Mr. Speaker, it is December 1 and the justice minister's billion dollar boondoggle begins. Establishing a firearms registration system has cost over $200 million so far and costs are projected to exceed $1 billion before we even know if the computer set-up works.
Canadians have also paid many lesser known costs including $10,000 for a special interest group in California that is preparing a global campaign against private firearms ownership and $20,000 for the United Nations to publish and distribute a study on firearms registration. Taxpayers should know that $10,000 was for translating the document into French and Spanish. Let us not forget about the more than $40,000 the government spent last year to send bureaucrats to international workshops aimed at restricting private firearms ownership.
Where are the criminals this legislation is supposed to stop? They are laughing all the way to the bank, the bank they will rob with their unregistered firearms.