Debates of Sept. 24th, 2003

Income Tax Act

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are moving toward a world environment where mining companies and oil and gas companies are being made more responsible for cleanup. In fact, it is my understanding that in the mining industry there is a reclamation fund that the mining companies put money into so that ultimately, when the mine is decommissioned, there are sufficient funds to properly restore the site to its former state.

It is hard to argue or dispute that there are some difficult spots in Canada. I am sure the Giant Mine in Yellowknife is one of them. We need to recognize and acknowledge that we are making progress, that those industries have become very environmentally responsible. However, we do have some legacies that we need to deal with.

I am proud that the government has moved forward with this reclamation trust fund so that there are funds there to properly restore sites once these mines are decommissioned.

[Monte Solberg, Canadian Alliance, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, at one point one of the high priorities of the government was supposed to be to deal with issues such as innovation and productivity. The Minister of Human Resources Development and the Minister of Industry held a series of meetings across the country to gather input on this. It was to be a big deal but it fell off the radar screen. In fact, there was hardly a mention of it in the last budget.

Clearly, I think the member would acknowledge that Canada needs to become more competitive in the world. He probably knows that as a result of our inability to keep up, our standard of living has also fallen, along with our sort of lackadaisical productivity record.

Many countries have now surpassed us in the last number of years. Certainly everyone has heard about Ireland and its great turnaround. Countries such as Denmark, Finland, Norway, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Iceland have all surpassed us in terms of standard of living. This is tied directly to our ability to be more productive.

My question has to do with the fact that one of the keys to their improved productivity was that they have been very aggressive about reducing corporate tax rates and capital taxes. Their standard of living has ultimately jumped as a result.

Why is the government dragging its feet on bringing about these reductions in corporate taxes, either manufacturers' taxes or in this case resource taxes? Why is the government dragging its feet? Does it not appreciate that this has a direct bearing on people's standard of living ultimately and the longer the government delays, the longer people are denied being able to enjoy the fruits of a greater standard of living?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government has placed an amazing emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurship, research and development. I am sure it will continue to do so judging by the remarks in Montreal by the member for LaSalle—Émard.

It is a key item especially when we look at the United States, our major trading partner, where we export 86% of our products. I think we need to diversify somewhat, but diversifying is easy to say and tougher to do.

With the Canada-U.S. exchange rate changing so rapidly, it has created some productivity issues of quite a sizeable amount. For many years we were actually decreasing the productivity gap between Canada and the United States. It has started to widen again and we need to deal with that, especially with the exchange rate on the dollar.

We have to look at the United States as well. While the U.S. has increased its productivity, its job creation and jobs record does not even come close to the superb performance of the Canadian economy. This is something we must be mindful of as well.

Message from the Senate

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bill, to which the concurrence of the House is desired: Bill S-7, an act to protect heritage lighthouses.

The House resumed from September 23 consideration of the motion.

Supply

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the deferred recorded division on the opposition motion standing in the name of Mr. Schellenberger.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

[The Deputy Speaker]

I declare the motion lost.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

It being 6:04 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from May 1, 2003, consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Canadian Firearms Control Program

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Motion M-387, to which my colleague from Châteauguay has presented a clever amendment. This motion by the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should immediately suspend application of the Canadian Firearms Programme in order to hold a public inquiry into the reasons for the Programme’s extraordinary cost overruns, and to submit a structured and detailed strategic plan that would have to be approved in advance by this House.

The amendment by my colleague from Châteauguay, seconded by my colleague from Longueuil, calls for replacing the word “suspend” with the words “study the”. This of course makes the motion make much more sense. How could a thorough study of such a financially disastrous program be carried out if it were merely suspended? A study on the project, along with a public inquiry, would be far more effective in trying to find out how a program meant to cost $2 million ended up costing more than $1 billion.

I will not go over what my Bloc Quebecois colleagues have already said, because we are often accused of having a certain predetermined mindset when we are opposition. I will just read from today's La Presse . The title of the article is “Ten million dollars more for gun registry”. It says this:

Despite repeated promises over the past 12 months to cut program costs, the Chrétien government is preparing to inject another $10 million into the controversial gun registry, much to the chagrin of the opposition parties in the House. The President of Treasury Board... yesterday tabled supplementary estimates totalling $5.4 billion for this fiscal year—

Once again, an investment of $10 million.

