Ottawa mom shocked to discover Canada Post delivered shotgun to 11-year-old son

An Ottawa woman says she was surprised to discover a 12-gauge shotgun delivered into the hands of her 11-year-old son during a postal mixup.

Dawna – whose last name we’re withholding for her privacy – says she was working from home and unable to answer the door when Canada Post showed up with a delivery. After her son received the package from the postal carrier, she was shocked to see the contents in the box.

“Mom, you’ve got to see this! There’s a gun!” he said.

“Someone can order a weapon online, that’s one thing,” said Dawna, who admits she is not anti-gun. “But that there’s no verification that it’s the same person who ordered the weapon is actually receiving it? That to me is concerning.”

Dawna says after notifying Canada Post, they came back to pick up the package the next morning, offering only an apology and an explanation that the label likely fell off her package and came to be on the gun package by mistake. She says she is stunned that a package that clearly indicates it requires an adult’s signature could just be handed to a child, especially when it states on Canada Post’s website that proof of age is required when shipping firearms.

“It said signature 18-plus, but nobody asked,” she told CityNews. “The person asked for an adult, but didn’t wait. My son said ‘there’s no adult who can come to the door right now,’ and so she gave him the box. When I see something like this, it makes me worried this could have gone really wrong.”

“And it’s probably not an isolated incident, if the reaction I get when I complain about it is ‘you know, these things happen’.”

In a statement to CityNews, Canada Post says that at some point during the delivery process “a loose shipping label got affixed to another parcel.”

“Our employee delivered the item following the instructions on that shipping label, which did not require Proof of Age,” read the statement – even though the package containing the gun clearly indicated it needed an adult’s signature.

After learning that the boy was feeling guilty about the incident, Canada Post sent him a care package, along with a letter letting him know that he did nothing wrong.

Files from Xiaoli Li were used in this report