'More like an ad for a dating app': Gun 'buyback' advertising campaign gets mixed reviews

OTTAWA — While the federal government weathers the latest wave of backlash over its firearms buyback , it has also been looking at ways to sell the program to gun owners.

Earlier this year, Public Safety Canada hired a consulting and research firm to conduct a series of focus groups and surveys to test potential concepts for a nationwide advertising campaign to raise awareness of the compensation program and encourage gun owners to participate.

The government is banking on the willingness of gun owners to do so, with Prime Minister Mark Carney calling it “voluntary.” Officials caution that gun owners have roughly a year to decide how to dispose of any of the more than 2,500 makes and models of firearms they own, which the Liberals have banned since 2020.

Much like the policy itself, the results for the potential ads were mixed.

“Many participants felt that the collage of smiling individuals looked more like an ad for a dating app, something health-related or for a college as opposed to addressing gun violence,” according to one section of a report authored by Environics Research and disclosed as part of the government’s reporting of its public opinion research.

Visuals of green parcels of land also triggered concerns about perpetuating the stereotype “that gun violence is caused by people in rural areas who own hunting rifles as a necessity and as part of their way of life.”

A spokesman for Public Safety Canada confirmed the campaign has yet to launch and that “creative choices will be available in due course.”

“Advertising is being planned to help raise awareness among firearm owners when the program is opened to all eligible owners later in the fall,” wrote spokesman Tim Warmington.

The testing of potential concepts was presented to the government in August 2025. The report says around 2,000 Canadians were surveyed online, including 600 gun owners. It also conducted 11 focus groups with 80 people, some of whom were gun owners and some who were not, back in March.

Those involved were read a script for a potential radio ad that listed the ways that the government was combating gun violence.

It included phrases like “stricter gun control” and “investments in law enforcement and border security.” It also mentioned “community funding to take on the root cause of crime” and ended by naming “the assault-style firearms compensation program that will remove prohibited firearms from our communities.”

While the report suggests those in the general public favoured the ad, about half reportedly recognized what the program was. By contrast, those who actually owned guns all knew what it was, but felt the opposite.

“There was an underlying feeling that the ad was aimed entirely at the non-firearm owning general public and not at firearm owners, to reassure and comfort them rather than discussing and solving the issues at hand.”

“At times, the overall message was ‘fear-based’ and overblown, making guns appear like the sole cause of violence.”

Gun owners were also shown three different concepts for poster and social media advertising on how the buyback program was open, with the same visuals shown to the general public, but with different text.

Only one of the three options actually showed the image of a gun, with the text below reading, “confirm your firearm or device is eligible.”

That option included stylized images of trees, cars, and laptops along with other random shapes, which gun owners said they found “confusing” and not relevant, even “trivializing” the topic, while they could appreciate that the message was at least simple.

The next option, a side profile of a human face, made up of a collage of other photos of faces, also elicited confusion among gun owners, who were “uncertain whether the people in the ad concept were supposed to be those giving up their guns or potential victims of gun violence.”

However, those in the general public reported feeling some emotional draw to the image, with women and those in Quebec being reminded of the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique shooting, where a gunman shot 14 women and injured 13 others.

For others, all the faces reminded them more of a “dating app” than an awareness campaign against gun violence.

The last option, which featured both a rural and a downtown cityscape, elicited some of the strongest criticism from gun owners and those from rural areas more generally.

“The rural landscape image, especially in the context of targeting law-abiding gun owners, creates confusion. Some participants felt it stigmatized farmers and hunters rather than addressing the bigger issue of urban gun violence.”

National Post

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