The journalist continued:

In this budget document, the Department of the Solicitor General, which has been responsible for the national firearms registry since April 14, is demanding an additional $10 million to continue financing this program, which will cost the taxpayer more than $1 billion by 2005. This is 500 times the original estimate, according to the highly critical report by Auditor General Sheila Fraser tabled last December.

The amendment to the motion moved by my colleague from Châteauguay makes perfect sense. For the Bloc Quebecois, there is no question of putting an end to this registry, which has cost hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. We would like to see this registry implemented, but at the lowest possible cost.

Moreover, the government decided, and repeatedly promised—the journalist from La Presse put it very well—that it would reduce the cost of the program over the next 12 months. The cost was not reduced and additional funding is being requested.

It is urgent that the amendment put forward by my colleague from Châteauguay be adopted and that we “study”:

—the application of the Canadian Firearms Programme in order to hold a public inquiry into the reasons for the Programme’s extraordinary cost overruns, and to submit a structured and detailed strategic plan that would have to be approved in advance by this House.

I think this is very clear. We cannot keep putting in over $10 million every three months, as is currently the case, or every time a budget is brought down and debated and increases approved. The last time an adjustment was made was at the end of the budgetary cycle. At this point, the government always transfers money from one item to another, from spots where there is an excess to others where there is a shortfall.

Since its implementation, the firearms program has continually needed more money. At the end of every budgetary cycle, money is transferred. Now new estimates are being tabled because a new budget is in the works.

We note that the President of the Treasury Board tabled a budget increase. Another $10 million will go to the national firearm registry.

There is the rub. This is an example of how Canada is managing its affairs. I want to make a quick parallel with the cost of the gun registry which, according to research by one journalist, is 500 times higher than anticipated.

In this House, the opposition members, through the Bloc Quebecois critics, among others, are asking the government questions. We quite clearly demonstrated that there is a fiscal imbalance and that the federal government is not investing enough in health and education.

The federal government still plans to interfere directly in health care. It wants to create all kinds of national registries and interfere in a number of areas. Each time the federal government interferes, the results are clear. It costs 500 times more than it should.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration wants to introduce an ID card. This will cost a lot more than anticipated. This is what it means when a large organization controls ten provinces that are having great difficulty resolving their own problems. The federal government always behaves that way: it always wants to do the job of the provinces and other governments often doing the same job as it is doing. The result is a national gun registry that cost 500 times more than it was supposed to.

The amendment proposed by my hon. colleague from Châteauguay is quite appropriate. It seeks to review this program, since the Bloc Quebecois does not want to eliminate it. In fact, too much money has already been spent. However, we must investigate and determine how the cost could be 500 times greater than anticipated.

It makes no sense that the members of this House vote millions of dollars, year after year, for this program. I hope that they will vote in favour of my hon. colleague's amendment and the motion as amended by the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for the very simple and good reason that there must be a public inquiry.

We cannot continue to have cost overruns of 500% without an inquiry. There must be an inquiry to find out how it was possible to exceed the budget to this extent. How could it go from an initial cost of $2 million to a final cost of $1 billion? We must analyze what happened, because overruns of this scope, if not quite a scandal, are at least worthy of a public inquiry.

Of course, we think the national firearms registry should be retained, since it has already come into force and since a good number of Quebeckers have registered their firearms, even though there was considerable protest, which I understand. I understand the public's position. I understand Quebeckers who have problems registering in a program that is costing them an arm and a leg.

If this program is to operate better, it is important that we get to the bottom of things, that there be an inquiry, that it be retained and studied in depth—as suggested by my hon. friend from Châteauguay—that the motion by the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert be amended, and that there be a thorough inquiry into this program so that Quebeckers and Canadians will be able to register without feeling that they are being taken in.

Sometimes the result is reluctance. Currently, there are still a large number of Quebeckers and Canadians who are not registered in the program, because they felt they were being conned. I know that a thorough examination of this program will soothe the consciences of the politicians who have sunk a billion dollars into the program, but it will also show respect for the people of Quebec and Canada, who, once the inquiry is complete, will be able to understand why such large amounts had to be invested, where they went, and who benefited.

Why would the Liberal Party refuse to hold an inquiry into a cost overrun of 500%? Simply because someone, somewhere, profited from it, and they do not want this to come out.

