Debates of April 7th, 2003

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, 75 questions and no answers, I guess, but I will give an answer pretty quickly. If we want to talk about precedents, I am always amazed at the Alliance discussion about grassroots because the precedent of where that came from is just very good for the Alliance Party. The precedent of where grassroots came from is King John's knights standing on the grass sod at Runnymede and I suggest that it has very little to do with grassroots today. On the precedent coming out of 1941, to Speaker Fraser's ruling in 1988, to the ruling by Speaker Milliken, I will stand by my point: It is very clear.

He can waste time discussing that if he wants. The Speakers have ruled on it and they have agreed that the Senate has a right to split a bill. I find that the precedent from the party that says it would like Senate reform but does not want to give the Senate any more powers is amazing. I would say the same thing to my NDP colleague. They cannot have it both ways.

I am not willing and do not want to waste my time debating the precedent of whether or not the Senate had the right to split the bill and send it back. It has been done. I want it debated on the fact that it is a poor piece of legislation. It is not worth the paper it is written on and it is high time we did something to throw it out of here besides waste words.

[Leon Benoit, Canadian Alliance, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member is calling for the Senate to be given more power although the Senate is a non-democratic body, with members appointed by the Prime Minister. It is completely non-democratic.

Does the member not think that a more appropriate way of reforming the Senate would be along the lines of what has been proposed by the Canadian Alliance, where, once the senators are elected, then we talk about making sure they have the appropriate powers to provide a check and balance based on regional differences and minority rights? Does he not think that is the way to go rather than the way he is suggesting, which is to give them more power as non-elected senators, then at some time in the future make it votable?

I would also like him to comment on why fully half of his caucus, back when this bill was put through, did not come out against this bill. Fully half his caucus did not come out against this bill when it was passed.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, somehow or another, when one misleads the House like that there should be some responsibility on one's shoulders. Because Bill C-17 had nothing to--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Order, please. I think the hon. member has been here long enough to realize that the last words he has just spoken are unparliamentary. I would like to ask him to withdraw them, please.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker, I would not want to be in contradiction of the House and certainly would withdraw those last words.

In answer to the question, this is what happens with the bill: We get off on Senate reform instead of dealing with the issue. Deal with the issue. The issue is gun control. The specific question was whether or not Bill C-17 was a good bill, versus Bill C-68. I think the hon. member would go back to the provisions of Bill C-17 in a heartbeat, because it had safe handling and safe storage and that is what gun control is all about. It is not about the long gun registry, which has proven ineffective and absolutely does not work.

As for saying that somehow this is a Tory bill, this is a bill that was brought in by the Liberals. We had a gun control bill, thank you very much, which was working quite well. It provided for licensing and provided for courses. It put better hunters in the field, because I happen to meet them when I am out there. And it provided for safe storage and safe handling. That is the key to the bill.

This foolishness about a long gun registry that somehow makes people feel better has nothing to do with gun control and obviously the Alliance Party has not figured that out yet.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I want to address the bill. We have raised various objections to the government even introducing this in the way that it has, but I want to go on to address some of the key and fundamental flaws and problems with this entire issue before us. First I want to give some reasons for why in Bill C-10A, which is an amendment to the original Bill C-68, introduced and passed with invoking closure back in 1995, there are serious flaws, with the government tinkering with this at this point. It is not nearly good enough and will not do anything to suddenly make this gun control.

No matter what the government says, Bill C-68, which was passed in 1995, is not gun control. Let us remember that through this entire debate. It is not improving public safety in any measurable way. It is not reducing crime. It is not doing any of the things that the government claimed it would do for the cost to taxpayers, for the original $2 million. It has gone 500 times over cost, maybe even more according to the Auditor General, and it is not accomplishing what the government wants.

The reason I want to deal with this is that, first of all, this bill, Bill C-10A, should be sent back to the Senate, the other place, as we often refer to it, for more sober second thought.

Let us look at the history of this particular bill before us now, these amendments. The House of Commons really has the authority to split bills. The Senate does not have that authority. The question the government has to ask is this: If we do not follow our Constitution, which guides us, why do we even have a Constitution? That, to me, is something that we cannot override. I know that the government is asking us to vote on whether we can remove our privileges. We cannot vote to remove the privileges of members of the House of Commons. That is against all parliamentary practice. That should never be allowed and the government is getting away with it, claiming, as I just heard members say, that it is allowed, it is fine. Many people rise as individuals on questions of privilege because the government cannot vote to take away those privileges.

The second point I would like to make with regard to why the bill should be sent back to the Senate is that the amendments to the Firearms Act contained in Bill C-10A are more than two years old and do not even come close to addressing all the problems, all the amendments, all the things that have been identified in the last two years as huge problems with the firearms registry. They do not do any of that.

That is why the bill should be sent back. That is why the whole thing should be scrapped: because the problems with the Firearms Act are not addressed by Bill C-10A, the bill that is now before us which the government would like to push through. The government does not want to go through all the stages of the bill, because if it did, more and more problems would be highlighted. It does not want to send it back to the committee stage so witnesses can come forward and point out the huge problems with the Firearms Act.

That is why the government wants us to ram it through right now. That is why it wants us to go against our privileges and go through the various stages of the bill. It does not want the bill to go back to committee to have the experts who know how the bill is unfolding come to that committee and say, “These amendments in Bill C-10A do not address the problems”. That is why this thing should be withdrawn, taken off the table and done away with.

Let us look at what the Auditor General said on the cost of implementing the Canadian firearms program. Her report highlights some of the huge problems. Let us look at the error rate she identified. The Auditor General quoted various experts who have studied this and who say that the error rate is up to 90% on the registration certificates that are sent in; 90% of them contain errors.

That is not addressed in this bill. This is the biggest garbage collection system in the nation, and the most expensive, and the bill does not address that. Why are we even dealing with the bill if it does not address the huge problems with that? All we have to do is look at the RCMP's Canadian firearms program report for the information that verifies what I just said.

The government scrapped the whole verification process that was supposed to ensure that the information collected was accurate. It did it for the first million registration certificate applications but after that it was scrapped. We now have five million firearms in the registry with inaccurate information. The police cannot rely on it. It is garbage in garbage out. That is another problem that has not been addressed by Bill C-10A but there are many others.

The privacy commissioner put out a report entitled “Review of the Personal Information Handling Practices of the Canadian Firearms Program”. He chastized the government for the huge problems it has caused and for the violation of the privacy rights of all Canadians. The government did not address any of that in Bill C-10A. Why are we dealing with that today if the bill is totally inadequate in addressing some of the concerns brought forward?

I know my time is limited but I want to deal with as many issues as I can because they are all important.

Bill C-10A does not include some of the most important amendments needed to track high risk persons. While the government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars tracking down law-abiding firearms owners, such as duck hunters, sport shooters, people who use firearms in a recreational and healthy way, it does not track true criminals.

There are 131,000 people in this country who have been prohibited from owning firearms. The government has not even bothered to ask the police to see if those individuals have firearms. It does not enforce laws already on the books and now it has a totally ineffective gun registry.

