The firearm owner obviously threated the neighbor
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u/InitialAd4125 26d ago
But don't you know we need the police to uh uh checks notes. Shoot firehalls, fuck with people, and steal property? No that can't be it. Oh wait they protect the state and it's shitty decisions.
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u/Curious_Joe2020 26d ago edited 26d ago
You could have not left your house or went on vacation and definitely not go to their detachment for that service. No service their case doesn't go anywhere. The more interaction you have the more notes they make. If there was no service their case would fall apart and remember they have high turnover and transfer staff around often. I guarantee you the new recruits from Depot don't know anything about firearms laws and the staff shortages are worse than ever.
As for the conduct recruiting is even worse. Had a buddy apply to the RCMP, he did the polygraph and made it to the end of the process which took 3 years. Then was deferred and turns out the polygrapher didn't like him and made a personal call to the Recruiting NCO to sink the application. He passed all the stages including a very high score on the then thorough in person interviews. The excuse was that they weren't hiring that much that year and "not competitive enough" with a graduate degree and Canadian Citizenship....of course they took almost 3 years to sit around on the application including 6 months at the final review stage alone. Forms like "friends and associates" were used to say the applicant was not sociable enough to line up with the polygrapher's opinion. Now there is no friends and associates form nor is there a routine polygraph. On later applications they used the application deferral history as an excuse to defer again for "suitability" basically manufacturing their own evidence even though it was their fault for the initial rejection and wasting the applicant's time and each time the deferral is longer. The applicant had a perfect record and high achievements. The same polygrapher had a boss who slept with coworkers in the polygraph suite, drank at the office, harassed coworkers, falsified applicant reference forms for females, and other things that are public knowledge so that's their integrity level right there.
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26d ago
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u/Mysterious_Sleep7443 26d ago
Absolutely 💯 well said
I have talked to many European fellows at work and they cannot belive the corruption from the Liberal government/police/politicians and the unjust laws
Most are planning on getting the F out of here and would rather be back in Europe again than here
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u/blitz2377 26d ago
i got my rpal after break up... lol. i should've gone racing instead of buying a ring.
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u/OhhhhhSoHappy 25d ago
The RCMP have such a massive conflict of interest when it comes to policing and being the governing body on firearms that these stories just make me sick.
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u/SignificantNorth1050 24d ago
Im curious why they even came to your house they dknt do it just for fun or they have nothing better to do. My friend had the same thing but he was high abd drunk drove over a hour was yelling at his wife abd she locked him out of tge house abd he was being a moron locked outside lol
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u/PinkLincoln00 26d ago
I’m surprised they went this far.
My ex husband used his legal firearms in extortion crimes and to intimidate me and emotionally escort me (said he’d 🔫 me or himself). After I finally left and he went from threatening me to begging me to come back he threatened to 🔫 my new BF on his way to work.
Once I finally got the courage to talk about it and report it, because he has police friends they were pretty much uninterested in doing anything and were very nasty with me and I’m in a very liberal city. I still suspect he will probably succeed one day and I have zero help from law enforcement because he sells a few alcoholic cops viagara that are too cheap or ashamed to get it from their doctor.
Two sides to every story, if they put this much effort into seizure they had to have some grain of evidence to cause that much of a fuss and waste tax dollars unless he’s some very prestigious political dissident whose life they wanted to make difficult.
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u/julienjj 26d ago
Did you read it ? They had zero evidences which is why their case imploded in court.
I strongly recommend if you are to ever have contact with someone who has made any sort of threats to your well being to be certain to have someone else present or make sure to record the interaction/phone call etc. Settling dispute between 2 adults and no witnesses is not the strong suit of the legal system.
Cops are not immune to bias, which is why there are multiple layers to the system. The provincial police force or the RCMP are always an alternative to the municipal services if needed.
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u/PinkLincoln00 26d ago edited 26d ago
Yes because people who do those sorts of things always ensure there are witnesses around 😂
I did have some, some I didn’t even know about like neighbours after I left, but they were scared to be involved because they have children. I imagine if there are witnesses like that they could have talked to police but didn’t want to be involved for same reason so they had to find ways to proceed without their statement. Two sides to every story. It seems like a lot of effort on the police’s part if they had absolutely nothing.
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u/Travdaman420 27d ago
Hey sorry couldn't make it through your whole post, but I started suffering seizures at the very end of COVID of all time.... (they officially diagnosed me with epilepsy) but I don't believe I ever had the rcmp once came to my house when I had an seizure... I owned several long guns at the time. My license was voluntarily surrendered to rcmp under different circumstances entirely around that time but, that's something Im not comfortable discussing. But I called last year to re apply and they never once mentioned my epilepsy.
Edit; Apologies for my grammar.
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u/Mysterious_Sleep7443 27d ago
This fellow seems a little snappy on the CGN thread about this
From what I gather it was his ex wife/girlfriend who called on him and caused all this $hit
Always more to the story, maybe not
Horrible situation if hes truly innocent and was the victim of a vengeful ex