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of private member's Motion No. 387, sponsored by the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert. I thank her for bringing this very important motion forward.

This is a votable motion calling for a public inquiry into the unprecedented cost overruns in the implementation of the infamous Canadian firearms registry. It also calls for the submission of a structured and detailed strategic plan that would have to be approved by the House in advance of the strategy taking effect.

The government has desperately tried to divert attention away from the horrific costs of the firearms registry. It has, at every turn, avoided questioning and scrutiny into the true cost of the firearms registry. It has done so because its original cost estimate of $2 million is now 500 times what it projected back in the 1990s. The total price tag to date of the Canadian firearms registry is more than $1 billion.

That fact alone is reason enough to support the motion. A full investigation must be conducted to determine how such a gross miscalculation on the part of the Liberal government has been made.

Last May, when the motion was first debated, my colleague from Yorkton—Melville listed 19 different reasons for supporting the motion, which, for those who are interested, are still part of the public record.

Today in the House he revealed another very important reason as to why we should support the motion. Today my Alliance colleague pointed out that on pages 13 and 88 of the supplementary estimates tabled yesterday by the President of the Treasury Board it showed $10 million under the “Canadian Firearms Centre, New Appropriation”.

Later that day, however, the Solicitor General, upon questioning in question period, said that no new money was being allocated through supplementary estimates. He said “Not one more cent. The money is not new money”, in response to the member for Yorkton—Melville.

As my colleague pointed out today, if the Solicitor General was right, then the supplementary estimates were wrong. If the opposite, however, is true, the Solicitor General misled the House. This is now a matter that is before you, Mr. Speaker.

Since Bill C-68 was first introduced in the House in 1995 we have repeatedly questioned the cost of establishing and maintaining the registry. And still, some eight years later, we still do not have an accurate dollar figure, although we know that this has been the worst budgetary overrun ever.

Similarly, they have blamed those provinces that have opted out of the administration of the law for cost overruns when the cost of the firearms registry rests solely on the government's shoulders and its failure to accurately calculate the exact cost of the registry before Bill C-68 was ever passed and proclaimed. It messed up.

Last April, I stood in the House on two occasions outlining the financial difficulties many municipalities in my riding were encountering in paying for police services. It appears that not only are municipalities faced with escalating costs for community policing services, but they are also burdened by the cost of enforcing the firearms laws and regulations, costs for which they were promised they would not be solely responsible.

In the spring I learned that the Camrose Police Commission threw its support behind the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police's demands for more federal assistance with the cost of enforcing the law.

On February 12 the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police wrote to the Minister of Justice outlining their concerns about the lack of funding. The letter apparently read, which was quoted in the Camrose Booster , a paper in my riding dated March 25, “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. 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”.

Chief Chalmers stated quite unequivocally that without federal government 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”.

He goes on to say “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”.

I agree.

We have seen the government systematically download legislation, download acts that we expect community policing to absorb with no extra funding for community policing nor the municipalities. Mayors in other towns and communities have been very concerned about the extra costs associated with the firearms registration. We do not have an inquiry. We do not have an investigation. We do not understand many of the cost benefits of such an act.

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

Until all those questions are answered and a complete investigation and cost benefit analysis done, as recommended by the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, I implore the government to put the firearms registry on ice.

[An hon. member]

Why?

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Why do we need to put it on ice?

There are two reasons.

First, we have never seen a strategy. We have never seen a cost benefit analysis of what this legislation will cost or how it will benefit our country. We have never seen the cost to benefit relationship. Until we see those things, it should be put on ice.

The other reason we should put it on ice is that this legislation alone is very divisive. Many times in the House we have heard reference to the way it divides urban and rural. It turns people who have never broken the law into lawbreakers, for example, duck hunters and long rifle owners. This is not questioning the handgun registry. This is questioning the long gun registry.

This legislation is not working. We have never seen a cost benefit analysis. It is time to scrap it.

[Inky Mark, Canadian Alliance, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased on behalf of the Conservative Party of Canada to take part in this debate.

Let me first congratulate the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for her motion. For the record, I will read it into Hansard . It states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should immediately suspend application of the Canadian firearms program in order to hold a public inquiry into the reasons for the program's extraordinary cost overruns, and to submit a structured and detailed strategic plan that would have to be approved in advance by this House.

