The FAL was already targeted as a "black sheep" ahead of time, since it was made Restricted back in 1979 or so. That was due, AFAIK, to the Vancouver police chief at the time HATING Reservists, and HATING that civies could own FN's. Supposedly one day a Reservist ran amok on our streets one night, shooting randomly (no one hurt or killed that I know of) with an FN, and so the chief used that as an excuse to justify making them Restricted.
Fast forward more than a decade...when the new laws were comming in to make many things Prohibited, from what I understand, the DCRA's main point about excluding the AR-15 from prohib, was in part that there were already SO MANY OF THEM in Canadian civilian hands. But this was not true of the FN FAL...because it was Restricted (up to this point the AR was non-restr), and also because an FN cost a civie buyer nearly 3 times the price of an AR. So since there was so few owned, they wouldn't have had a leg to stand on.
AFAIK.
Fast forward more than a decade...when the new laws were comming in to make many things Prohibited, from what I understand, the DCRA's main point about excluding the AR-15 from prohib, was in part that there were already SO MANY OF THEM in Canadian civilian hands. But this was not true of the FN FAL...because it was Restricted (up to this point the AR was non-restr), and also because an FN cost a civie buyer nearly 3 times the price of an AR. So since there was so few owned, they wouldn't have had a leg to stand on.
AFAIK.





























.... or this























