Mr. Speaker, I would like to say at the beginning of debate that if you will allow it I would like to share my time with the member for Cumberland—Colchester. I realize that we do not have a lot of time to speak on this subject. It will probably be the last opportunity most of us get to speak directly to the bill. Therefore, it is important that as many members as possible speak to the bill.
I would like to make a couple of points in the time allotted. First, I would like to go back to December 5, 2002, and point out that the member of Parliament for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, the Conservative justice critic, on that day saved Canadians $72 million. The motion he brought up, which was subsequently passed by all the members of the House, read:
That the Supplementary Estimates (A) be amended by reducing vote 1a under Justice by the amount of $62,872,916 and vote 5a under Justice by the amount of $9,109,670 and that the supply motions and the bill to be based thereon altered accordingly.
The motion was passed unanimously by the House of Commons.
Twice I have referenced the fact that the motion was passed unanimously by the House of Commons. Today we have the same government that agreed that the $72 million should be withdrawn from the estimates, that the long gun registry was totally out of control, while all the opposition parties were in unanimity and the government even supported withdrawing it from the estimates. Yet somehow today we once again are being forced us to vote on this bill that will allow these same players to put that $72 million back into the gun registry, and to add on to that a total, by conservative estimates, of a minimum of $100 million a year until 2008. We have $1 billion spent now and it is 2003. That is $1.5 billion. It is unbelievable that the government can find a way to support and to continue to support this flawed piece of legislation.
Earlier today I referenced the fact that we have a cattle registry in this country that registers I believe around 28 million animals. Each one of those animals has a serial number and a bar code. We know where they are, who they are sold to and where they are moved to. I think, although I do not have the number right in front of me, that the total cost of that registry for 28 million animals and a lot of information is in the neighbourhood of $2 million a year. Yet somehow the government has managed to spend $998 million more registering less than 20% of the total number of cows and bulls registered. It would seem to me that even as mathematically challenged as many of the government members are, they should be able to do the math on this one.
Members stood earlier and asked what we could buy with $1 billion. The point was made by one of the Alliance members that we could buy 200 MRI machines. Better than that, we could run the MRI machines that we already have 24 hours a day and we could probably do it for the next 10 years with $1 billion. We could utilize the equipment that we have.
It has been said that $1 billion would pay the tuition for a full degree program for every university student in Canada. I would expect that would add a lot more to the economy of the country than the expenditure of $1 billion that is not working and will not work.
When the Solicitor General was speaking today he refused to say that it will be his job to apply the law. He did say that he fully expected police forces in Canada would apply the law. Well, I would hope not. There are a lot of people, not a dozen, not 50, not 200, not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of people who have not complied. Some of them are old ladies of 85 years of age who inherited firearms from a spouse and who have no intention of registering them. Some have, but many have not. I know a number of them personally and they have no intention of registering their firearms.
Does the government intend to enforce the rule of law? If we have laws, I suspect they are supposed to be enforced. Does the government intend to start arresting 85 year old grandmothers? I would hope not, and shame on it if it does. Yet government members are going to vote in support of the bill and they will be voting in support of that law.
There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have never broken the law. They do not have so much as an infraction on their driver's licence. They do not have a parking ticket. However they do have unregistered firearms. I personally know dozens of hunters who have told me they have registered one shotgun and one rifle.
What happens at the end of the day? We are forcing into place a law that is wrong-headed and which will end up putting more illegal firearms on the street. Instead of actually controlling guns, the government is encouraging people not to control them. It is encouraging people to get rid of them. Their firearms may be stored safely and may even have firearm acquisition numbers, but instead of registering 12 guns they have only registered two. Can we blame them? There is no trust among Canadians and among gun owners especially that the government will not turn around and use this piece of legislation against them.
We are in a terrible situation. One billion dollars has already been wasted. Another $500 million at least will be spent in the next five years, and the bill before us encourages misuse and abuse of the system.
I do not know what the government's alternative is here. I do know there is an obvious door open to the government. That door is for the government to admit that the registry has failed. The government should reverse its position on it and give up totally on this ill-founded idea which it has had eight years to put into place and which has cost Canadian taxpayers $1 billion. It is my belief that is the only door open to the government.