The member says that it was not so. Well, it was done by an independent survey. I can even tell the member that on a region by region basis the support for gun control was at 59% in western Canada, where that party is represented, 85% in Quebec, 78% in Ontario and 74% in Atlantic Canada. Those are the facts. Canadians supported gun control.
Members say no and I respect their right to disagree with the facts. I have taken this information from published reports that members have at their disposal.
There was a challenge in the Supreme Court and the court upheld the Firearms Act of 2000. The court concluded that both the licensing and registration are tightly linked to Parliament's goal of enhancing public safety by reducing the misuse of firearms and keeping firearms out of the hands of those who should not have them.
Did any of the members of the Alliance who spoke on this bill mention the number of Canadians that were denied licensing or registration of their firearms because they did not qualify? There were reasons why they should not have guns. If they had put that information on the table though, it would have diluted their argument to absolute nothing.
The fact is the system operates in a way to screen Canadians who wish to license or register their guns. Many thousands of Canadians have been denied registration. It is important for Canadians to know that there are people who should not have firearms because of certain facts in their profile. That is the way the law was set up.
At present 90% of the estimated 2.3 million firearm owners in the country have applied for a firearms licence and three-quarters of the licence owners have registered those firearms. The system is working. The previous speaker said we should scrap it and come up with something else that all the provinces would support and everything would be fine. The question was what? There is no what.
The opposition said to just scrap it because they were opposed to gun control and opposed to registration, and all they had to be was negative. They had to be the opposition. That is the role of the opposition, to be negative and to oppose. They are being opposed and they are opposing the facts regardless of the truth and the merit of those facts.
If they want to say that the sky is not blue, that is fine. I can take that. The facts will speak for themselves and Canadians understand that.
The Canadian firearms program encourages the safe and responsible use, handling and storage of firearms. We must keep remembering that it takes time. Yes, we have had handgun registration since 1934. The previous member tried to give us percentages. The fact remains that at the time when the gun control bill first came up, back in 1994, the number of violent crimes with handguns per capita compared to today has remained relatively flat.
I am pretty sure that members over there know and do not want to tell Canadians, but I will tell Canadians, that at the time when the gun control bill came forward violent crime with long arms had a greater incidence than violent crime with handguns. There were more crimes with long arms than with handguns on a per capita basis.
If we were to look at the facts now, we would find that at the end of 2002, according to published independent information, violent crime with long arms is 50% lower than it was in 1994 on a per capita basis. There was a 50% drop in long arm violent crime in Canada.
This is very significant. It says that Canadians learned through the process, through the debate that we had, through all the media, and through all the advertising, et cetera. This was an important public safety issue. In fact, throughout Canada, long arm firearm owners were not being safe with their firearms. Firearms were accessible to those that would use them to commit crime.
This started a change in the attitude of Canadians toward the use of firearms. It was a positive reaction toward those who use them for hunting, sport shooting, and collecting. There was a confidence being built up for those who had useful and laudable goals. Canada has a great history related to firearms, but Canadians have this confidence level now that firearms are being used safely.
Canadians now know that gun owners who have registered their firearms are those who have properly licensed them, are properly storing them, and will properly transport them, so that all can be safe and everyone can enjoy their sport or activity with firearms.
It is important that Canadians understand that this was a bill that involved all Canadians. It raised that comfort level. It raised the public education and awareness levels. It meant that long arm crime actually went down. The government has not even finished implementing the registration system. It is not all there yet, but the facts speak for themselves.
Much has been said about the Auditor General's report. I think the Auditor General is doing a good job. The Auditor General uses some colourful language or maybe some stimulative language from time to time. She did use the figure of a billion dollars. She said that a billion dollars was the increase in the projected estimates. It was not that we had blown a billion dollars as the members continue to repeat over there. I do not know why they give that misinformation. What is wrong with telling the truth?
The fact is that it was the estimate of the cumulative costs of all of the elements of the gun registry system that would reach a billion dollars by 2005. Why did the estimate get that high? We have to wonder when the government said it was only going to cost $2 million. Well, there is a difference between $2 million and a billion dollars. What is it? In fact, the $2 million, at the time when that question was asked to the then minister of justice, had to do with capital costs. We were talking about capital costs.
In addition to that, we were talking on a net basis and dealing with net revenues. Members have not told Canadians this in debate. I will tell them that the cumulative revenue from registrations has been about $140 million, which is an offset to the expenses incurred.
Here is what the Auditor General had to say in her report of December 2002. On this particular matter, in chapter 10 on page 13, she said:
--about 90% of the licence and registration applications contained errors or omissions, which was higher than the predicted--
Ninety per cent of the applications had errors or omissions. That is so far beyond what would be the normal incidence in completion of government forms, whether they be tax returns or GST rebate forms, or whatever. There is a reason. As a consequence of these errors and omissions being so serious, it was not something that could be fixed by a person simply looking at it and somehow trying to figure out the information; it required contacting the applicant. It required a substantial increase in the human resources required to process those registrations.
I do not have the figures in front of me as I was not sure I was going to speak to this issue today, but having looked at it, I know that until the end of 2002, which the Auditor General was talking about, the cumulative expenditure on the registry program implementation, et cetera, all the costs, was just over $650 million, not billion, $650 million, if we add the projections up to 2005. Of that $650 million, approximately $300 million of that additional expenditure was as a consequence of fixing the problem with 90% of the applications which had errors or omissions.
Then we had all these problems and the reaction. Certainly the Alliance was a big part of this, to make sure that firearms owners who were so inclined would do everything possible to frustrate the system.
It is incumbent on any government to support its programs. Because of the significant work that some had been doing to discredit the system, some $200 million was spent to explain it to Canadians. We are talking about advertising, promotion and public education materials to explain to Canadians how important it was.
These costs would never have been incurred had there not been a planned and deliberate protest against the legislation. I have nothing against protests, I have nothing against delay, but there was a consequence of the activities of those gun owners who did not like the law, who did not want to register and who wanted to try to embarrass the government. It probably cost $500 million to the end of 2002 for all of the problems that were caused. The unplanned human resources costs were at least $300 million.
This is published information. For members who would ask where I got the information, I am looking at the Auditor General's report. I can see the projections. I have the numbers right here. Cumulatively, to the end of 2003, the projection is that the overall cost is going to be $785,710,000. There are also estimated projected revenues which I think get up to something just under $200 million. On a net basis to the end of 2003, we are talking about somewhere around $600 million. It is not $1 billion.
Because 90% of the applications actually were incomplete or incorrect, yes it took a lot of money. Yes, it was very expensive. Yes, there had to be a lot more public education and information out there to counteract all the misinformation that was being given to Canadians by those who disagreed with the law. That is part of the democratic process. Members can say that we blew the money, but governments have to support their programs and they have to inform Canadians about the facts when those who are contrary to any legislation decide that they are going to try to either frustrate it or spread misinformation which would lead to some discomfort among Canadians. Those are the kinds of initiatives Canadians want to see.
With regard to the Auditor General's report, I commend it to members. If they simply want to provide the half story, that is great. However, I will stay in the House and I will point out to Canadians every time one of the members speaks up and does not give all the information because I think Canadians deserve true, full and plain disclosure, even by the Alliance.