Trading guns for drugs results in three-year prison term

A man who trafficked firearms to feed a drug habit was sentenced Tuesday to three years in a federal penitentiary.

Christopher Foster entered guilty pleas at the Medicine Hat Courthouse, after an incident that occurred May 25-26, 2016 where he purchased three firearms and 10 rounds of ammo from a local outdoorsman store.

The 42-year-old and two other men then traded these guns for narcotics, used the narcotics, and the next day decided to purchase more guns to make more trades.

The second time around though, police were called to the store as there was suspicions of fraud due to the credit card number being used. When police arrested Foster, he co-operated with them and confessed to what he had been doing.

Foster also faces firearm trafficking charges in Saskatchewan.

More charges against Foster were laid in April of this year, when police were contacted by a motorist following a vehicle known to be stolen. When police stopped and searched the vehicle, they found a 22 caliber rifle wrapped in a blanket.

Unrelated police surveillance had earlier noticed Foster carrying a similar blanket down a local street — at a time which breached his curfew. He pled guilty to breaching various release conditions for his involvement, alongside careless use and storage of a firearm.

While Foster has a criminal record, it runs from 1989 to 2000, and there is a “big gap in the record” noted the Crown during sentencing — and that he has had a productive time in society before these new charges.

But the Crown also emphasized the seriousness of Foster putting firearms into the hands of drug dealers.

Foster had been working but was laid off — and this led him back down the path of addiction, explained duty counsel.

“And we all know the destructive nature of the drugs that are out there now.”

Foster knows he needs help, said duty counsel, which he can get within the federal system, and from there hopefully recover.