Mr. Speaker, the government has not been shirking any of its responsibility concerning this major public safety initiative.
Canadians overwhelmingly share our vision and support this important program. We now have more than 1.1 million Canadians who hold or who have applied for licences under the legislation. More than 1.6 million firearms are registered. Since December 1, 1998, more than 929 licence applications have been refused for public safety concerns. As well, 1,182 licences have been revoked from individuals deemed not to be eligible to hold a licence because they pose a safety risk. The number of revocations is over 20 times higher than the total of the previous five years.
We cannot talk about the costs of this program without talking about the benefits. The benefits of this program represent an investment of $2 per Canadian for the past five years.
The costs of the firearms program are subject to the same kinds of review and scrutiny as any other government program. The government is accepting its responsibilities, including its financial accountability. It would be refreshing if the members opposite opposing this valuable legislation would accept their responsibility for playing a positive role respecting the public safety of all Canadians.
We have an aggressive program in place to deal with providing enhanced service to Canadian firearms owners. Elements of this include the following services. We have been providing face to face assistance to help people complete their applications for licensing. We have dramatically simplified our forms. We have implemented processing and system efficiencies throughout to provide better service to Canadians more quickly. We have enhanced our call centre services to provide better and faster individualized assistance.
At the same time as we are providing better service to firearms owners we are providing better public safety to all Canadians. We are now able to do background checks before any legitimate firearms sale can proceed.
As of the end of September, over 7,770 potentially dangerous gun sales were the subject of additional scrutiny. In these cases people with histories of violence, break and enter, theft or drug involvement or people who were trying to acquire guns that they were not licensed to purchase were the subject of additional checks.