I listened to the justice minister as he answered my questions in question period. He said that the firearms registry was a huge success when in fact the licensing provisions in it have denied 9,000 people permission to buy a firearm. He did not mention the 131,000 people have been denied that privilege and nobody has even checked on them. They do not even have to report a change of address. However law-abiding gun owners have to report their change of address within one month or they could face up to two years in jail. None of these huge problems are addressed in the bill.

As the Canadian Alliance has said all along, the bill goes after the wrong people in society. Why do we not go after the criminal in society rather than law-abiding people?

Another problem with the bill is that the amendments to the Firearms Act do not address the amendments recommended and accepted by the justice minister in the Hession report. The justice minister made a huge issue of the fact that he would do an internal audit of the firearms registry. After the Auditor General released her report on December 3, 2002, he made a big deal about reviewing it and bringing forward proposals to make it work.

Bill C-10A has been back and forth from the House of Commons to the Senate and none of the things that Mr. Hession identified are in the bill. Why are we even debating this today? The bill is old. The problems that have come forth in the firearms registry have not been addressed in it and yet the minister has claimed that somehow it will improve things.

The amendments in Bill C-10A to the Firearms Act do not meet the requirements to implement the justice minister's action plan. The government announced recently that it wants to transfer the Canadian firearms program from the justice department to the Solicitor General's department. Is there anything in the bill in regard to that? No. The government is violating its own rules. There is no provision in government for this to happen.

The section of Bill C-68 dealing with firearms defines the federal minister as the Minister of Justice. The Firearms Act is riddled with references to the federal minister and his authority under the act, the regulations, orders in council, safety course forms and even the appointment of the new commissioner of the firearms registry in Bill C-10A. All of this is in the bill but the government has announced that it will be transferred to the Solicitor General. Will it bring in another bill immediately following this one? Why not withdraw this and do things properly.

The House of Commons voted five times on Bill C-68: at second reading, at report state, third reading and on two time allocation motions. The Standing Committee on Justice spent weeks studying and reporting to Bill C-68, many of which were rejected by the justice department, but a change to the definition of federal minister was never suggested or considered.

The clear intent of the government was that the firearms program be administered by the justice department. If the government wants to transfer administration of the Firearms Act to another minister, it must be brought back before the House for a full debate of why the program will be better administered by the same people working under yet under another minister. All the government is doing is changing the name plates on the doors but it still requires an amendment in the House to do that.

The sixth issue that I bring forward is that the amendments to the Firearms Act in Bill C-10A do not address the 250 amendments proposed to Bill C-68 in 1995 by the then Reform Party in the report stage debate. All of them were rejected by the government. In hindsight, the government should have accepted those. It still has not. It has not fixed what is broken.

Today in my office we received 517 pages of briefing notes prepared for the Minister of Justice. Here are some of the quotes about Bill C-10 contained in them. I would like to read them.

In the notes dated October 18, 2002, and provided to the minister in preparation for his meeting with the Quebec minister of justice, under the section entitled Bill C-10A, it states:

The legislation will consolidate the operation of the Program at the federal level under a Commissioner of Firearms, incorporate the firearms registry under the Minister of Justice and enable Canada to meet international obligations under the United Nations Protocol and the OAS Firearms Convention.

My question for the justice minister or the Solicitor General is: Why is the minister now saying that he is going to transfer the gun registry to the Solicitor General? Why is this transfer not made in Bill C-10A?

Another point in regard to what we found in these briefing notes reads:

In the “approved” copy of the Justice Minister's 'opening remarks' concerning the amendments in Bill C-10 to the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs dated October 24, 2002 it states: “We are consolidating the statutory authority for all administration under a Canadian Firearms Commissioner who will report directly to the Minister of Justice”.

The question that needs to be answered is: Why has the minister changed his mind since he told the Senate this? Why is the government proposing now to consolidate the statutory authority under the Solicitor General? The government is changing its mind constantly and none of that is reflected in the bill.

The e-mail goes on to state:

In the “revised 02-10-23” version of the “questions and answers C-10 amendments on firearms”, question #6 states: “Why have a Firearms Commissioner and how will this change the RCMP's involvement in the program?”

The next question is:

Consolidating administrative authority for all operations under a Canadian Firearms Commissioner would ensure more direct accountability to the Justice Minister, who will remain responsible to Parliament for the program. This would in turn enhance financial accountability.

The question we have to ask is: Do we know how financially accountable the justice minister has been? The Auditor General has told us and I think that is quite clear. The justice minister still has not told us how much the gun registry has cost to date or how much it will cost to fully implement. His Plans and Priorities report tabled in the House was filled with 105 blanks; an unbelievable report that he has put forward. In many areas costs are totally unaccounted for.

Why has the Justice Minister changed his mind since the end of October? How will the amendments in Bill C-10A make the Solicitor General any more accountable to Parliament than the justice minister?

I would now like to go on to the second part of my intervention today. I have 14 questions that the justice minister must answer before Parliament and must give before Parliament before we proceed with the legislation. I will go through these in the next few minutes.

The first question the justice minister should ask before we proceed with Bill C-10A is this. The poorly worded Firearms Act amendments proposed in Bill C-10A were first introduced in the House two years ago. Many things have changed in the last two years, including recommendations from Mr. Hession calling for even more amendments to streamline the gun registry operation. Why not just put all the amendments from the minister's upcoming action plan into one new bill and let the House debate them all at once? Why do it in this manner?

The next question I would like to ask is this. The lawyers in the Library of Parliament and witnesses appearing before the justice committee exposed some serious ambiguity if the new definition of muzzle velocity and muzzle energy in Bill C-10A is implemented. The justice minister refused to consider a simple amendment to remove the confusion. Why will the minister not ask the Senate to pass this simple amendment when it reports its amendments to the cruelty to animals sections? Why did it not put that in before it reported this back to the House?

The next question is this. Since Bill C-68 came into force in December 1998, the government has passed six amnesties for the tens of thousands of banned short-barrelled handguns covered by the amendments in Bill C-10A, proving once again that these banned firearms are not dangerous at all when in the hands of their licensed owners. Considering Mr. Hession's recommendations for more amendments to streamline handgun ownership and transportation, why does the government not just introduce a new bill so Parliament can debate all the amendments to Bill C-68 all at once?

My fourth question that the justice minister should answer before we pass this is this. RCMP testing has confirmed that many air guns, pellet guns and even some BB guns exceed both the muzzle energy and muzzle velocity requirements in Bill C-10A and will have to be registered just as soon as Bill C-10A is proclaimed. How many millions of air guns, pellet guns and BB guns will now have to be registered and how much will it cost to register them? The justice minister should answer that question. He has avoided this at every opportunity he has had to answer it, and yet it is a key question.

How many criminals will this create when this is passed? People who have purchased air guns, pellet guns and BB guns, which will now, with the new definition contained here, have to be registered, will not even have obtained a firearms licence, and cannot, if they are in possession of one of these firearms, with the way Bill C-68, the Firearms Act, is worded, and will become criminals.

