Garry Breitkreuz

[Firearms Registry, May 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the fourth minister of the firearms fiasco maintained his government's track record of keeping Parliament in the dark. It is clear from his feeble responses that even he does not know how much the gun registry has cost so far.

Newspapers reported that shortly after the government gave $380,000 to the Coalition for Gun Control, it went out and hired two paid lobbyists to lobby the government to spend even more on the billion dollar gun registry.

Why is the government using tax dollars to make it look like it has more support for its fiasco than it really does?

[Gun Control, May 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it seems very strange to me that it would make the streets safer by reducing firearms safety training programs.

The minister is unable to produce a shred of evidence that banning hundreds of thousands of guns owned by law-abiding Canadians has any effect whatsoever at reducing the criminal use of firearms.

Will the minister please tell us today which guns he is going to ban and also important, is he going to fully compensate the gun owners for the loss in value of their property?

[Gun Control, May 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the justice minister gave the Coalition for Gun Control $380,000 to promote the anti-gun agenda at the same time that he is starving programs in his own department. The minister has just cut $65,000 from the firearms safety training programs in Saskatchewan.

Will the minister please explain how he can justify funding the Coalition for Gun Control while at the same time reducing funding to firearms safety training programs?

[An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, May 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty obvious the minister is not answering our questions.

I have a question for him. 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 would have to be registered as soon as Bill C-10A is proclaimed. This would drive up the costs, contrary to what the minister has just said. There may be as many as one million air gun owners, and two or three million pellet guns and BB guns in Canada.

Would the minister tell us how much it will cost to register all of these guns?

[Canadian Firearms Control Program, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the MP for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for bringing forth this very timely motion. It needs to be debated and discussed. It is a good thing also that these things are now votable.

The purpose of the motion is self-explanatory. Motion No. 387 is a votable motion calling for a public inquiry to get to the bottom of the unprecedented cost overruns in the implementation of the Canadian firearms program and to prepare a real action plan for the approval of Parliament.

Remember that members of Parliament were promised it would only cost $2 million to taxpayers to fully implement the program. The government has known for two years that the program would cost more than $1 billion but only provided these estimates to Parliament on March 27. The government has also admitted that the program will not be fully implemented until at least 2008.

When a program is overbudget, 500 times what it was originally slated to cost, that is reason enough for this motion to be supported and a full investigation to take place.

The estimates for 2003-04 call for spending a further $113 million plus the $15 million overrun that the ASD contractor has indicated is needed.

The government estimates are still grossly understated because the justice departments's plans and priorities report for 2003-04 was tabled in March with 111 blanks. These are areas where the government could not tell us how much money is being spent; 111 blanks that have to be filled in with past expenditures and future spending forecasts by departments. We have been waiting five months since the Auditor General's report for answers as to how much it will cost.

A government that is unable to give an account of how much a major program costs is another reason that this motion should be supported.

These are sufficient reasons for everyone in this House to vote yes to this motion.

Additionally, the government so far has refused to provide the unreported costs of enforcement. The unreported costs of compliance, as identified by the Auditor General, have not been reported to Parliament. The Library of Parliament estimated that enforcement costs alone could easily cost one billion more dollars.

The government has also refused to release a cost benefit analysis. A 115 page report on the economic impact of the Firearms Act was not released either because the government declared these documents to be cabinet secrets. We have a right to know.

The motion is also consistent with calls by eight provinces and three territories to have the program suspended pending a value for money audit by the Auditor General. This is what the provinces and territories are asking for. The Auditor General has stated that she will not conduct a value for money audit until at least 2005.

A public inquiry is desirable in this instance because critical questions still need to be answered before another $1 billion is wasted and because the government persists in the policy of keeping Parliament and the public in the dark. We need this inquiry.

The motion may require an amendment to ensure that some elements of the program continue while the public inquiry is being conducted, such as background checks for people wishing to acquire firearms, amnesty to ensure persons are not criminalized for unfinished paperwork and so on.

I want to give a list of reasons as to why we need a public inquiry into the federal firearms fiasco beyond what I have just mentioned.

The first reason is the government still has not admitted what the total cost of the firearms program has been so far.

The second reason is the government still has not admitted what the total cost will be to fully implement the firearms program. That is another big reason to support this motion.

The third reason is that Treasury Board officials finally admitted that even they will not know the total cost of the firearms program until the fall.

The fourth reason is the government has been hiding the truth from Parliament and the public for seven years and has not been forthright in the last five months.

The fifth reason is the government refuses to reveal the costs of enforcement and compliance as recommended by the Auditor General.

The sixth reason is the government refuses to release the cost benefit analysis on the firearms program by declaring it a cabinet secret. There is no excuse for this.

