Mr. Speaker, I will briefly answer three questions. The first question concerns prevention. We can use existing resources to engage in prevention. There is a smattering of organizations across the country which are engaging in prevention. If the minister would ask her provincial counterparts to come to the table, tell her what is working and what is not, toss out what is not working and keep what is, that would force the provinces to rationalize their programs.
As the member mentioned, it costs $95,000 a year for a youth to be incarcerated and $60,000 for an adult.
On the issue of gun control, the Reform Party is firmly in favour of good gun control laws. We are in favour of the firearms acquisition certificate. We are in favour of having checks on people. We are in favour of having a delay period. We are in favour of a course, which gun lobby groups are in favour of.
What we are not in favour of is gun control legislation that will cost money and not have an effect. On that point, it is the gun registry that will do just that.
We have to be very careful that if we are going to put money into a program we ensure that the money we are putting in, with the limited resources we have, will have more effect than where we are taking it from. It is called economic cost. If we are going to put money into gun registration, we had better be certain that the registry is going to make our streets safer, save people's lives and save money.
The fact is that gun registries do not work. The government is now finding this out. The Reform Party has said for a long time that the millions of dollars that are being put into the gun registry could be better spent on something else. I had this conversation with members opposite.
Over the last 20 years the number of people who have been killed with legal handguns is five per year. Should we spend $50 million, $100 million or $200 million to save five lives, when if we move it out of the justice system to somewhere else it could cost a hundred or two hundred lives because of rapists who are allowed to walk and murderers who are not arrested?
That is the reason we oppose it. It is not because we are against the registry, it is not because we are in the back pocket of the gun lobbyists, but because we want, like the government, to have the safest country possible. That is why we are opposed to it. However, we are in favour of the good gun control rules that we have in Canada.