Ten bucks for ten guns, if we talk about trafficking in fiction. I am talking about licensing the owner, not about registering the firearm. If we look at the cost to license three million gun owners, we can estimate the cost per individual by looking at what the cost is now to process an FAC, a firearms acquisition certificate, because the requirements are similar.
Under clause 5 of this bill, the chief provincial firearms officer is going to have to conduct a review of the criminal record of the individual, a mental health record, and perhaps a neighbourhood background check to see if there is any history of violence. That is not unlike the requirement for an FAC. They go through a similar background check.
The Metro Toronto Police Board analysed the cost to process a single FAC in 1994, and it was $185. That might be high, because it is in Toronto, where the costs are high. But if we take that figure and multiply it by three million gun owners who have to be licensed, what do we get? We certainly do not get $85 million. We get about $550 million. If there are six million gun owners, as some estimate, then it will be well over $1 billion using those figures.
If the Metro Toronto Police Board cost for the application of an FAC is the highest in the country, and we level it out to $100 per FAC across the country and take that as an average-I do not think we can label that as trafficking in fiction-we can get an idea of what the enormous cost is going to be to someone in this country, whether it is the gun owner, the taxpayer, or whoever. That is before a single gun is registered and we come in with the $10 cost to register 10 firearms. What can we register today for $10? It may cost me $10, but what does it cost the taxpayer? What does it cost the organization? What does it cost for the manpower?
I do not know what it will cost, but I am convinced it will not be $10. I do not know what can be processed today in that form for $10. My licence costs me more than that. The registration for my car costs me more than that. It cost me $5 to register my children's bicycles and I did all the work. I took it down to the police station where it was filed. That is what it cost me. I do not know what it cost the police to file it, process it and record it.
When it comes to the cost, $85 million may be a fair representation of what it will cost to set up the registration system, but it is not anywhere near the overall cost to set up a full-fledged universal registration system where individual gun owners will have to be licensed and have to bring in their firearms to have them registered. There is absolutely no way. When we talk about trafficking in fiction, who is trafficking in fiction?
The government has not provided a common sense justification for the registration of rifles and shotguns. I asked witness after witness who appeared before the committee how the registration of rifles and shotguns would reduce the criminal use of those firearms, and they were not able to answer. I have never heard a straightforward answer from the justice minister although I have asked him that question.
We have a handgun registration system that has been around for 60 years. We know it has not reduced the criminal use of handguns, because the handgun is the weapon of choice for the vast majority of street criminals. We see that it has been ineffective in this area and we ask why the justice minister would want to expand a failed system to include rifles and shotguns.
We have spent considerable time on the bill, but is it enough time? I say absolutely not. There was not enough time. When members are denied the right to express the concerns of their constituents in the House, those who want to express them, there is something wrong with the system.
I do not think we have had enough time either at the committee stage or at second reading stage. Time allocation was utilized. A deadline was placed on the number of days to hear witnesses. We went immediately from there into clause by clause study. We did not even have time to examine the testimony of witnesses on a day to day basis, because the time lag from the time they testified to the time we received the written testimony was four days. We did not even have time to fully draft our amendments, go over them with legal counsel and present them in proper form. The bill has been rushed and I ask why. If it is not to become mandatory for eight years, what is the big rush?
I make reference to a wonderful set of speaking points. At the bottom the Prime Minister said to his Liberal colleagues:
The Reform Party says it needs more time to debate gun control, but cops on the beat say they need gun control now.
It is very disturbing that Reformers are prepared to put the safety of police at risk in order to satisfy the gun lobby.
Talk about trafficking in fiction. I have not talked to a street police officer who has supported the bill although their political masters do. I have talked with colleagues all across western Canada. I have been all across the country from Kamloops in the west to St. John's, Newfoundland, in the east. I have talked with people who say that the bill is nonsense anyway.
My point is that if the cops on the beat need the bill now, why are we waiting eight years before bringing it in? It is not the Reform Party that is saying we should wait eight years; it is the government that is saying eight years.
As I said the other night, if guns are really dangerous and if this is not a hysterical response from people who do not know anything about guns and fear them, why are we leaving 58 per cent of the handguns that are supposed to be dangerous in the hands of the people? Why are we leaving them where they are?
In conclusion I would like to move the following motion:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word that and substituting the following therefor:
"Bill C-68, an act respecting firearms and other weapons, be not now read a third time but that it be read a third time this day six months hence".