Madam Speaker, I would like to advise you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier.
We are obliged today to address a very important principle: the firearms registry and the necessity for it to be put in place. What is involved is a register, the recording of gun possession and the issuing of gun permits. We are obliged to defend the program today, but not the financial fiasco surrounding it since 1995. Where the problem lies with this program is not its underlying principle, but how it has been handled.
The Minister of Justice has just said that all the permanent government programs somewhere down the road will cost a billion dollars. When they wanted to establish the firearms registration and licencing program in 1995, they told us that it would cost $2 million in all, not a billion. The problem is as follows: when we are told that all programs cost $1 billion, how can they try to sell us on the idea that a firearms program would cost so little?
This is a big problem. Just because they are telling us it will cost x amount of dollars, now that the program is up and running, does not mean that the amounts will be any more accurate. Establishing a program requires an assessment of the real cost.
The Bloc Quebecois feels this is a program we must have, but not at the cost of the financial fiasco the Minister of Justice has created. The problem we must address today is whether the program is necessary. That is not where the problem lies; it lies in the way money is being spent in order to have a functioning system. Seven years later, if the Department of Justice had really done its job, we would not have be asking ourselves whether the firearms program is or is not any good.
Unfortunately, the motion calls for reduction of funds for the firearms program in order to eventually eliminate it. This program must exist. Moving it from Justice to the Solicitor General does not mean it is going to be made to disappear and that the Justice Department's incompetence will not come to light. We must be given the real costs and the breakdown of where this money went.
Today we are aware that opposition to the motion does not have to mean we are against the program, or vice versa. Today we must say that the program needs to be retained, but the government must be required to explain the reasons for the financial fiasco.
It is essential to protect the people of Quebec and Canada in order to avoid a repetition of senseless killings like those that occurred at École polytechnique de Montréal on December 6, 1989. According to the surveys conducted in 2003, 74% of people support this program, developed in response to pressure from those affected by the tragic events at the Polytechnique and from the public generally. But we cannot go about this blindly; this program must not become another fiasco because it is being handed off to another department without a closer examination of what happened. We need to have a detailed report of where all the money went.
For instance, between April 2000 and February 2002, the Department of Justice spent $16 million on advertising and $3 million on inviting hunters to have unforgettable experiences. Almost all of this money went through Groupaction. That explains everything; to us anyway.
We absolutely have to get to the bottom of where this money went. It is not enough to say, like the Minister of Justice says, “The entire program will one day cost $1 billion.” That is not true. The entire program should not cost $1 billion, especially when in 1995, we were told that it would cost $2 million. Imagine, $1 billion. That would take years. Maybe his grandchildren will see the day when that amount is reached. Come on. It is much more serious than that.
To be told today that the cost of setting up the program, registration, and issuing permits is on the mark, is not true. Since the program was developed based on estimates that were made, how can there be such a large discrepancy? This discrepancy is unacceptable. We are told that in seven years, costs have gone from $2 million to as high as $788 million today. Remember that a third of the people have not registered their firearms. This is serious.
Now we are supposed to believe that modifications to Bill C-10A will reduce the costs considerably. However, there are some things that I would like to share with the House right now about this. In fact, there is a big problem with Bill C-10A. And I am not just talking about an administrative problem. Obviously, if the bill were to bring down the costs, we would support that. However, there are other, more important things that need pointing out.
When the government wanted to establish this firearms registry program, Quebec supported it. The government also had the backing and the expertise of the SQ. However, there is now concern that Bill C-10A will also create a federal agency to manage firearms that could, and probably will, be privatized. If that were to happen, it would strip away all of Quebec's responsibilities, by diminishing the powers of the chief firearms officer, who comes under Quebec's jurisdiction, and also by drastically cutting the funding for the Bureau de traitement and the Centre d'appel du Québec, which are currently a responsibility of the Sûreté du Québec.
So, this bill used Quebec's know-how and support to try to strip away all of the powers that are properly Quebec's. These are powers that work well, and are working better and better in Quebec.
Some provinces chose not to take part. That is why the government is once again trying to centralize the powers and to reduce the powers of the chief firearms officers, who are located in the provinces and in Quebec, powers designed to improve the management of the program.
It is important to remember that the Sûreté du Québec looks for a criminal record when issuing permits. I can assure the House that centralizing everything with federal agencies is not for the purpose of improving management. The purpose, once again, will be to appropriate powers and to centralize them.
It is important to remember that even though we are against the Canadian Alliance's motion because of its objective, this does not mean that the Bloc Quebecois does not support the firearms registry. On the contrary. The Canadian Alliance wants to scrap the firearms registry program altogether.
However, no one wants to give the government a blank cheque any more so that it can produce one fiasco after another. For seven years now, huge sums have been invested, and the firearm registry is not even complete. One-third of all guns have yet to be registered. But we must not lose sight of the problem: registration is voluntary. Therefore, if two-thirds of all firearms have been voluntarily registered at a cost of $788 million to date, with one-third still left, how much will it cost to “force or convince” the remaining one-third of all gun owners to register?
There is an attempt to make us believe that the money will always be available. I refuse to believe this.
We will be voting in favour of the supplementary estimates, in which the government is asking for between $59 million and $60 million to continue this program. But we will certainly not be voting in favour of allocating supplementary funds each time, without knowing how this money is being spent.
As I said earlier, just because the program is moving from the Department of Justice to the Department of the Solicitor General does not mean that we do not want to know where this money went. This is a huge amount.
With regard to the first part of the Alliance motion, on this point, we must know where this money has gone and details must be--