On July 27, a white Honda Accord pulled alongside the United States Consulate in downtown Toronto about five in the morning. Someone in the car fired a bullet into the consulate building.[i]
This is the second shooting at the U.S. Consulate in less than five months.
This week, Toronto Police announced that a 19-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy had been arrested and charged in connection with the July attack.[ii]
They also place the U.S. Consulate shootings in a much more disturbing context.
“We believe these offences were carried out by criminals for hire, recruited and directed through encrypted messaging apps,” said Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw.[iii]
From One Shooting to an Organized Criminal Network
When the first shots struck the U.S. Consulate on March 10, it appeared to be a serious but isolated attack.
On June 16, Toronto Police said their Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force and Counter-Terrorism Security Unit had connected the March consulate shooting to a broader investigation involving young people recruited through encrypted messaging apps.
Police described a pattern of “criminals for hire” who attacked businesses, private residences, synagogues and Jewish schools.
Investigators said they identified links among 27 shootings.
Two recovered handguns are believed to be connected to more than 25 shootings, although ballistics work was still ongoing.
Two guns originated in the United States.
Then came the second consulate shooting on July 27, despite a visible police presence established after the March attack.
The Policy Disconnect the ‘Guns for Hire’ Network Reveals
A gun-for-hire network needs recruiters, communications platforms, expendable intermediaries, transportation, intelligence about targets, and people willing to organize violence while staying removed from the actual violence.
Yet the federal government is almost singularly focused on collecting and destroying firearms declared by licensed Canadians instead of tackling this credible and growing threat.
Public Safety Canada says more than 67,000 firearms were declared by 37,869 individual owners.[iv] Its business program processed claims for more than 74,000 firearms and paid $96.1 million as of June 8.[v]
Those numbers document administrative activity, not effective public policy.
They don’t explain how many shootings, homicides or criminal networks these firearms confiscations will prevent, because they can’t.
Seizing guns from licensed owners and gun stores accomplishes little in that context.
A licensed owner who declared a prohibited firearm is already well-known to the government.
The gun-for-hire model operates completely outside of that licensing framework.
The gun-for-hire model focuses entirely on concealing organizers through encrypted messaging apps, recruiting young people willing to commit violence for cash, and sharing guns used in multiple crimes.
It’s easy to confiscate firearms from licensed gun owners because they will, albeit unhappily, comply with the law.
The much harder job—stopping violent criminals for hire and the people who hire them—is not the job the federal government is focused on.
Measure What Actually Protects the Public
When police say two handguns are likely associated with more than 25 shootings, Canadians should be told—when disclosure will no longer compromise an investigation—how those firearms entered the country, how they circulated and what opportunities existed to intercept them sooner.
Those are the operational measures of gun control: identifying the weapon used, tracing its origin and movement, finding the person supplying it and dismantling the system that allows anonymous people to buy violence on demand.
They’re not the measures this federal government is focused on.
Canada does not lack gun laws, licensed-owner databases, safe storage regulations, or confiscation programs.
What Canada lacks is a public-safety strategy equal to the threat Toronto Police uncovered: anonymous organizers who recruit violent teenagers through encrypted apps, and share illegal guns among disposable shooters, all while purchasing violence remotely.
The contrast could not be clearer.
One system directs police and public resources toward people who took safety courses, submitted to background checks, obtained licences and declared their firearms.
The other allows criminals to recruit a 15-year-old, provide a target and order gunfire against a guarded diplomatic building.
Only one of those systems is responsible for the gunfire in Toronto.
Canadians should demand to know who recruits these shooters, who supplies their firearms, who selects their targets and who pays for the attacks.
Success should be measured in criminal networks dismantled, recruiters prosecuted, crime guns traced and commissioned shootings prevented—not firearms collected from people whose names and addresses were already known.
If the government can’t distinguish between confiscating guns from compliant firearm owners and stopping organized violent crime, it’s not delivering “gun control.”
It’s delivering the appearance of action while the people buying violence remain hidden behind encrypted messaging apps.
The next shooter may already be carrying someone else’s gun.
The next teenager may already have received a message.
The next target may already have been selected.
The question is not whether Ottawa can find Canada’s licensed firearm owners. It already knows exactly where they live.
The question is whether it can find the people ordering the shootings.
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3DqGbmjXs4
[ii] https://www.tps.ca/media-centre/news-releases/66624/
[iii] https://www.tps.ca/media-centre/stories/criminals-for-hire-linked-to-27-firearm-discharges/
[iv] https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2026/04/declaration-period-for-the-assault-style-firearms-compensation-program-closing-with-more-than-67000-firearms-declared-for-compensation.html
[v] https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/campaigns/firearms-buyback/public-data-reporting.html