That sounds pretty rational in light of when one looks at the mess that the whole Bill C-68 gun control legislation and program has become.

Canadians out there watching know the mess that this program is in. As has been mentioned, it pitches urban Canadians against rural Canadians. Unfortunately we know that back in 1993 the Liberals thought this was a good program because they thought they could sell the idea of registry and safety together, but unfortunately that is not the real truth. The truth is firearm use and crime are unrelated.

If this program has done anything, it has turned law-abiding citizens of this country into criminals, but not by intent. It has turned provinces against the federal government. We know that 8 out of 11 provinces have contested the Supreme Court case over this issue and still the majority of the provinces do not want to put in place any kind of a prosecution system for firearm possession charges that are laid by the RCMP.

It is ironic that today I received a phone call from a constituent telling me that last week, because the family had a break and enter on their property, the RCMP came out to investigated and accidentally found a .22 rifle unregistered and a shotgun. The RCMP took them. As it turned out, they turned to the provincial court system and the provincial court would have nothing to do with it, so it threw it back in the face of the Federal Court.

The problem with the Federal Court system today is that it is inconsistent in how it applies the law. The RCMP is telling people it will not lay charges and if it does, it will be for unsafe storage, but certainly not for possession of a gun that is unregistered. It is inconsistent. Even the Federal Court is confused today.

At this point in time, my poor constituent has to now appear before the Federal Court. As far as I know, a charge has been laid against him for possession of an unregistered firearm.

We also know that the aboriginal community and the Inuit community are totally against this. As Canadians know, firearms are part of life in the north. Aboriginal communities need firearms to secure food, sustenance for their families, so it makes absolutely no sense to apply the same laws of southern Canada to the north. We know that there is an injunction I believe in the north on the whole registry. I guess they will stop it for now.

There is absolutely no evidence that the initial intent of this legislation works. We know it does not work. It has nothing to do with the criminal use of firearms. Criminals are still using firearms. It was so ironic to hear the Privacy Commissioner when he came before the immigration committee. We were talking about national ID systems and the Privacy Commissioner said that there was no guarantee that criminals would apply for a national ID card. Similarly, it is the same scenario that criminals do not register their guns. The Liberals just do not get it. Criminals will use firearms that are stolen. In fact a study done in the late 1980s in central Canada showed that 85% of all firearms used in crimes were either smuggled or stolen. I believe this was done by the Police Association of Ontario.

Canadians are also fed up with the waste of money. We know there are huge needs in the health care system. We are spending billions of dollars. In fact we are on our second billion dollars today.

The citizenry of the country is asking when will the government stop wasting its hard earned dollars? Meanwhile, in my own riding hospitals are being closed in some communities. The communities are crying out for more health care services. Meanwhile here in Ottawa, as was mentioned earlier, we are throwing another $10 million into the pot for the gun control debacle. It sounds to me as though the federal government is plainly not listening.

There are hundreds of reasons why Bill C-68 should be suspended for the purpose of a public inquiry. The government still has not reported to Parliament what the total cost of the firearm program has been so far. We still hear the first number of $85 million. The Liberals said that it would cost $85 million to put the program in place and that it would not cost any more than that. Unfortunately, we are into our second billion dollars.

The government still has not reported to Parliament what the total cost will be to fully implement the firearms program. It is ironic because come January all of a sudden it becomes free if a person registers on the Internet. Who is paying the bill? Obviously it is the taxpayer.

Treasury Board officials finally have admitted that even they will not know the total cost of the firearm program until the fall.

The government has been hiding the truth from Parliament and the public for seven years. It has not been any more forthright in the last five years, through this past summer or as we witnessed in the House yesterday and today.

The government estimates are still grossly understated because the justice department's plans and priorities report of 2003-04 was tabled in March with 111 blanks. I thought Canada is a free country, that we have freedom of access to information legislation. The information belongs to the public. People should know how their money is spent.

The government refuses to reveal the cost of enforcement and compliance, as recommended by the Auditor General.

The government refuses to release the cost benefit analysis on the firearms program by declaring it a cabinet secret. That is easy avoidance of disclosure.

