Just A Thought...
To what the previous posters have said, the problem is not with the U.S. firearms industry but with the U.S. governement, to be sure. The firearms industry is just starting to come out of its slumber and waking up to these restrictions down here and realizing the long term impact they will have. To be sure, this is not about a dislike of Canada or any other country, it's just another way for our government's lackeys to continue to justify their existence and export gun control at the same time. It is also an indirect way of squeezing the firearms industry in the U.S., something that the BATF has been trying to do hard for the last decade from all angles and now they have the State Dept. in on it at the behest of some extremely disparate interests and using the GWOT (global war on terror) and ITAR as the vehicles to do it.
Bear in mind that from 1989 onward the U.S. government started squeezing imports to the U.S. of anything deemed "non-sporting" and has tightened that up successively several times since then. Inadvertently this causes production of items that were in demand to be manufactured domestically where they could be legally. Now however those new manufacturers along with a lot of others are finding that any potential for foreign sales is all but non-existent because unless they are connected to the hilt the stuff they make is never leaving our borders. What do you think that does to their sales potential? What do you think that does to those considering jumping into the business when they realize that recouping the costs of tooling up by exporting some product is no longer viable? For example, you can't import things like AUGs or Kalashnikovs in their military form to name a few here. It has even gotten to the point where barrels for these guns are not being brought in. Market forces being what they are, eventually people step in to fill the void if there is enough money to be made. A big problem though is that our gun laws and the functional application of them, where there is room for interpretation by those doing the interpreting, continually make what is legal a proverbial moving target that becomes smaller and smaller with each pass because of more restrictions being imposed. So now you have manufacturer A, B and C that all tooled up to sell X, Y, and Z in the U.S., thinking they could also recoup some costs through export sales except with a few strokes of a pen the latter goes away because some people decide to change the rules. Aside from the impact it has on buyers abroad, what do you think that does to these companies here? How much more difficult do you think it makes it for them to recoup money invested in decent R&D? Do you think it might have the affect of discouraging people from getting into the business because they just won't be able to recover their costs with only being able to sell in just the U.S. market?
I'm sorry to hear all the problems that you guys are having up north due to our gov.org bull####. As always, at the end of the day it is the average shooter that is getting ####ed, in this case on both sides of the border. Most people just have not yet started to realize what is driving it and why. Unless something changes it is only likely to get worse, IMHO. I fully support and encourage everyone to spend their money with people who want it and will provide the product desired. Please understand that this is not about American companies not wanting to provide it but totally about bureaucrats exerting their will and advancing their agenda. Just some food for thought.