Mr. Speaker, I do not know which member he was talking about. We had no Reform Party members from Edmonton North in the House of Commons in 1991. We had one member from Beaver River and that was it until 1993 when we had the Reform wave.
We have always been consistent in saying that if the gun registration program could clearly be demonstrated to be efficacious for public safety we would support it. In view of a lack of evidence it clearly appeared to be a misappropriation of public money and should be reassigned to other areas of the justice system.
We are supportive of gun control. We have had handgun control in Canada since 1934 or something like that and we never objected to Bill C-17. However, it was escalated to the final level of wasting money on a program which the government has failed to demonstrate will accomplish its stated objectives.
Money is laid aside for a program and it has stated objectives, but it has failed to justify that it will deliver the stated program objectives. We are predicting at some point in the light of day after we spend several hundred million dollars down this blind alley that it will in retrospect be seen to be misappropriated money.
Why do we not spend that money on the Young Offenders Act and other facilities rather than waste it on gun registration?