Madam Speaker, I want to begin by agreeing with the way the member began his remarks. We have no greater responsibility in the House than to provide for the safety of the people of this country. I agree with him there. I think that is something we should all remind ourselves of.
I want to touch on one of the things he raised in his speech, which was that the Alliance was not listening to Canadians. I want to make the point absolutely clear that the gun registry is not gun control. The government uses that term all the time and gives the impression that this somehow is gun control and improves public safety.
I have scratched beneath the surface on this issue and I challenge the member and all Canadians to do the same thing. I will use the same example that he used.
Fourteen women were killed at the polytechnical institute. That was a terrible tragedy and I agree with him. However the registry would not effectively have prevented that. How does laying a piece of paper beside a gun prevent a madman from using it in a crime?
If in fact we had a licensing system that did the proper background checks and if we had enough police on the street to effectively enforce that, then we might have a better chance of preventing that kind of a crime.
That is why we in the Canadian Alliance have said that this is not gun control. If we were to use that billion dollars and begin to target the causes of violence and crime in our society more directly, we might do a better job.
When we were told that it would cost $2 million to the taxpayer to implement this program some people said that we should go for it. However, once it becomes a billion dollars we are talking about a completely different question. That is what we are raising today.
I appeal to the Bloc members to look at our motion. We are saying that a cost benefit analysis should be done of the firearms registry. The government has done that but it has not released it to us. Why is it hiding this?
Every opposition member should be calling upon the government to tell us why this is a better expenditure of funds than targeting the root cause of violence.
The member said that the system was working well in Quebec. A study done in Quebec indicates that many firearms owners in the province do not have licences nor have they registered. In fact, non-compliance in Quebec could be higher than in the other provinces. That is something for the member to ponder.
Without a cost benefit analysis how can the member support this program? Tax dollars are not unlimited. How do we know that we are not much better off spending this money elsewhere, targeting the root cause of violence?