The seventh reason is it is 21 months later and the Privacy Commissioner is still waiting for the justice minister's response to his many recommendations about the mishandling of private and personal information in the firearms program.

The eighth reason we need this inquiry is there are more than 500,000 gun owners in Canada who failed to obtain a firearms licence and cannot register their guns without one.

The ninth reason is more than 600,000 individuals still have to register or re-register their firearms before the end of June and the justice department officials admitted they have received only 53,000 letters of intent to register, to comply with the legislation. That means possibly half a million gun owners out there who cannot comply with the legislation legally are going to be made criminals, are criminals, and there is nothing they can do about it.

The tenth reason is the government refuses to release the entire 115 page report on the economic impact of the gun registry, once again declaring it a cabinet secret. Canadians have the right to know. The government made some claims a few moments ago about how effective the gun registry is, why we cannot put it on hold. If that is true, and I seriously doubt that because the government's impression that this is gun control is really spurious if one examines it, but we have the right to know what the economic impact is on Canadians. That should be told to us. We have the right to know what the cost benefit analysis is as well.

The eleventh reason is up to 10 million guns still have to be registered. For $1 billion we have likely registered only one-third of the guns in Canada. There are 10 million still to be registered.

The twelfth reason is five million registered firearms still have to be verified by the RCMP. The entire network of verification was scrapped so we have a bunch of garbage in the registry system. It is totally inaccurate. The police cannot use it.

The thirteenth reason is 78% of the firearms registered have blank or unknown entries. These are errors in the system. Some 78% of the registration certificates sent in have errors on them. This error rate also is clear evidence that it is a huge garbage collection system that is really not useful to anyone.

The fourteenth reason is there are 813,000 firearms that have been registered without serial numbers. They cannot be uniquely identified. That was one of the reasons the government originally said it wanted to have this, so that all firearms could be uniquely identified.

The fifteenth reason is there are 131,000 persons prohibited from owning firearms by the courts who are not tracked by the system. There are 9,000 persons who have had their firearms refused or removed and are not tracked by the system.

The sixteenth reason is tens of thousands of licensed gun owners cannot be located in the system. Tens of thousands have information there and nobody can find it.

The seventeenth reason is eight provinces and three territories want the gun registry suspended or scrapped. The government overrode them. It did not consult with them. That accounts for the huge mess we have.

The eighteenth reason is the western provinces are refusing to prosecute Firearms Act offences. If this is criminal law and it is useful, why would the provinces want the federal government to get rid of it?

The nineteenth reason is three constitutional challenges by the aboriginal people are currently before the courts and the gun registration for the Inuit people has been stopped by the court injunction. We are going to have huge court cases in regard to this. It is going to cost us a lot more money and in the end it will likely be thrown out anyway.

In conclusion, I do not agree with all the comments made by the MP who brought this forward but this is an excellent motion. It should be supported by everyone in the House and maybe we can make some minor amendments to it. The assumptions the government makes that this is effective gun control also need to be examined. I do believe Canadians have the right to know how much this costs. We need a public inquiry into this. There should be an investigation.

I thank the member for bringing this motion forward. I hope all MPs in the House will support it.

[Privilege, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege. I have been waiting since April 14 for the House to reconvene so I could raise this important question of privilege. I just returned to Ottawa with committee duties that I was engaged in and this is the first opportunity I have to bring this matter to the attention of the House.

Section 2 of the Firearms Act defines “Federal Minister” as the Minister of Justice. In 1995 members of the House voted five times on Bill C-68. It was Parliament's clearly stated intent that the Firearms Act be administered by the minister of justice, not the solicitor general.

Imagine my shock on April 14 of this year when the Minister of Justice and the Solicitor General issued a news release saying that the federal minister responsible for the Firearms Act would no longer be the Minister of Justice but that it would now be the Solicitor General of Canada. If true, they amended an act of Parliament without coming back to Parliament to ask for our approval of the amendment. How could they possibly have such contempt for Parliament? Even the fact that the Prime Minister's Office waited until the House of Commons was just starting its two week Easter recess to make this change was insulting. Did they really think we would forget about it over the two week break?

I asked the lawyers in the Library of Parliament, parliamentary research branch, this question. How did they transfer the firearms program without getting it approved by the House of Commons? The law and government division responded as follows:

Further to your e-mail dated 15th of April, 2003, the transfer of responsibility of the Canadian Firearms Centre was accomplished by means of an Order in Council. This O-I-C was enacted pursuant to the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act. The transfer took effect on the 14 April, 2003.