The fifth question I would like to ask is this. There may be as many as one million air gun and pellet gun owners. Has the government notified those people? What will the government do with them? Has it notified them that their guns will have to be registered and they have to get a licence? How will that all work? There may be as many as one million air gun and pellet gun owners in Canada. Not only do most of them not know that their pellet guns are about to become firearms that need to be registered, but they do not know how to do it or what the whole process is. How does the justice minister plan to deal with this huge problem?

The next question is this. The way the Firearms Act is currently worded, it does not permit anyone to register a firearm that is currently unregistered unless they hold a valid firearms licence and sent a letter of intent to the justice minister before December 31. Owners of these air guns and pellet guns did not know before now that some of their guns needed to be registered. What amendments are needed in order to allow these newly minted gun owners to licence themselves and register their air guns? How is that going to happen?

None of that is addressed in Bill C-10A. It is an extremely flawed bill and that is why the Canadian Alliance opposes it.

Based upon the new definition of a firearm as contained in Bill C-10A, how many millions more will it cost taxpayers to licence all these air guns and pellet guns? How much will it cost? The justice minister should answer that.

The RCMP testing has confirmed that many of the air guns, pellet guns and even some BB guns exceed the muzzle energy and muzzle velocity required in the new Bill C-10A. What has the government done to deal with the issue and to inform gun owners?

What has the government done to deal with the issue, to inform gun owners?

Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal more I need to relate on this. I hope at some point I will be able to do that. I would like to propose an amendment at this time. I move:

That the amendment be amended by inserting after the words “by the Senate” in the last line of the first paragraph of the amendment the words “goes beyond the authority of the Senate and”.

[The Speaker]

The question therefore is on the amendment to the amendment.

There will be a 10 minute question and comment period for the hon. member in a moment, but I am going to deliver a ruling on another matter.

Points of Order

[The Speaker]

I now want to rule on the point of order raised on April 3, 2003 by the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, concerning events that took place at the April 2, 2003 meeting of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources. I believe that there is some urgency to this decision since it may have some bearing on the work that the committee intends to take up this week.

I would like to begin by thanking the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for having raised this matter, as well as the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, the hon. government House leader, the hon. member for Athabasca and the hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast for their interventions. I also want to thank the hon. member for Nickel Belt for rising this morning to address this situation.

The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot identified two issues relating to the proceedings in the Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development Natural Resources Committee at its meeting of April 2, 2003. First, he claimed that the chair of the committee had permitted the moving of the previous question on a point of order, while another member of the committee had the floor. The hon. member protested that it was contrary to our rules to permit the moving of a motion on a point of order and that, further, the previous question is not admissible in committee.

Secondly, he raised the issue of the use of unparliamentary language by the Chair of the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Committee.

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre presented a slightly different version of the events, pointing out that while the chair had in fact ruled the previous question to be inadmissible, he had also invited the committee to challenge his ruling. The ruling was challenged and overturned. The hon. member for Athabasca indicated his agreement with this account of the committee's proceedings.

The hon. government House leader, who was not present at the meeting, referred the House to House of Commons Procedure and Practice , page 647, which describes occasions on which committee chairs were forced to intervene to overrule obstructive tactics in committee. Based on these earlier events, which he characterized as precedents, he claimed that the Chair of the Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources Committee had acted properly. He also stated that the intention of the motion that the committee was studying was to end a filibuster and not to curtail the study of the bill. He concluded by suggesting that the procedural issues raised in this case might be a subject that the Special Committee on the Modernization of the Rules and Procedures of the House of Commons should examine.

The hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast offered the opinion that in fact the chair of the committee had not ruled the motion for the previous question out of order but had only drawn the attention of the committee to the fact that it was inadmissible. On that basis, he felt that no grounds existed for a challenge of the chair's ruling because no ruling had been given.

First, I must say that the Chair is somewhat perplexed at the situation before us in that the behaviour complained of occurred in a committee that was meeting in camera. Your Speaker has no way of corroborating the allegations of hon. members because I have no access to the verbatim transcript of the committee. So I am simply taking the word of the hon. members who have addressed these issues. I need hardly remind all hon. members that proceedings in camera are to be held in confidence and ought not to be discussed outside the confines of the meeting.

That said, it is, I think, advisable, to remind the House of our usual practice with respect to procedural irregularities in a committee. Marleau and Montpetit, page 858, states:

If a committee desires that some action be taken against those disrupting its proceedings, it must report the situation to the House.

At page 128, we read:

Speakers have consistently ruled that, except in the most extreme situations, they will only hear questions of privilege arising from committee proceedings upon presentation of a report from the committee which directly deals with the matter and not as a question of privilege raised by an individual member.

With respect to the issue of the use of unparliamentary language, the Chair must say that if the language actually used is as bad as has been stated, then it certainly would not be tolerated in this chamber. That said, I must point out that this is a matter that must be dealt with in the committee. Order and decorum in committee is an internal matter and the judgment of what is or is not acceptable must be made there. I know that the House is aware that the hon. member for Nickel Belt has withdrawn the remarks complained of and has apologized to all members of this House, especially to members of the standing committee, for the language he used in the heat of the moment.

While the Chair appreciates this apology—as, I am sure, do all hon. members—I would, with respect, suggest that it is in the committee that this issue needs to be settled and it is there that the relationship between the chair of the committee and the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot ought to be repaired.

In the case before us, there has been as yet no report from the committee. As well, the matters raised by the hon. member for St.-Hyacinthe—Bagot have been brought forward as a point of order, rather than a question of privilege. The reluctance of previous Speakers, and of myself on earlier occasions, to intervene in the business of committees is procedurally well founded. At the same time, as the last citation from Marleau and Montpetit points out, it is not an absolute rule but depends on the severity of the situation.

Let us examine the procedural rules at issue here. First, as was indicated by several members, our practice does not permit the moving of the previous question in committee. This is clearly indicated in House of Commons Procedure and Practice at page 456 and at page 786.

We also recognize in our practice that committees are masters of their own proceedings. In the present case, the Speaker has been told that the committee was deliberating on a motion to apportion speaking time during its consideration of a bill referred to it by the House. Deliberations on a motion of this kind are fully within the powers of the committee and have not been questioned.

Marleau and Montpetit at pages 855 and 856 states:

Generally, the length of time to be devoted to a particular topic is a matter for the committee to decide....As there is no limit in committee to the number of times of speaking or the length of speeches, committees may, if they choose, place limits on their own deliberations.

That being said, committees are also expected to adopt any such limits in a regular and procedurally acceptable manner. Speaker Fraser in a ruling given on March 26, 1990, at p. 9758 of Debates said:

—chairmen ought to be mindful of their responsibilities and make their decisions and rulings within the bounds of the fine balance provided by our rules.

—I would urge all chairmen and members of committees to try and strive mightily to ensure that the general rules of this place are followed as far as is sensible and helpful in those committees.

The House has been told that the Chair of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources ruled a motion for the previous question inadmissible. This, as should be clear from what I have said, was in conformity with our rules and practices.

