A *course calendar* for Canada's new northern firearms office
Ottawa has created a firearms office for all three territories. Its next useful deliverable is a course calendar northern communities can plan around.
Opinion
Ottawa has created a dedicated chief firearms officer (CFO) for Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Northern owners should be able to see the next step in a form they can use: the date and place of a firearms course in their community.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree announced the new office on September 17. It has exclusive responsibility for firearms services across the three territories, supported by firearms officers in each. An interim CFO from Yukon will serve while an open process selects the permanent officer. Federal announcement.
That advances the proposal Holdover covered in July. The practical question has moved from whether Ottawa would create the position to what the office will deliver, and how an owner will know.
I book range sessions around Ottawa. A confirmed date lets me arrange the rest of the day. That is a modest convenience in my circumstances. For someone waiting for a visiting course in a northern community, a published date would help make the government's promise of better access concrete. My booking calendar gives me a small reason to care about this; northern residents will judge the actual service.
The review already identified the work
The federal announcement points to three areas identified through the Canadian Firearms Program's 2024 northern consultations: a stronger presence in communities, more frequent Canadian Firearms Safety Course delivery, and more education and outreach. Those are useful starting points because each can produce something a resident can observe.
A course calendar would put the second item in public view. It should show the community, course dates, registration contact, available places, and how people can ask for a future visit. Changes and cancellations should remain visible, with an explanation and the next expected date where one is known.
That is my proposed first deliverable. The announcement supplies no community course calendar or numerical service target. It also leaves the permanent appointment process ahead. Giving the new office a public work plan would help owners follow that transition without having to infer progress from successive statements.
The calendar should be built with the communities using it. Publishing a date has value when the arrangements behind it are workable. A contact who can explain registration and a route for reporting unmet demand belong alongside the date. A page that sends everyone back through a general enquiry queue would leave too much of the work with the applicant.
Credit the work already under way
The RCMP's 2025 Commissioner of Firearms Report says the programme increased the number of firearms officers and instructors living in the three territories. It also reports youth-only and women-only safety courses. Its look ahead to 2026 included implementing the Northern Services Review and designating a northern CFO.
That record deserves credit. People were working on access before this week's announcement. The new office inherits that work and should make its results easier to follow.
A community-level update could add dates, courses completed, attendance, and outstanding requests, with personal information kept private. Where a planned visit fell through, explain why. Where local instructor capacity grew, show what additional service became possible.
Those details would also make a fairer assessment possible. One disrupted visit tells us little about an entire programme. A sequence of planned and completed visits, with explanations, would let residents and territorial partners identify recurring gaps and recognize improvement. Publishing the record gives useful credit to the instructors and local organizers doing the work.
Yukon wants consistency
Yukon Justice Minister Laura Lang welcomed the announcement in a separate September 17 statement. She said a consistent in-territory presence should bring tangible benefits compared with the previous intermittent service from a CFO outside Yukon. She also tied the office to licensing, authorizations, range approvals and inspections, and safety-course delivery.
Consistency is a reasonable standard. An owner should be able to find the right contact, understand what information a request needs, and learn when to expect an answer. Clubs and instructors need the same clarity for the files that keep their activities running.
The RCMP's current CFO directory lists a Whitehorse mailing destination for all three territories and separate territorial email contacts. That is an observable administrative step. The next useful evidence would concern the experience of using those services: response times, unresolved requests, and the explanation when a file needs more work.
Lang also kept Yukon's opposition to federal prohibitions and the compensation programme in her statement. Supporting better service leaves room for that policy disagreement. Licensed owners can welcome a more accessible administrator and continue challenging rules they consider unreasonable.
Make access part of the result
Anandasangaree presents the office as a way to improve regulatory services and community safety. That case deserves a practical test. When a programme asks people to complete training and deal with an administrative process, it should make those steps reachable and understandable.
I would start with the course dates because a resident can use them immediately. Add a plain account of what the office intends to deliver, then report what happened. The permanent officer would arrive with visible priorities, and northern communities would have a record against which to judge the change.
Ottawa has made a welcome decision. Now publish the communities, the dates, and the contact who can help someone attend. Follow that with the results, including the places still waiting.
Sources
- Public Safety Canada: dedicated northern Chief Firearms Officer, September 17, 2026
- Yukon: Minister Lang's response, September 17, 2026
- RCMP: 2025 Commissioner of Firearms Report
- RCMP: contact a chief firearms officer, checked September 18, 2026
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