Bill C-71 and Changes to your ATT

Since July 7, 2021, the Authorization to Transport (ATT) that comes automatically with a licence for restricted and prohibited firearms covers only two trips: to and from an approved shooting range in your province of residence, and home after a purchase. Every other trip, including to a gunsmith, a gun show, or a port of entry or exit, needs a separate ATT from your Chief Firearms Officer. That change came from Bill C-71, first introduced in the House of Commons on March 20, 2018 as an Act to amend certain Acts and regulations in relation to firearms. We touched on Bill C-71 when discussing Bill C-21 on the Silvercore Podcast, episode 42, and we also wrote an article on the key points of these bills and what they mean for firearms owners.

Let’s go back for a moment. On June 18, 2015, the Conservative Government passed Bill C-42, the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, which changed the Authorization to Transport, ATT. The ATT changes came into force on September 2, 2015 and made the ATT a condition of a licence for certain routine and lawful transportation activities. This included the following:

Going to and from all shooting clubs and shooting ranges that are approved under section 29;
Going to and from any place a peace officer, firearms officer or chief firearms officer is located, for verification, registration or disposal in accordance with this Act or Part III of the Criminal Code;
Going to and from a business that holds a licence authorizing it to repair or appraise prohibited firearms or restricted firearms;
Going to and from a gun show; and
Going to a port of exit in order to take them outside Canada, and from a port of entry.

These changes were implemented to streamline the process of acquiring new paper copies of the ATT every time a firearms owner wished to transport their restricted firearms and was certainly a common sense move as the Act itself was titled. In 2019, the Liberal Government amended the Act with Bill C-71, which reversed nearly all of these authorizations, except for two.

Effective July 7, 2021, the only two transportation purposes that remain a condition of a licence are going to or from an approved shooting range in your province of residence, and going home after a purchase.

Individuals will now need to request an Authorization to Transport from their CFO to transport restricted and prohibited firearms to and from a:

business for repair or appraisal
gun show
port of entry or exit
peace officer, firearms officer or CFO for verification, registration or disposal

This was a major change for firearms owners who had been legally transporting their firearms with automatically issued ATTs since 2015, and it was not the only part of Bill C-71 that came into force on July 7, 2021. Background checks for licence applications now cover the applicant's entire lifetime, rather than just the previous 5 years.

These were two of several changes announced in the Government of Canada news release in June 2021:

Government of Canada delivers on plan to build safer communities and reduce firearms violence

The release also set out two more amendments, and both came into force on May 18, 2022. Licence verification requires individuals or businesses that sell or transfer a non-restricted firearm to confirm with the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program that the buyer or transferee holds a valid firearms licence. Retail record keeping requires firearms businesses to keep inventory and sales records for non-restricted firearms to help trace crime guns during criminal investigations.

If you are a Restricted or Prohibited firearms owner and are requiring proof of membership to a club or range for the purposes of your issued ATT, ensure you are properly covered by joining the Silvercore Club. The Silvercore Club is an excellent and cost effective choice which provides immediate access of proof of membership to an approved club which meets the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program (CFP) issuance requirements of belonging to an approved gun club or range. You also benefit with various discounts from participating partners and retailers, and you receive $5 million in liability insurance across Canada and the United States.

Join the Club