I will conclude by saying that over a half a million gun owners in Canada failed to obtain a firearms licence and cannot register their guns without one. More than 600,000 individuals still had to register or reregister their firearms before the end of June this past summer. We seem to continue with the government saying that there is no problem in registering guns and that they will take the registration. Justice department officials admitted they had received only 53,000 letters of intent to register.

The whole program is an absolute mess. Again, I close by applauding the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for her motion. I am sure the public cannot wait to hear more of this discussion.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, just to emphasize again exactly what we are discussing and to acknowledge my colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, I will read the motion as if it were amended, so everyone is clear what is being asked today. It would read:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should immediately [study] the Canadian firearms program in order to hold a public inquiry into the reasons for the program's extraordinary cost overruns, and to submit a structured and detailed strategic plan that would have to be approved in advance by this House.

There are probably those out there who would shake their heads and ask if Parliament is starting to micromanage everything now. I ask people to look at what point Parliament has reached when we have so many people here from not the usual agreeing perspectives agreeing on one thing: that something has to be done about the mismanagement of taxpayer funds. It is to the point where we are saying that we want to see the plan because we cannot trust the government anymore. We cannot trust what is happening with taxpayer dollars. That is a fair statement.

Whether we agree on the gun registry, one thing we all agree on, and I would be shocked if there is a Liberal out there who does not agree, is what has taken place with the firearms registry and program is absolutely unconscionable. It is to the point that Canadians who adamantly supported the registry do not support it anymore because they realize the cost is too great. Part of the reason the cost is too great to them is they were promised the registry would save lives and it would get criminals off the streets.

Canadians trusted the government to follow through on all those plans and what it said it would do. What did they get? Dishonesty. Whether it was intentional or not, Canadians did not get honesty from the governing side. They see how much of their money is being spent on the registry but is it saving lives? How many more lives would have been saved if that money had been put into an organ donor registry? That is a registry that would have saved lives in our country and I would challenge anyone to say differently.

[An hon. member]

Missing persons registry.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Missing persons registry. Absolutely. Dollars well spent. There are numerous greater value for dollar programs. Our health care program, anyone could say that. However, even if it came down to a few things like improving water and sewer systems throughout the nation, how many lives would have been saved? How many lives were lost in Walkerton? How many lives are lost in first nations communities as a result of poor water and sewer treatment and poor housing? The money would have been better spent.

Had the government been upfront with the amount of dollars that were spent on the registry, at least we might have been able to accept part of it.

I would be the first to admit there are differing opinions in different parts of Canada on the gun registry. Within my caucus there are differing opinions. It is based on where we live and what we deal with in our communities. I am from a northern rural community with a number of aboriginal communities. I grew up in rural Saskatchewan. Firearms and long arms were a part of the existence. It was a part of hunting. Whether we were aboriginal or non-aboriginal, it was a part of our way of life. Therefore we do not have that fear, and some would say, disrespect for firearms that exists elsewhere.

That is not to say there are not some accidents or deaths as a result of it. There are ways of dealing with that. Preventive measures can be taken to deal with the deaths related to firearms. The bottom line is there has been a misunderstanding of how we deal with things.

It is absolutely more crucial that Canadians in urban centres have a look at this issue again. We must look at it again from the aspect of cost value. I implore Canadians in urban centres to talk to their members of Parliament and to the government, and let them know it is not acceptable. I implore them to let the government know that they want to know what has been happening to this program.

Canadians want to know the number of possession licences, the number of acquisition licences, the revenue that the government took in on those licences, and the administration expenses. That is pretty basic business. A business degree is not required to come up with this information. Canadians want to know the number of owners who are registering their guns, the number of guns registered, and the cost per each item. They also want to know the amount of revenue taken in and the expenses putting it out. It is pretty basic.

I have a hard time understanding why the government cannot give out those figures unless it deliberately does not want to give them out. Is it possible that maybe some of that money that has been allocated has been used elsewhere? Canadians are starting to think that. Either the money is not for value within the registry, or it is being used elsewhere. We all know that the government can Mickey Mouse around with dollars within budgets, and it has people thinking that money is not being spent where it is supposed to be spent.

What were the administration costs within the justice department when the firearms registry was within that department? What are the costs within the Solicitor General's department? That should be pretty easy because that department just received the registry. It has been keeping track since the Solicitor General took over.