The Chair’s decision was appealed from and the committee overturned it. Marleau and Montpetit, p. 857 clearly states:

While the chair’s rulings are not subject to debate, they may be appealed to the committee.

Standing Order 117 reads:

The Chair of a standing, special or legislative committee shall maintain order in the committee, deciding all questions of order subject to an appeal to the committee; but disorder in a committee can only be censured by the House, on receiving a report thereof.

This rule may sometimes place individual committee members in a position where they feel they have no recourse against decisions they consider unfair. While I understand such frustration, the Speaker is certainly not in a position to do anything other than uphold the Standing Orders.

It seems from the facts presented to me, that the events in the committee followed our usual rules and practices at each step. Whether the overall chain of events is entirely satisfactory is a question members may wish to consider separately.

I remind hon. members that the same appeal process which is currently provided for in committee at one time applied to rulings of the Speaker as well. It was only in 1965 that the right to appeal Speakers' rulings was removed from the standing orders. I urge hon. members to see the Journals for June 11, 1965 at page 224.

The House has recently agreed to the election of committee chairs by secret ballot, a procedure consistent with the manner in which your Speaker is chosen. This process is intended to permit such decisions to be reached free of any outside influence and to ensure that the committee’s presiding officer has the complete confidence of the membership.

In light of this change, it may perhaps be an appropriate time for the House to consider whether the rule permitting appeals from the chair’s ruling retains its original justification. As the hon. government House leader suggested, this is a matter that the Special Committee on the Modernization and Improvement of the Procedures of the House of Commons may wish to consider during its study of possible improvements to our rules.

Although I understand the positions that hon. members have taken with respect to events in the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources, I do not think that under our current rules they have reached an extreme that would justify intervention by the Speaker. That is not to say that there may not be procedural difficulties in the committee which need to be addressed by those directly concerned.

There is one final point that I would like to clarify with respect to this incident. In his presentation, the hon. government House leader made reference to earlier cases of similar difficulties in committee. I remind the House that, with respect to the events in the Standing Committee on Finance in 1990, the committee did report on the matter to the House and it was referred to the privileges and elections committee for consideration of the procedural difficulties that it presented.

With respect to the proceedings in the Standing Committee on Finance, Speaker Fraser stated (Debates, March 26, 1990, p. 9757):

I would caution members, however, in referring to this as a precedent. What occurred was merely a series of events and decisions made by the majority in a committee. Neither this House nor the Speaker gave the incidents any value whatsoever in procedural terms. One must exercise caution in attaching guiding procedural flags to such incidents and happenings.

Your Speaker is of the same view as Mr. Speaker Fraser on this point. I do not regard the present case to constitute a precedent by which future committee chairs should be guided, any more than the events which took place in 1984 or 1990.

I appreciate the hon. members' indulgence.

The House resumed consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, and of the amendment, and of the amendment to the amendment.

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague for Yorkton—Melville on his concerns with Bill C-10A. On one of them, the point he stressed was that Bill C-10A is now two years out of date.

Having said that, I know that since that time we have somewhere in the neighbourhood of eight provinces and three territories that say they want nothing to do with it. We have five provinces and three territories that took it to the Supreme Court. We have the Inuit with an exemption from the firearms legislation. We have the FSIN from Saskatchewan saying they are taking a court challenge to the Supreme Court.

I am wondering how, then, any of this will come to bear. Has any of this been addressed in Bill C-10A, this huge public outcry that this is not effective legislation? Would the member care to comment on that?

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the answer, of course, is that it is not addressed in the bill. We now have provinces that have taken a close look at this in the last few years. Eight provinces and territories do not want to have anything to do with it. There are only two provinces left, Quebec and Prince Edward Island, that are trying to co-operate with the federal government in implementing the firearms registry. That is a huge problem for the government.

It begs the question: If there are this many provinces and territories that do not want to have anything to do with the firearms registry, why on God's green earth is the government still plowing ahead with the proposed legislation? Do these provinces and territories not care about public safety? Do they not want to put in place laws that are going to be helpful to the people of this country? If there are that many people objecting to this and there is a criminal law that exempts certain segments of the population, that criminal law ought to be scrapped. That should be self-evident. Why are we continuing to go ahead with something like this?

These amendments do not address some of the huge problems that we see in the bill.

In fact, we have the government saying, “Canadians still support us”, but there now are polls being done that indicate the complete opposite.

The other day the government claimed that Canadians support it. An Environics poll said that 53% of Canadians supported the firearms registry. I was asked to go on national television to respond to that poll. Before I would go on, I said I wanted to see the questions asked in this poll that showed Canadians wanted the firearms registry. At first, they refused to even let me see those questions, but I demanded it, saying that before I would go on and face a Liberal MP I wanted to know what those questions were all about.

Had I known I would be asked this question, I would have had them in front of me. I discovered in reviewing those questions that in fact the government had asked a whole series of questions like the following. “Do you support safe storage of firearms?” “Do you support the gun registry?” That was mixed in there. “Do you support safety courses that firearms owners should be asked to take?” They were asked if they supported a whole bunch of things, all in one question. If I were faced with that I would have to answer yes, and I know what a huge boondoggle the firearms fiasco is. Yet the government then appeals to that particular question as huge support for the gun registry when in fact that is not what the question was really about. Then it went on to a second question that again mixed up several things and the government says, “This is support for our firearms registry”.

There is not public support for the firearms registry once the public knows what it is. The government calls this a gun control bill. When the public discovers that it has nothing to do with gun control, that it is merely a gun registry, that it is merely laying a piece of paper beside every firearm in the country, they do not support it any longer. When the public is asked the question in a poll, “do you support gun control?”, in essence, we all do, but the firearms registry is not gun control.

As the hon. member just asked me about, that is why the provinces and territories said, “Get rid of this and give us more money to put police on the street”. We could put up to 12,000 police on the streets of this country and that would improve public safety. It has been demonstrated by other governments that this actually works in reducing crime. That is at the heart of the question. What is cost effective? What really works to reduce crime?

The previous finance minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, approved the spending for this entire program without giving us a cost benefit analysis. In fact, he violated the government's own guidelines. The Treasury Board guidelines mandate that before a big new program like this we should have a cost benefit analysis: Is it going to improve public safety and is it going to be cost effective in doing that? That is why the provinces and territories are saying, “Scrap this program. We need effective measures to reduce crime and improve public safety”.

I could go on and on. The bill shows the lack of consultation on the part of the government. It rammed ahead a piece of legislation that is now seriously flawed. The bottom line is that these amendments do not correct the huge deficiencies in Bill C-68. They do not make it gun control.

That is why the Canadian Alliance is going to oppose this. It is just a waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money.

[Peter Goldring, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Centre-East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague previously mentioned the point that a person might receive two years in jail for simply not reporting a change of address. Further in his speech my hon. colleague talked about other guns, such as air guns and pellet guns. He suggested there are one million pellet gun owners in Canada. I am one of them and perhaps many here in the House own a pellet gun.

