Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for my hon. friend. My first question deals with people who die from gunshot wounds, and my colleague mentioned 200. Two-thirds of homicide victims die from the use of something other than a firearm. However the vast majority of the people who die from firearms are killed by illegal firearms which have been smuggled into Canada. Therefore the problem is not registered guns. Only a small handful of those 200 people die from the use of a registered gun. Therefore the firearms registry will have even less of an impact.
My second question deals with the issue of parliamentary oversight and oversight on the part of the Auditor General with regard to government expenditures. One of our primary roles as members of Parliament is to oversee government expenditures, how taxpayer money is spent. In my view MPs and the Auditor General, despite the fine work she does, have lost both the power and authority to oversee these expenditures.
Does my colleague agree with my statements? What needs to happen for us as parliamentarians to exercise our role as overseer of government expenditures? How can we have the power to exercise our role in Parliament? As well, how can the Auditor General exercise her power in a more efficient fashion?