Why the government cannot give out that information is beyond me? We hate to bring this up, but how can we not in light of the dollars that have been misused by the government? What about the money through technology partnerships that went to certain members and businesses that were tied to certain members within the governing side? How can we not wonder that something is wrong here?

The government has disappointed this nation. It has brought to question the integrity of all parliamentarians, and it should be ashamed. There is not a member on the governing side who should not be absolutely ashamed to have to respond to this kind of misuse of taxpayers' dollars, misrepresenting what the cost would be. Who in their right mind would continue a program that is costing 500 times more than it was said it would cost? Who in their right mind would continue it? This is just not acceptable.

I say to the governing side and to all of their constituents that if they do nothing else they should question the government and insist that it come through with where this money went, and come up with a better program.

There is probably not a member of Parliament here, even from the governing side, who does not believe in gun control. I take offence when it is suggested that somehow if we do not agree with this misuse of taxpayers' dollars on the gun registry that somehow we are selling Canadians out and do not believe in gun control. That is not true. We believe in gun control.

However, we do not agree that just for the sake of appeasing some people and getting votes that a program is put in place that will cost 500 times more than what initially the government said it would cost, and continue on with it. It is not acceptable.

I wish to commend my colleague for bringing up this issue. I hope that when it comes time to vote on this, members will consider those dollars and what they could be used for. Quite frankly, unless the government can ensure that the cost is going to be way down, it should re-evaluate this whole process.

It is unfair to Canadians. It is unfair to the lives that are lost for numerous other reasons because the government has said there is no money for other programs. It is time to stand up and say that the government must take a look at this. It is just not acceptable.

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

Mr. Speaker, rather than entirely focus on the costs and waste, I should commend the member who introduced the bill, the member who has the holy seat of the two saints.

Rather than dealing with the costs and waste involved in this, I would like to approach it from another standpoint. I believe that the firearms registry was an ill-conceived plan from its very inception. People did not strategically work their way through this concept and try to figure it out. That is the fatal flaw with the whole system. It was never conceived and properly thought through to begin with. I would like to zero in on a couple of areas that bring this home.

Back in my home province of Saskatchewan we pioneered something called the personal property registration system 15 years ago, which every province in Canada has now adopted. It is a tool for lenders, credit unions, banks, trust companies and private lenders, to secure personal property. Personal property, as hon. members would know, is anything basically other than real estate. It is moveable property: automobiles, fridges, stoves, etc.

The big dilemma in creating that system was to create a registration system for people dealing with property. For example, if I bought a new piece of property for someone, I could do a search and determine whether I would get clear title to the property. We looked into whether we should make it a serial number search system or should the property be described?

We looked carefully at that concept and spent a lot of time figuring it out so that we would have a good system that would work. The personal property registration system is a solid system. We looked at the question carefully and came to the conclusion that the system would fail if we were to use a serial number registration system because personal property would not have a uniform consistent serial number registration system. Only motor vehicles have a uniform consistent serial number registration system.

The world has a uniform standard serial number registration system for motor vehicles and there is only one serial number for every vehicle on this planet. There are no duplicates. However, when we get into fridges, tractors or any other type of personal property, the serial number system is full of flaws, and that includes firearms.

A policy choice was made that the personal property system would be a failure or defective if we were to create a registration system based on serial numbers. The founder of that system probably knows more than anybody on the government side or in this bureaucracy about all the problems that exist in trying to register something by serial number, least of all firearms.

Once we get the firearms system up and running, and presumably get everything registered, if we were to do a search on a serial number on some of those firearms, I would not be surprised if we got 289 call-ups on it, all with the same number. What service will that provide to law enforcement, the courts or anything else?

As a former lawyer, I think defence lawyers will look on this as a loophole and a technicality to get their clients off because we have to prove things in a criminal court beyond a reasonable doubt. We are only creating all sorts of loopholes for defence lawyers. That is another problem with the whole firearms registration system.

I have a number of other objections. People in the other House call themselves charter fundamentalists. They believe in a charter of rights. The Auditor General has pointed out serious violations of our privacy rights with the legislation. I am not a charter expert like my Liberal friends on the other side, but I would think privacy rights are something fairly important which should be part of our charter. However the Liberals total ignore that. Privacy means nothing. They have made some serious intrusions into our private lives in this country with the firearms registration system.