The problem with the pellet guns is they are not all marked as far as the velocity goes. How many of those one million people would actually know that they are to register something as seemingly innocuous as a pellet gun? In reality what perhaps would be a larger more serious threat would be a flare gun and there is no call for registering flare guns at all. As well there is no call to register many other items. However pellet guns are to be under Bill C-10 and perhaps would bring one million Canadians, for the first time in their lives, under the peril of breaking a law that they would be doing quite innocently.

The question I would like to ask my hon. colleague is about pellet guns and of course I mentioned flare guns. Perhaps he could expand on more problems with this and tell us all about some of the other problems he envisions with this bill so we could all be informed.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised an issue that strikes at the very heart of the problems with this bill.

The bill criminalizes people who are not criminals. That is the bottom line and it is what we need to be talking about today. That is why police on the street, the people who have to deal with the public, are beginning to come forth to say scrap the bill.

This is just one example of the difficulty it is going to create for them. Law-abiding citizens will suddenly have to be charged under the Criminal Code, firearms act, for possessing an unregistered BB gun, pellet gun or air rifle and they do not even know it at this point.

The president of the Canadian Police Association said that because of this bill the good relationship the police have enjoyed with the citizens of the country is being violated. It is destroying that trust relationship. He went on to explain that the police cannot do their work properly because of C-68. The vast majority of people, almost 100% of the citizens of the country, have to agree with criminal law in order for the police to properly enforce it. This law, he said, is beginning to destroy that trust relationship that has to exist between the police and the people that they are policing.

What this whole thing with air guns and BB guns raises is that now we will be criminalizing people because they have not done the paperwork, people who have never previously done anything wrong. Because they have not laid a piece of paper beside their firearm, people will suddenly be criminals. That is a serious problem.

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for you. I was going to rise on a point of order, but is it possible that we could have the Hansard record show in the House of Commons that there are no Liberal MPs rising to support or oppose the firearms amendments? Is it possible to have the record show that?

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Once again, Mr. Speaker, we have to deal with an issue that we should not even bother with given the way things were done. We all realize that the Senate is going beyond its rights in trying to order the House around.

The Senate is attacking the rights and privileges of this House. As we all know, the Bloc Quebecois believes that the Senate should no longer exist. If the Senate wanted to have some influence over our society, it should have worked a bit harder on the Young Offenders Act, instead of wasting the time of the House today.

Why do I say that? Because now the government has to move a motion to split a bill. In the first session of the 37th Parliament, the bill called Bill C-15 at the time was split into two bills, C-15A and C-15B. Why was it not split in three, if we wanted to deal separately with the issues of sexual abuse against children, cruelty to animals and the Firearms Act? That could have been done. In fact, when the Bloc Quebecois first asked for the bill to be split, it wanted the bill to be split into three.

More and more, the government is introducing so-called omnibus bills. With only one bill, it tries to make significant amendments to several pieces of legislation dealing with various issues that have nothing in common. Provisions in those bills have nothing in common and deal with very different acts.

One instance was during the first session of the 37th Parliament, with bills C-15A and C-15B. Bill C-15A dealt with the sexual exploitation of children, and Bill C-15B dealt with cruelty against animals and amendments to the Firearms Act. Go figure. There was an opportunity, of which the government did not avail itself.

Bill C-15B received all three readings in the House and was referred to the Senate for consideration. It is absolutely ludicrous that we are now required to start all over because the bill should apparently have been divided into Bill C-10A, concerning cruelty to animals, and Bill C-10B, concerning firearms.

I am surprised, and even very disappointed, to notice that the government's motion would allow Bill C-10 to be divided into Bill C-10A and Bill C-10B. As I said earlier, had this been done at the right time, we would not be wasting our time today. The problem is that we have no choice but to consider it because of the demand to divide the bill into Bill C-10A and Bill C-10B.

Today, we are debating an amendment to this motion. This amendment, brought forward by the Canadian Alliance, states:

“, in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, this House does not concur with the Senate's division of the Bill into two parts, namely, Bill C-10A, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (firearms) and the Firearms Act, and Bill C-10B, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals), since it is the view of this House that such alteration to Bill C-10 by the Senate is an infringement of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons; and

That this House asks that the Senate consider Bill C-10 in an undivided form; and

That a Message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours therewith.”

We have already debated Bill C-15B, including these two amendments. We have gone through the three readings and, even if the bill is divided, the Bloc's position remains unchanged.

We spoke in committee, we heard witnesses, we held debates in this House, but unfortunately the basic issue was never addressed. Of course, animal protection is important.

It is also important that a bill be drafted, when it comes down to it, according to the standards, and that the bill respect all sides, not just one. Unfortunately, the amendments presented by the Bloc Quebecois relating to animal cruelty, pertinent though they were, would have suited those who wanted to see animals as well as all animal-related industries protected.

As hon. members are aware, it is usually the case, almost with a majority or unanimity, every amendment in this House that is submitted by the Bloc Quebecois during debate is rejected by the government.

We called for changes. Let us make it perfectly clear, we were in agreement with the principle, and still are in agreement with the bill as far as animal cruelty is concerned. What is important to know is that we are in agreement with the new part of the bill that is aimed at protecting animals, because animals are not property. Yet that element was included in a section relating to ownership rights. Imagine that.

Yes, it is high time for a change. Unfortunately, the Bloc Quebecois was not listened to, nor to some extent were all the stakeholders in animal-related industries and those in favour of animal protection who were consulted.

Our amendment was this: to respect the defences contained in section 429 of the Criminal Code, in which there are specific defences, not just those based on the common law in section 8 of the Criminal Code.

We made explicit demands, and I raised these in the House and in committee. I would have liked to have seen the Senate, rather than suggesting that the bill be split and issuing orders to the House, pay some attention to protecting the animal husbandry industry as follows: retaining the rights set out in section 429 and explicitly including them in the new part V.1, with which we agree.

This would take nothing away from the newly created part, with which the Bloc Quebecois agrees, concerning protecting animals from unbelievable cruelty. We see what goes on in kennels all over Canada and Quebec. We see the horrors of puppy mills, the unbelievable sights there.

Legislation can be based on an important principle, but be poorly drafted. What is insulting, is when they try to correct legislation to allow two groups—and these are not two conflicting groups—to protect animals from cruelty. The animal industry itself wants to prevent cruelty to animals. If it does happen, no need to worry; despite these amendments, people who perpetrate cruelty against animals will be found guilty, and we agree that penalties should be stiffer for these people who make the lives of these animals so difficult.

However, the way in which the bill is drafted will allow some groups to perpetrate abuse, because there will be a lack of resources. This is another problem that existed and has not been solved.

When a certain amount of money is provided to the Department of Justice to enforce rights, let us not fool ourselves. When forced to make a choice, attorneys general are not going to ask themselves if they should pursue a case against someone who abused a child or committed a murder, or if they should pursue a case against someone who abused an animal or demonstrated cruelty to an animal.

Unfortunately, if the legislation had been applied properly, we probably would not have to redo it. However, due to a lack of money, we are forced to specify things in the legislation and we have to do this.

