Mr. Speaker, I take great objection to some of the allegations made by the hon. member and I will answer him in the same manner that he chose to ask the questions.
I will quote word for word from the letter that the minister tabled in this House from the RCMP dated March 20, 1998:
I am responding to Lorne Gunter's column of March 15, 1998 titled “False stats used to support gun registry”. The column did not indicate that on December 30, 1997 the RCMP commissioner wrote the Department of Justice indicating that we had reached an understanding on the statistics and how they were reported in “The illegal Movement of Firearms in Canada”.
There was simply a different methodology used by the RCMP and the Firearms Smuggling Work Group in interpreting the original data. As part of our examination, we were focusing on criminal incidents in which a firearm was actually used in the commission of a crime. The Firearms Smuggling Work Group's examination criteria were broader, gathering information on all firearms recovered by police and categorizing them according to their circumstances. Not surprisingly, this generated a discrepancy which was the source of our original concerns. With this methodological approach we are satisfied that the conclusions of the smuggling report are reasonable, and are satisfied that there is no need to amend the report.
I want to once again state that the RCMP continues to fully support the new firearms legislation and its objectives.