When they pass a law on which they have spent over $1 billion and they let off a lot of hot air about the system, surely they intend to enforce that legislation. Why would they pass a law and spend all those resources on it if there is absolutely no intent to enforce that law?

I have folks back in Saskatchewan who are prepared to play the game of civil disobedience. They want to be charged under this law because they feel it violates their constitutional guarantees under the charter. They have lawyers lined up and so on. They want to be charged in order to test this law. They have tried everything under the sun.

But we can guess what is happening. The government will not charge them. It spent a billion dollars creating this monster and then it does not even have the guts to try to enforce the law. I cannot think of anything so stupid. We should not be passing laws in the House that the government is not prepared to enforce. If that is what it is playing at, it is playing a billion dollar political game with people. That is what the government has to admit.

Let us talk about national priorities. Members on the other side of the House used to say “if this would save one life”, but I can tell those members that a billion dollars would have bought 350 MRI scanners in this country. I think I could bring in doctors and medical people who could talk about thousands of lives that would have been saved with MRIs in cancer treatment alone. The government cannot prove one single case of where anyone's life has been saved with this billion dollar firearms registry, not one single person.

The government can come up with some sort of bogus justification for it. It might have conned someone in some organization to back it up and give testimony on it, but if we talk to the rank and file people who work in those organizations they totally reject the whole concept. It is a total waste of their time and effort.

In the private sector there is an old saying, “When you've made a mistake and it's not working out, you cut your losses”. Bankers would always say that the first loss is the best loss, that we should cut it and back out of it. But this government, despite hundreds and hundreds of solid arguments for why the firearms registry is a total absolute failure, insists on pushing ahead and throwing more money into this hole. The government should admit that it screwed up. This is a totally flawed concept. It is poorly conceived.

Quite literally, for a lot of informed and knowledgeable Canadians who have taken the time to actually analyze it and not play the politics of the game, this is becoming nauseating. What the government is doing with taxpayers' dollars compared to all the things it could be doing with that sort of money bothers their stomachs to no end. We have roads falling apart in the country. People are being killed because the infrastructure is falling apart. Accidents are happening because the roads are falling apart, but there is no money to fix them.

[An hon. member]

Especially in Saskatchewan.

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

Especially in Saskatchewan, where we have a similar type of government. The government in that province plays the political game like the federal government. It passes politically correct laws and the execution and performance of what goes on falls flat on its face.

I think this is an extraordinary failure on the part of the government. I am going to give the members on the other side of the House some political advice. This will be their Achilles heel. They can keep on pouring more money into it. The more they persist with it, the more their arrogance, their elitism and their politics show up. It will be their Achilles heel, and probably some of the other legislation that they have rammed through lately will be too, but this one is going to get them. They are going to pay a price for it.

The former finance minister, the democratic deficit man, has his fingerprints all over this. A billion dollars has been wasted on this and the foolishness behind this thing is all over him. He is not going to be able to shake it and nobody where I come from is going to forget about this law.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will make my remarks short because I know other people want to speak and private members' business is sort of a sacred time and people want to get on.

I want just to say that despite the cost overruns of the firearms registry, and I do agree that something went badly wrong, I can tell the member opposite and the person moving this motion that this is one MP that still very much supports the program.

Very quickly, Mr. Speaker, the member should put in context what the registry does. What the registry does is it tracks long guns which are capable of killing not only animals at a distance but capable of killing people at a distance.

Since September 11 the security situation has so drastically changed that we need to control and destroy long guns that exist in society that are not being used by proper gun owners, by registered gun owners. Because the one thing that we do not want to see in international affairs particularly in countries like Iraq, we do not want to see terrorists acquire guns that can kill people at distances.

Right now what is happening over there is that basically the firearms that are in circulation in the Middle East and in other areas of terrorism across the world are automatic weapons that are only effective at close range. It changes everything for those American soldiers in Iraq if those American soldiers can be killed at 100 yards, 300 yards or 500 yards. The type of weapons that the registry is designed to collect and destroy are long guns that pose an enormous threat to the stability in the world if they get out of North America.