We now have to guarantee what has always existed. When I speak of the animal industry, I refer to researchers or to hunters or farmers who kill animals for an industry, such as pork or beef producers, so that we can eat. Not everyone is a vegetarian; some people eat animals, but all is done according to the regulations and standards that this industry must obey. I can tell you that the great majority of those in the animal industry respect these standards. Truly cruel enterprises do exist and might also have been charged, despite the fact that there is a defence under section 429 of the Criminal Code—of course, that was the means of defence—namely colour of right or legal justification or excuse.

We have asked the government why it did not take the means of defence provided in the Criminal Code and include them in part V.1. Section 429 speaks of colour of right and legal justification or excuse, and that applies perfectly to clause 11.

If these allegations or these details are not reproduced in part V.1, we must understand that these defences are no longer explicit. The government says that clause 8, the defence under common law, will apply. In clause 8, what the common law provides are existing defences. If we say that the defences I have mentioned are implicit, why have these defences been explicitly included in section 429?

Legislators do not talk if they have nothing to say. These defences were included in section 429 because they are not implicitly covered in the common law. Now, there is jurisprudence to this effect and we ask, explicitly, that it be included in part V.1, in order to permit the animal industry—those who do things correctly, those who respect the standards, let us be clear—to retain the same means of defence they had in the past and should have in the future.

Unfortunately the Bloc Quebecois was really torn about opposing Bill C-15B concerning cruelty to animals. This is a principle we have been defending since our party started and even before. I would say that, probably, each member of the Bloc Quebecois supports this principle. Now, a title, an extreme is being used to cruelly change all the work that can be done properly by hunters who respect nature and animals or by a research facility that increasingly follows standards.

If this is not the case, the necessary funds should be invested to hire inspectors to check. Money should be invested to do this. If this also applies under Quebec's animal protection legislation, money should be transferred—of course, it is a question of fiscal imbalance—so that we get what is needed and so that the Minister of Justice can enforce the legislation.

What is happening is that this is being replaced by a bad legal principle, and there is an attempt to show that the Bloc Quebecois can be opposed to the cruelty against animals legislation, which is included in the Criminal Code. Frankly, this is called being seriously off track. It is essential to respect those in the industry who are correctly handling animals.

The Criminal Code, as amended, with the bill, naturally, but also with the amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois, would have teeth and result in legislation with harsher sanctions for those committing acts of cruelty toward animals, while protecting those working in the animal-related industry.

The possibility that this defence will no longer be available remains. Can we afford to take that risk? If the government does not understand this and tells us that its intention is not to harm the animal husbandry industry, why does it not explicitly set out these means of defence which, it claims, are implicitly protected?

The means of defence in section 429 have not been transferred to the new part. It will no longer be the same means of defence that will apply. It is as simple as that.

I have met at my office with the presidents of several associations. When I explained my position, and that of the Bloc Quebecois, to them, they had no problem understanding it. They agreed that there was a problem and that they were going very far, saying, “We will go along with it, of course. They are going farther than we asked. We will take advantage of it. A judge cannot act ultra vires , but if legislation leading to 21 judgments is enacted, we will use it”. I can understand them; I would do the same.

Our job, however, as representatives of the people in our ridings, be it in Quebec or anywhere in Canada, is to scrutinize legislation before it is implemented, and that is what we are doing. In my opinion, it is unfortunate that, instead of amending legislation to improve it, there is a tendency to associate amendments to parties, and if an amendment is put forward by a certain party, it is rejected.

I would go so far as to say that, at the clause by clause stage, when witnesses were heard, government members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—I would like them to read what they said—supported this approach. Unfortunately, members know how it is. That day, many Liberals were in attendance, and they voted down our amendments designed to prevent cruelty against animals and protect the entire animal husbandry industry. I find that incredible.

Today, what the Senate is asking us to do is to divide a bill into two, instead of considering the importance of this bill.

I must speak to the section of Bill C-10 that addresses firearms. Once again, the government made use of Quebec and even the SQ to establish a firearms registry. Individually, we believe in it, but we are forced to say whether it is good or not because of the administration of this government. It is not that the registry is no good, it is their administration.

The Minister of Justice tells us that any registration program will cost $1 billion. Really now, we are anxious to see the figures. We are told we have them. Once again, with this bill, as with the section dealing with animal cruelty, we are torn.

Why are we obliged to vote against this bill? Because with this bill—and I must explain this quickly—the chief firearms officers are losing all of their powers. Everything pertaining to licence issuing in Quebec is being changed.

Probably, the federal government with its desire to appropriate all powers to itself, will then want to privatize the entire system. Then they will be saying, “Look at what we have done. We have brought all this over to the central government. It will cost less and we will then contract it out”.

This is a way of concealing the fact that it has used the people of Quebec and their skills in setting up this registry. The one in Quebec is working very well. Today they want to appropriate all of the powers and return them to the commissioner, instead of leaving them with the chief firearms officer and the SQ. I trust the funding agreements with Quebec will be forthcoming as soon as possible.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have to admit this is the first time I have heard that Quebec has a registry or would support a registry within the province.

One of the points that a good number of us from out west in rural Canada submitted was that if individual provinces or even municipalities felt they needed a bylaw in place to keep track of the firearms, they could go that route but it should not be something imposed on the entire nation.

I am curious as to how the registry operates in Quebec and whether or not there is a cost in place for the registry.

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is what happens when we run out of time. There is no Quebec firearms registry. The firearms registry is federal, but, in Quebec, it operates under the chief firearms officer. Quebec was involved in the implementation of the registry. It issues all the required licences, as do all the provinces that have agreed to do so.

The problem is as follows: money needs to be transferred to the provinces and funding agreements have to be reached. Why are we talking about money today after setting up a federal registry?

A registry does not operate on its own. Firearms have to be registered, licences have to be issued and a chief firearms officer has to be appointed. The Quebec police also needs to go over all the records and the problems related to the criminal use of firearms.

These are the administrative issues for which Quebec needs to negotiate some kind of agreement. Elsewhere in Canada, if the provinces do not want to bother with it, the federal government has to take over. Since several provinces have decided not to get involved, the federal government has to do the work.

But Quebec has assumed its responsibilities. The federal government once more has made use of this popularity. Just think: more than 80% of people in Quebec are in favour of the firearms registry. The Bloc Quebecois is in favour of the firearms registry, but not in favour of the administration provided by the Liberal government.

Although the registry was supposed to cost $2 million, today we are up to $778 million. Where will we be in a year and a half?

I am having trouble hearing the minister, but I want to say one thing, Mr. Speaker, but the minister must listen. The cost to establish the registry is now up to $778 million, and one third of the people are not even registered. That means it has cost that much to be able to register two thirds of the firearms, with people registering voluntarily. There is a problem. How is it possible for it to cost so much when people are registering voluntarily?

The government has asked for supplementary funds for this purpose. We had to vote in favour because we want the registry to exist, but we do not want to give it carte blanche or blank cheques to continue with the current disaster and political and financial fiasco. The government is asking for $60 million and $78 million to manage a registry that never should have cost this kind of money. That is what we must keep in mind.

