Mr. Speaker, the member is roaring across the aisle that what we cannot do by the front door we are doing by the back door. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We have said on this side of the House that there have been extensive costs to this program. Through Bill C-10A, we have found ways to make the gun registry more efficient. We need the legislative obligations which are laid out in Bill C-10A in order to put those efficiencies in place.
I understand the opposition by some to the program. The intent of the gun control issue, as the member fully knows, is not to make criminals out of legitimate gun owners. They have a right to those guns. However, there are certain obligations they must follow through on that are part of the gun control program.
The specifics of the hon. member's question pertained to costs. One of the reasons why, as outlined in the presentation before the estimates, and one of the difficulties in terms of administering the program and getting registrations on the phone-in system is that we had to cut back on resources and on people on the other end of those phones because of the reduction of the amount of money the member talked about. It added to our problem of inefficiencies in the system because that money was withdrawn.