Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what my Bloc colleague had to say.
I agree with him that the firearms registry has been very badly managed. There is really nothing in these amendments that will substantially improve that. The government has admitted that as well. In fact, if there was something that was really going to improve the registry and save money, why has it taken the government two years to bring this forward again? If it is so important, why are we waiting so long?
The question I would like to ask my colleague is, and it will take me a bit of time to explain this, is he in favour of a registry that is not cost effective? He was saying that the federal government should be transferring more money to Quebec for this. Quebeckers want a gun registry. The question I have for the member is, should a cost benefit analysis of the registry not be done before we go any further with this? How do we know that these amendments are going to do all that they should do in improving this? The registry is not gun control and the member assumed that it was. What the Auditor General said is, and this is a key point of the report, that Parliament is being kept in the dark.
In order for democracy to work, two things are needed. What is needed is an opposition that can hold the government accountable and a media that is going to inform the people of the country what is going on.
We cannot get the information. We have not seen the cost benefit analysis. The previous finance minister kept that cost benefit analysis a secret. The people of Canada do not know what is going on. In fact, members of Parliament cannot figure out what is going on with the firearms registry. If the government was proud of it, it would have come forward with the information.
I have had to put in over 300 access to information requests in order to try to piece the puzzle together. The Auditor General verified that what I had pieced together was in fact true. It is costing $1 billion. Canadians also need to know what is going on.
The question I have for the member is, should a cost benefit analysis not be done to see if the money we are spending on this is improving public safety and reducing crime? Is he in favour of a registry that is not cost effective?