The RCMP has lost 205 firearms since 2020, including 3 submachine-guns

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has lost 205 firearms since 2020, including more than 120 handguns and at least five fully automatic weapons like machine-guns.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has lost 205 firearms since 2020, including more than 120 handguns and at least five fully automatic weapons like machine-guns.

The data, which was obtained through an access to information request, also shows that nearly a dozen RCMP firearms have gone missing so far this year.

In total, 122 handguns, 55 shotguns, 23 rifles, three submachine-guns and two machine-guns have been reported lost by RCMP detachments across the country since 2020. Canadians are largely prohibited from using or acquiring machine-guns and submachine-guns, which are fully automatic and capable of rapid fire.

Nearly half of the guns were lost in 2021, when a staggering 99 RCMP firearms were reported missing, including three fully automatic weapons. There were also 25 lost firearms in 2020, 44 in 2022, 26 in 2023 and 11 in the first seven months of 2024.

The data was obtained and shared exclusively with CTVNews.ca by Matt Malone, a government secrecy researcher and scholar with the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont. Malone is also the founder of Open by Default, a digital database that contains more than 5.2 million pages of documents released through Canada's access to information system.

In its response to Malone, the RCMP's access to information office said it "cannot determine specifically if a firearm was lost by a service member." The RCMP is Canada's federal police force and employs more than 30,000 people, including more than 19,000 police officers.

Between 2000 and 2019, an additional 601 firearms were reported lost by police, including 15 machine-guns and submachine-guns, according to a previous RCMP access to information request.