It took them three months, but New Brunswick RCMP finally got their man.

On August 11, 2020, a search warrant was executed at a home on Main Street in Sackville as part of the investigation. Nicholas Bain was located and arrested without incident.

Bain was finally arrested after evading the RCMP for 84 days.

The arrest warrant for Nick Bain, a violent career criminal with a Firearms Prohibition Order against him, was issued on May 27, 2020. The warrant was for possession of a prohibited or restricted firearms with ammunition, without a licence or registration.

Crown prosecutors charged Nicholas Bain with:

• Unlawful storage of a firearm
• Possession of a firearm for the purpose of committing an offence
• Possession of a firearm without a licence
• Possession of a prohibited device without a licence
• Possession of prohibited firearms with readily accessible ammunition without a licence
• Possession of restricted firearms with readily accessible ammunition without a licence
• Possession of firearms knowing they were obtained by the commission of an offence
• Possession of firearms with altered, defaced, or removed serial numbers.

Oddly, nowhere among the charges against Nicholas Bain is there one for violating his pre-existing Firearms Prohibition Order.

Why not?

On May 19, Keswick RCMP responded to a report of two vehicles on fire in the driveway of a home on Route 635 near Lake George. That led to a search warrant being executed the next day, which led to the arrest of Bain’s girlfriend, Monique Boyer, and another woman.

The search resulted in more than 185 items and illegal substances being seized, including 31 long guns and 22 handguns, among them 24 prohibited and/or restricted weapons. Many of the firearms were loaded. Police also seized more than three kilograms of what is believed to be cocaine, and nearly 5.5 kilograms of what is believed to be crystal methamphetamine, as well as quantities of ammunition and Canadian currency.

As I wrote at the time, both Nick Bain and Monique Boyer have long criminal histories for selling illegal drugs and illegally possessing guns.

Nick Bain was subject to a mandatory 10-year Firearm Prohibition Order per Section 109 of the Criminal Code due to his prior drug trafficking conviction, so why was he able to illegally obtain another 53 firearms?

Because our Firearms Prohibition Order system is broken.

• No police agency in Canada tracks individuals with Firearm Prohibition Orders registered against them.
• There is no legal requirement for police to track individuals with Firearm Prohibition Orders registered against them or routinely check on them to ensure compliance.
• There is no legal requirement for individuals with Firearm Prohibition Orders to notify police when they move to a new residence. Police have no idea where these people are.

None of this explains why he wasn’t charged with violating his pre-existing Firearms Prohibition order, of course.

Could it be the police don’t think it’s a serious enough criminal offence to put before the courts? Maybe. I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is career criminals like Nicholas Bain don’t take pieces of paper (for that’s all a firearms prohibition order is) seriously, nor will they until we fix our broken system.

So far, no political party nor the minority government led by Justin Trudeau have expressed any interested in keeping these violent offenders off our streets.

That should concern every single Canadian across the political spectrum.

 

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Designed to Fail is a 45-page Special Report which explains, in detail, everything that’s wrong with Canada’s Firearm Prohibition Order system, then outlines a clear plan to fix it.

The only question is… Will the federal government take the action required to keep Canadians safe?

Or will they continue to pay lip service to Public Safety while doing nothing to stop violent, repeat offenders from illegally obtaining guns?

 

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