So, Mr. Speaker, there are other reasons why the gun registry is very important but at the very least, everyone in this House and particularly those members of the opposition who are constantly saying that we should support the Americans well, I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, we should certainly support the Americans by putting all the controls on the distribution and black market collection of long guns. And with this gun registry that we have here in Canada, at least we will know that if long guns suddenly turn up in places like Iraq, they will not be coming from Canada.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by extending my heartiest congratulations to my dear colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert. This is a good motion. It is a very important motion that I personally support. The Progressive Conservative Party also supports it, as does each of its members.

I want to begin by addressing quickly some of the points that were made by the member opposite. He spoke of the black market.

There is an increase in the rifles available on the black market as a direct result of this gun registry because people are not participating. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of long guns are now available on the black market.

Oodles of money, hundreds of millions of dollars have been put into this registry. It totals $1 billion. It is astronomical that this could continue, that the government would even as recently as today request $10 million more and try to slide it in the back door.

Do not take it from a partisan, which I am, or members opposite but listen to what the Auditor General had to say about this. The Auditor General stated clearly, “The issue here is not gun control. And it is not even astronomical cost overruns, although those are serious. What is really inexcusable is that Parliament was kept in the dark”. It was a direct affront to the public purse.

I suggest this will go down as the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the Canadian taxpayer in the history of Canada. The gun registry is an absolute farce. The police are not enforcing it. The provinces are not prosecuting.

This is not about lifesaving as Liberals would have us believe. This is about face saving. This is face saving for the Liberals and the former minister of finance. Who was there? Who was shovelling that money out the door? It was the former minister of finance, the member for LaSalle—Émard. He is the man with his finger on the trigger of this astronomical waste of public money.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert will close the debate on this motion.

[Pierrette Venne, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to conclude this debate on Motion M-387. First, I want to thank all the hon. members who took part in this debate because they did so in a non-partisan way. The Canadian Alliance, the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, the Progressive Conservative Party, everyone took part in a truly non-partisan manner, setting aside a number of convictions.

As we know, gun control does not have unanimous support. I think that a vast majority of members still believe in it. That is why I agreed to the amendment of the hon. member for Châteauguay. Since some people were concerned that a possible suspension of the program might jeopardize its survival, I agreed to amend my motion to prevent this possibility.

The relevancy of the Canadian Firearms Program was not at issue here, but rather its mismanagement. It is obviously useful to remember that, instead of costing $119 million as initially budgeted, the program's development and implementation costs will probably exceed $1 billion by 2004-05.

For a long time I have been worrying that the management style of federal officials would lead directly to huge cost overruns. The only reason my fears were not confirmed until last fall was because the federal government's secrecy prevented us from finding out the true extent of the problem.

The Auditor General was particularly scathing in her report last December, when she said:

The Department of Justice did not provide Parliament with sufficient information to allow it to effectively scrutinize the Canadian Firearms Program and ensure accountability. It provided little financial information and insufficient explanations for the dramatic increase in the cost of the Program.

Transferring this program to the Solicitor General was completely pointless and again raises serious problems in terms of accountability and transparency. Indeed the Minister of Justice said that his plan would reinforce the program's accountability and transparency. It has done the opposite.

The rule that prevents us from questioning a former minister about his previous responsibilities simply allows the justice minister to avoid any questions about this scandal. That means that the period between December 1995 and April 2003 will continue to be a big black hole. No questions, no answers, and no one to take responsibility.

As for the Solicitor General, he can feign ignorance, because when things went wrong, he was not the one responsible for the program. So we are far from attaining the accountability and transparency the minister promised when unveiling the action plan.

What is more, the government's wonderful plan had barely been unveiled when it started going off the rails. The transfer slated for April 1 finally happened two weeks later, on the 14th, and as if that were not enough, the government got mired in explanations, each of which was more incoherent than the last. In short, the program was not transferred for reasons of jurisdiction or good management. Had that been the case, Treasury Board would not have had to inject another $10 million into it, as was done just yesterday, in order to again make up for this cost overrun.

There could also be some other reservations expressed that would be totally legitimate. A culture of cover-up does not change overnight.

Since time is of the essence, I will simply sum up by saying that there is no question of our approving such a huge cost overrun. I invite all members to set partisan politics aside and vote in favour of my motion and the amendment. We must get to the bottom of this scandal. A solution that respects both the objectives of public safety and the principles of proper financial management must be found, once Parliament is fully informed and gives its approval.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

It being 7:04 p.m., the time provided for this debate has now expired.

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?