A registry will not cost a billion dollars every time if the people who administer it do what they should. I just want to warn the House. Do not forget that, despite the amounts of money being requested, one third of firearms owners are not yet registered. In other words, these are clearly the people who will not register voluntarily, because they have not yet done so. Steps will have to be taken to get the system working. We will have to be alert and watch what is happening. A firearms registry, in principle, is not a bad thing but the way it is being managed certainly is.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

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?

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are clearly two separate things: the need for this type of a registry and how it is administered and set up.

Our problem is not with the registry as such, but with how it is being set up and the costs involved. Clearly, to respond to my colleague from the Canadian Alliance, we are not about to stop asking for information, whether from the Department of Justice, for issues related to the past, and maybe, in future, to the Solicitor General. Because now, we do not know exactly when this transfer is going to happen. It was supposed to have been done already, and now we do not know if it is going to happen.

I would respond to my colleague from the Canadian Alliance that obviously the Bloc Quebecois will be vigilant in trying to ascertain the costs and the benefits that are to be had, and to see whether it is necessary. I am certain that a tool such as a firearms registry is important. That is clearly the case if you ask police officers, be they in Quebec or elsewhere, and probably even in the west. The problem is that the member is saying this money could be spent elsewhere. That is not what is important. We must put the money needed into a tool as important as this to protect people. It is often women, children and the disadvantaged who are affected by criminals who use guns.

The more tools like this firearms registry—provided it is well managed, of course—are available, the better. Poor management should not be a reason to reject a principle. I want the Canadian Alliance to understand that, while support is expressed for this registry—and will no doubt continue to be expressed—there is a need for costs, including past costs, to be determined. We know that several million dollars were spent on ads. I said so last time. Once again, the money went to a firm called Groupaction. We have to check where the money went.

To set up a computerized registration system is one thing, but efforts must be made to ensure that it does not turn into a fiasco. What firms are involved? Why did it take so long? Why are one third of the people still not registered? I ask the government this: How is it that, after several years and investments of more than $778 million, now close to $1 billion, there are still people who are not on the firearms registry? The government has a serious administration problem.

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-10A. I am not sure if, in the over two years I have been the member of Parliament for Crowfoot, I have debated any other bills to the extent that the gun registry has come back into the House.

We have talked about agriculture, terrorism and security but the gun registry keeps coming back into the House because the government has failed. It comes back into the House--

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order please. It is difficult to hear the speech. If discussions must take place, I would ask that they be take place elsewhere.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Crowfoot.

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The advantage that a member for Crowfoot has when we have a Liberal cabinet minister heckling with Bloc members is that I do not know if they are heckling me or if they are talking about something else, so as long as they keep speaking like that, I will just keep going.

What I was saying is the legislation keeps coming back into the House because it is flawed. That is the only reason that it comes back. The legislation gets shipped off to the Senate and it gets shipped back to the House because it is flawed. We are standing here today again debating a piece of legislation that has been drawn up in a knee-jerk response and does not, in any type of satisfactory way, bear forward any legislation that will supplement or help public safety in the country. We are here today debating Bill C-10A.

On a number of occasions I have been prepared to debate this legislation, which resulted because the Senate split Bill C-15B. It has created two separate pieces of legislation: Bill C-10A which is an act to amend the Criminal Code in respect to firearms; and Bill C-10B, an act to amend the Criminal Code in regard to cruelty to animals. Both legislations, the cruelty to animal legislation and the gun registry, are attacks on my constituency and on agriculture. I have heard from my constituents time and time again that there are resources that could be spent adequately and that could be directed adequately toward resourcing agriculture and making a difference. However this holds back the ability of farmers and ranchers to go about their business.

Every time my colleagues and I were prepared to speak on Bill C-10A, the controversial bill was yanked from the House agenda in a desperate attempt by the government to avoid further embarrassment over the firearms registry's horrific cost overruns.

I was not here in 1995. I have looked back in Hansard and I have looked at some of the speeches that were given in those times. I have heard where the minister would stand and say that the registry would cost $80 million. Other times someone would come forward and say that it would cost $119 million but it would generate $117 million, for a net cost of only $2 million. Then as time went on, when we could get answers out of the government, we would hear how it was costing $200 million or $300 million.

The huge cost overruns in this bill alone should force the government to yank it off the legislative agenda and scrap it, or at least call a time out.

Just last week the government House leader again withdrew the bill, as complications arose regarding the transfer of the registry from the Minister of Justice to the Solicitor General. The latest rationale for pulling Bill C-10A included references to the Minister of Justice and other wording that the government thought it would have to change before the Solicitor General legally could take responsibility for the Canadian Firearms Centre and other aspects of the program.

Apparently the government devised a new plan on the weekend, because surprise of all surprises, without much warning, again today the bill has been pushed back on to the legislative calender and now we are debating it again. However one outstanding question remains. How will the responsibility and the accountability for the firearms registry be transferred to the Solicitor General? How will pages and pages of enabling legislation be changed to transfer legally the responsibility of the firearms registry from the Minister of Justice over to the Solicitor General?

If transferring it to the Solicitor General is such a good idea, why was it not contemplated when Bill C-68 was drafted and first debated? Why the about-face? Why was it that one minister of justice after another stood and talked about public safety, how the gun registry would reduce crime in Canada and how it was a good thing? However no where in the plan was there the transfer from the Department of Justice to the Solicitor General. Why not?

The government is flying by the seat of its pants. This is a knee-jerk response. The minister has gone from wanting control of the gun registry to not wanting control of it. Some have suggested it is because the current Minister of Justice has hopes for some day running for the leadership of the Liberal Party and realizes that this legislation is a career breaker. The cost overruns, the inefficiencies, the fact that Bill C-10A will never accomplish what those members believe it will accomplish could be a career breaker. That is why it was never contemplated.

The government and the Minister of Justice are trying to save face. Back in the west we call this passing the buck. The minister believes this issue is a hot potato and he wants to shuffle it off his desk and onto the desk of the Solicitor General. He thinks this will divert attention away from the horrific cost of the registry. The government thinks the whole problem may disappear. Talk about a joke. This is not a joke. This is a sad story that is costing responsible firearm owners their freedom of ownership, and is an invasion of their right to privacy.

Until questions are clearly answered, the legislation should be yanked again. It should be pulled off the agenda again. The government should come to the House with some comprehensive plan that will answer the questions that not only the opposition party brings to the House but also the questions that the Canadian public is starting to ask. Why the cost overruns? Why is the registry being moved from the Department of Justice to the Solicitor General's department? Why is the government flying by the seat of its pants?

There are a number of other concerns that I want to address regarding Bill C-10A.

According to media reports, the Solicitor General has admitted that the savings, which his government was planning, to keep the costs of the firearms program at $113 million over the next year will not occur until Bill C-10A becomes law. In other words, if the bill is delayed again, the government will be unable to take advantage of the savings or the $113 million of administration over the next number of years. The government is trying to paint the opposition into a corner. If we attempt to delay this poor piece of legislation, the government will throw it back at us and say that the resulting cost overrun was because the opposition had the audacity to stand up in this place and debate it. Delay after delay will cost Canadians a lot of money. This registry is costing Canadians because it is a poor piece of legislation.

