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At one point, Anandasangaree made personal promises to his tenant, offering to pay the difference to the man if the federal government’s compensation is not as much as what he paid for his now-banned guns. At another, he tells him while laughing, he would bail him out if he is arrested for non-compliance, though he insists it’s up to police to enforce the program and “it will not go that far.”

Clips of the conversation, which occurred Sunday morning, were circulating online after the man shared it with the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights. The Star has obtained the full version and confirmed the authenticity of the recording with the man, who believed the content of the conversation was in the public interest but wished not to be identified out of fear of repercussions.

In a statement to the Star, Anandasangaree said he unequivocally supports the program despite his comments and that it needs to proceed after many delays because it is critical to combatting crime and getting guns off the streets.

The Prime Minister’s Office said it has nothing to add to the statement.

“On Sunday, I had a conversation with an individual I have known for many years, who recorded it without my knowledge before it was distributed by a gun lobbyist,” he wrote. “I make a point to speak with Canadians who do not support our approach, to listen to their concerns and ensure they understand their options in this voluntary buyback program. In trying to address this individual’s frustrations, my comments were misguided.”

Parts of those comments focused on Quebec, where Anandasangaree said the gun buyback program is electorally advantageous.

“Quebec is in a different place than other parts of Canada, right? And this is something that is very much a big, big, big deal for many of the Quebec electorate that voted for us,” Anandasangaree said in the conversation, in which he says he would have a “very different approach” if he could start over from scratch, but maintains it was a campaign promise that needs to be fulfilled.

“You’ve seen these articles where people said, you know, this is one of the things we should not execute, like as a change from Trudeau’s policies, but we’ve made the decision to go ahead.”

The lengthy discussion began after Anandasangaree, unprompted, tells the man the Liberal government is making an announcement Tuesday about the start of the program with a pilot project in Cape Breton, N.S.

“I gotta tell you something else. You may not be happy with it,” Anandasangaree tells the man. “We’re launching the gun buyback on Tuesday.”

On several occasions, he is pressed about why the Carney government is moving forward with the program when most gun crimes are committed by illegal weapons. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau made the sweeping ban of over 1,500 “assault-style” weapons in 2020, following a massacre of 22 people in Nova Scotia. However, the gunman was not a licensed gun owner and had smuggled most of the guns used from the U.S.

“Don’t ask me to explain the logic to you on this, OK?” Anandasangaree says when the man raises this.

“But we’re not the problem, Gary,” the man cuts in, defending legal gun owners in Canada, to which Anandasangaree says “I realize that.”

“This is the mandate I was given by (Mark) Carney to complete this, and not revisit this,” Anandasangaree says. “That’s my objective: just put an end to this and move with other additional criminal justice tools, including on bail, including on increasing penalties for people who have illegal, and you know, unlicensed firearms.”

“I’ll tell you, going forward, it’ll be a different approach.”

More to come.