Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that rather philosophical question. It goes into whether our system works when the executive branch of government is the one that determines the agenda and the decisions on that agenda. It really prevents Parliament from operating separate from the government's agenda. That needs to be changed so Parliament can be more effective in determining what the end result will be in dealing with some of the issues that appear before the House.
The tragedy in all this is that we have an executive that chooses what the agenda will be and it runs the bureaucracy to the point that the bureaucracy is hand in glove with the executive branch. It is up to the opposition to point out when things are not what they appear to be. Often what we are told by government representatives is somewhat different from the reality, such as the gun control registration program.
I find it hard to believe that the government uses the supplementary estimates at the beginning of the year for money it will need every year. It could ask for that money in the main estimates. Year after year the government goes after more money in the supplementary estimates. That is smoke and mirrors. The government knows it will need more money and has year after year. It avoids dealing with Parliament on the issue of how much it will cost by planting it in the supplementary estimates.
As far as the criminal use of firearms being under the registration program is concerned, I sat on the justice committee when it dealt with Bill C-68. Everybody on the committee advised the government of two things: first, that criminals would not register their guns no matter what; and second, that it would cost an enormous amount of money. Government members were told that by provincial representatives, by various business associations and by organizations. They were quite upfront that this would be an enormous program and that it would be difficult to put it into application.
I raised in committee whether the government had done due diligence before it went into this program to see what the likely costs would be. The top bureaucrat told me that he did not know. I am sorry but I find that very hard to accept. I find even harder to accept the fact that 94% of the senior bureaucrats received performance bonuses when they spent 500 times more than what was originally planned on the gun registration program. I find it hard to accept that they were rewarded for not delivering on a promise. I believe taxpayers would have a problem with this as well.