Similarly, the government has blamed those provinces that have opted out of administering the law for the cost overruns when the cost of the firearm registry rests squarely on the government's shoulders. It failed to accurately calculate the exact cost of the registry before Bill C-68 was ever passed and proclaimed. It failed to understand the magnitude of what it would cost.

Last week I stood in the House debating budget 2003. At that time I outlined quite clearly the financial difficulties many municipalities in my riding were encountering in paying for police services. It appears that not only are the municipalities faced with escalating costs for community policing but they are burdened by the cost of enforcing the firearms registration and regulations, costs for which they were promised they would not be solely responsible.

Last week I learned that the Camrose Police Commission, which is in my riding of Crowfoot, threw its support behind the demands of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police for more federal assistance with the cost of enforcing the law.

On February 12 the Alberta chiefs of police wrote to the Minister of Justice outlining their concerns about the lack of funding for policing. I will quote from the Camrose Booster dated March 25. It states, “We note that in all the discussions, briefings and planning for the implementation, much time was spent on the issues relating to the administrative aspects of this legislation”.

He was talking about the gun law. The letter goes on to say, “Forms and computer data banks seem to have dominated everyone's attention. Not much, if anything, has so far been said about the actual practicalities of enforcement of the act. More to the point, we note with concerns that the federal government has not yet expressed any view with respect to the source of funding for police activities arising out of the enforcement of this act”.

The letter was written by the President of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police, Marshall Chalmers, who also happens to be the chief of police with the Camrose Police Service.

Chief Chalmers has also stated, “We have to convey to you with the greatest possible force and clarity that the municipal governments quite simply cannot assume this additional burden”.

What is the Chief of Police saying? He is saying that it is the law, yes, and that they will have to uphold the law, but that they cannot afford to do it. It would be a huge burden on every municipality and every city to enforce the law that the government is sending down the pike.

Chief Chalmers stated unequivocally that without federal support, police services in the Province of Alberta will have no choice but to set an order of policing priorities that do not include the enforcement of the Firearms Act.

Interviewed by local newspapers on March 20, the Camrose chief of police said, “the initial promise in relation to the act was that the federal government would pay for the entire cost of enforcement and there would be no downloading of costs onto the municipalities. But now it is very apparent that the federal government is expecting municipalities to absorb some of the costs”.

Although, and in fairness to the Alberta chiefs of police I must recognize this fact, the chiefs do accept the act as a valid piece of legislation, they feel the issue of enforcement must be addressed, and I agree.

Not only must the question of who pays the cost of enforcement, which clearly cannot fall on financially burdened municipalities, be answered, but so must all the other outstanding questions regarding the cost of the registry.

Today a Bloc member stood in the House and said that the more tools we had to fight crime the better. They support this registry because they believe it is a tool and the more tools they have to fight crime the better.

I would put forward the argument that the gun registry is preventing us from coming forward with the needed tools to fight crime. The cost of the registry is making other resources and other tools prohibitive because they have signed on, they have been harnessed up to a piece of legislation that is burdening the whole law enforcement and the whole security side of the government down.

The other day the member from Burnaby, a New Democrat, said, with respect to the gun registry, that if it saved the life of only one Canadian it would be worth it all.

How can we make an argument against something like that, other than to say that if we were to spend $1 billion to save the life of that one individual, how many other lives would be lost by not being able to put forward adequate policing?

In another speech, the minister from Ontario, Mr. Runciman, said that in national terms $85 million would put another 1,000 custom agents on the border and $500 million would put an extra 5,900 police officers on the street. The federal alternative is to use the money to register every shotgun and bolt action .22. No great brilliance is required to figure out which would have the greater impact on crime.

Give us the $1 billion and we will put some into health care and we will put more police officers back on the street. In 1993-95 the government jerked 2,000 RCMP officers off the payroll. Let us put some of those officers back on the beat, back on the street, and see how many lives we can save. Let us see how effective we are at fighting organized crime. Let us see how effective we could be at fighting the war against child pornography.

We have a gun registry with $1 billion that will drag down every other viable program, project or resource and make it unaffordable. This is about priorities. That is why we stood in the House and asked for a cost benefit analysis. When we talk about the registry and the good things that may happen, that is okay but at what cost? We have the commissioner of the RCMP say that ongoing investigations are being put on the back burner in reference to terrorism coming to the fore. We are talking about ongoing investigations that have an impact on families. How do we tell someone who has been robbed or assaulted that there are other priorities that need to be investigated. This is all about resources.

The chiefs of police accept that the act is a valid piece of legislation, but they feel that so many other issues must be addressed. I agree with them wholeheartedly. Let us talk about funding and other resources. Let us talk about fighting pornography.

We have stood in the House so many times debating this legislation and we will not tire of it because it is poor legislation. It is legislation that is ineffective. We will not stop standing in the House speaking out against the firearms registry because we believe it is an invasion of our rights. It will not meet the goals that it sets out to meet. It is not a public security issue; it is a dollar issue. This is a raising revenue issue; this is a tax issue. This is an issue that a government that believes in big government will want to continue to move forward. Well, we will keep fighting it.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Canadian Alliance, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the comments made by the member for Crowfoot. Invariably, when the gun registry is mentioned in my riding, my constituents come up with terms like incompetence, arrogance, and even dishonesty. This is how they think of their national government because of this firearms registration system. It is getting worse; it is not getting better.

Benjamin Franklin once said that insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The government does that all the time. It keeps on doing the same thing hoping to get better results but it keeps getting failed results.

When we make changes in public policy in our system, we do it by legislation. It is my understanding that this failed firearms registry is being moved from the portfolio of the Minister of Justice to the Solicitor General's portfolio. I do not believe there is anything in these amendments or legislation that authorizes this change. Does the member for Crowfoot know of any legislative authority for this shift that is being made by the government?

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when we go through section 2 of the Firearms Act, it defines the federal minister as being the Minister of Justice. The Firearms Act is riddled with references that talk about the authority of the federal minister or of the Minister of Justice. That is the implication here.

Bills C-10A deals with regulations, orders in council, safety courses, forms and even the appointment of a new commissioner of firearms. The House of Commons voted time after time on the ministerial aspect of the bill, and it refers to the Minister of Justice.

In my speech I talked about the hot potato and passing the buck. That is what the minister has done. He has recognized: Why should he have all the “you know what”? He would prefer to pass it on to another cabinet minister and let him carry it for a while.

The Minister of Justice probably believes that the Solicitor General has no intention of ever running for a leadership campaign and will let him handle it. But the clear intent of the government was that the firearms program would be administered by the justice department.

I heard one of the Conservative members today say in a speech that the current Solicitor General was at one time opposed to the gun registry. He was the president of the National Farmers Union. I would like him to return to his farmer friends and tell them he is now the one in charge of the firearms registry. He will find out how loved he is in the agricultural sector because that is suicide.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:30 p.m.)