Toronto’s last shooting range wins legal battle against chief firearms officer

Toronto’s last shooting range has won a legal battle against Ontario’s chief firearms officer.

The Toronto Revolver Club (TRC) took the province’s chief firearms officer (CFO) to Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice after a 2024 inspection where the Ontario Provincial Police inspector who holds the position visited the 120-year-old non-profit’s facility and issued a new shooting range approval containing several conditions.

“One of these conditions required the closure of two of the TRC’s ten firing lanes for safety reasons,” Justice Shaun Nakatsuru wrote in a recent decision.

But the judge found the CFO “has no authority to attach conditions to the shooting range approval,” according to his decision dated Aug. 25.

The court heard that under the Canada Firearms Act, the CFO can revoke the approval entirely for the Revolver Club, thus shutting down the city’s last shooting range. But he doesn’t have the power to attach conditions to an approval.

The CFO told the court that the law implied he has the power to do anything “practically necessary to achieve” the purpose of the act, which “is to enhance public safety.”

The CFO argued “that in this case, conditions are practically necessary to ensure that a shooting club takes appropriate measures with respect to a shooting range’s design and operation to achieve public safety.”

While “courts must refrain from unduly broadening the powers of such regulatory authorities through judicial law‑making, they must also avoid sterilizing these powers through overly technical interpretations of enabling statutes,” lawyers for the CFO argued.

“It is submitted that the power to attach conditions on a shooting range approval should be implied because doing so is necessary to give effect to the object behind the regulatory regime.”

The judge did not agree with that position.

Nakatsuru pointed to the precedent of New Brunswick’s Springfield Sports Club Inc., which had applied for approval to continue to operate its shooting range.

“The process was delegated to the CFO for the Province of New Brunswick. The CFO granted the approval but attached a series of conditions. The New Brunswick Court of Appeal held that the CFO had no authority to impose any conditions,” said the judge.

Nothing in the Firearms Act or its associated regulations “gave (New Brunswick’s) CFO any authority to attach conditions to the approval of the club’s application,” Nakatsuru said.

But he pointed out Ontario’s CFO “is far from powerless in ensuring the objectives of Parliament are met,” said the judge.

If the club doesn’t “shut down two of their firing lanes because of the safety concerns in their design, the CFO can revoke the approval for the entire shooting range,” said the judge.