Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize what I believe to be the gravity of the situation in respect of the operation of Parliament.
In her report on the gun registry, the Auditor General advised Canadians that the government withheld crucial financial information from Parliament for years. That is the context in which we are discussing this issue. Every member here knows that the government withheld crucial information. By withholding that crucial information, Parliament was unable to follow the ballooning costs of the registry. That is why the costs went unchecked from a net $2 million to a billion dollars.
In that context then, the minister, realizing the political gravity of the situation, continued with the tradition of withholding a report on gun registry cost estimates. There is an oblique reference that the House leader for the Liberals has made in a news release but he has failed to table it in Parliament.
Perhaps in another context one might be able to think of a reasonable excuse as to why he would have done that. However in this context there is no reasonable basis upon which the minister could have reasonably assumed that this information would not be of crucial importance for every member of the House.
The minister decided to gamble on withholding information that he knew Parliament needed. The minister tried to hide a report disclosing a $500 million cost estimate for the gun registry. It is a clumsy attempt. He knew better but he failed to do the right thing.
I wanted to add that contextual background to buttress the argument that has been made by my colleague and other opposition members that the minister has failed in his duty to Parliament.