Madam Speaker, my colleague has hit the nail right on the head on this particular issue.
When Bill C-68, the firearms registration bill came in, we were promised that it would cost no more than $85 million to implement. Before a single firearm was registered last year, the cost was over $200 million, and the government cuts the budget of the RCMP. If we look at it carefully, it is cutting the RCMP budget by over $20 million, but in what area? It is not in the provincial area where there are provincial and municipal contracts but in the federal area. What is it cutting down on? It is cutting down on drug enforcement, organized crime and so on.
Let us take a look at drug enforcement, the main revenue source for organized crime which is responsible for bringing drugs into our schoolyards that affect our children and contribute to this terrible situation we see in many of our larger cities. The government is reducing that budget by an enormous amount.
When the minister stands up and says the government has cut some $20 million out of a $1.2 billion budget, that is not accurate. It is not cutting anything out of the provincial budgets. It is cutting out of the federal programs.
That $22 million is coming out of the federal programs where we have the special units covering white collar crime, organized crime, drug trafficking and so on. Yes, it is a matter of priorities, but the government is spending money on a useless firearms registration system that will not enhance the safety of our streets and homes. It could be spending that money on a host of other things, including making sure that we have enough uniformed policemen on the streets to help reduce crime. Let us get them into the schools talking with the children, like the DARE drug program that many of the police forces are running in western Canada. We should be focusing our money on those areas, not on a useless firearms registration system that has not proven to do anything to reduce crime or enhance safety on our streets or in our homes.