The research branch provided a link to the specific order in council posted on the Privy Council Office website. The order in council registration number SI/2003-96, dated Friday, April 11, 2003, states:

Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, pursuant to paragraph 2(a) of the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act, hereby:

(a) transfers from the Minister of Justice to the Solicitor General of Canada the control and supervision of the portion of the public service known as the Canadian Firearms Centre over which the Solicitor General of Canada shall preside, and

(b) transfers from the Minister of Justice, who is defined as the federal minister in the Firearms Act, to the Solicitor General of Canada the powers, duties and functions of the federal minister under the Firearms Act.

effective April 14, 2003.

We did get some advance warning that the PMO might try to use, or one might say abuse, the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act to make this amendment to the Firearms Act without giving MPs a chance to debate and vote on the amendment.

On the day the justice minister announced his action plan for the firearms program, justice department bureaucrats were overheard saying that they did not have to come back to Parliament to change the definition of federal minister.

Based on this obvious disrespect for what is clearly stated in an act of Parliament, I asked the parliamentary research branch again to investigate how it would be possible for the government to use a subordinate act of Parliament, originally passed in 1918, to override a specific section of the Firearms Act passed after nine separate votes of Parliament in 1995.

On March 14, 2003, the law and government division of the parliamentary research branch wrote the following answer:

It is unclear if the statute of general application can be used to re-define the Minister responsible in statutes of specific application such as the Royal Canadian Mint Act. The issue becomes more acute when the statute as set out in Justice Canada's website defines the Minister as one person but, in reality, that Minister is someone else entirely.

A subsequent paper, written by the law and government division of the parliamentary research branch, dated March 20, 2003 states:

Ministers in Canada have most of their responsibilities assigned by statute. Despite the broad language and the PSRTDA [Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act], any transfer of responsibilities made by the PSRTDA remains a subordinate legislation.This may explain why the PSRTDA was given a fairly restricted interpretation, at least until the major reorganizations of federal departments in 1993. It is presumed that regulatory provisions, such as Orders in Council under the PSRTDA, are meant to work together, not only with their own enabling legislation, but also with other Acts and other regulations as well. In so far as possible, the courts seek to avoid conflict between statutory and regulatory provisions and to give effect to both...

On the one hand, any argument limiting the [Where conflict is unavoidable, however, the statute provision prevails], scope of a PSRTDA order based on the superior nature of the statute conferring the power in question could, potentially, eviscerate the PSRTDA and the ambit of its operation. On the other hand, to go to the other extreme by completely emasculate the supremacy of Parliament to legislate who has responsibility of administering its enactments.

The latter interpretation is the position I take in this question of privilege and the one the Speaker must resolve before allowing this amendment to the Firearms Act to take place without any debate or a vote by members of the House.

When the courts are confused by the wording of legislation, they often go back to the debates of the legislation to determine what the original intent of the legislation was. Even a cursory review of the debates of Bill C-68 will show that both the government and Parliament clearly intended that the federal minister in the Firearms Act would be the Minister of Justice and no one else.

I cannot find one reference in any of the debates or the testimony before the Standing Committee on Justice that suggested that any minister other than the Minister of Justice would be or should be responsible for the Firearms Act.

The House of Commons voted on Bill C-68, An Act respecting firearms and other weapons, on five occasions: second reading, report stage, third reading and two time allocation motions.

On June 7, 1995, the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs reported Bill C-68 back to the House with amendments, but the definition of federal minister was not one of the amendments proposed. The Senate also held extensive committee hearings, reported the bill back with 14 amendments and had four votes on Bill C-68. No one ever disputed or debated the question of who the federal minister should be, and on December 5, 1995, Bill C-68 was proclaimed into law. After months of debate, extensive committee hearings in both the House and Senate and nine parliamentary votes, the clear intent of Parliament was that the federal minister would be the Minister of Justice.

It is my position that a subordinate act of Parliament should not be used to subvert the clear intent of Parliament in a statute of specific application and if the government has valid reasons for wanting to transfer responsibility for the Firearms Act to the Solicitor General, then it should bring such an amendment before the House for full debate and a vote.

The powers of the federal minister are extensive and are described in Firearms Act sections 2, 7, 82, 95, 97, 118 and 119 and the Criminal Code sections 103 and 104. The federal minister's powers include: prosecuting Criminal Code offences for the illegal import or export of firearms or ammunition; laying regulations before each House of Parliament; entering into federal-provincial compensation agreements; approving firearms safety courses; prescribing forms and designating chief firearms officers and firearms officers for provinces and territories.

These are important legal responsibilities approved by Parliament and the decision concerning which minister will carry out these duties in the future should have been debated in the House before being amended. Under section 118 of the Firearms Act, regulations are to be laid before each House of Parliament. How can the government propose such a major amendment to the Firearms Act, the definition of the federal minister responsible, without extending the same courtesy to Parliament?

My privileges have been breached and the government has shown contempt for the House by trying to amend the Firearms Act through the back door by order in council.

Clearly, it was Parliament's intent that the Firearms Act be administered by the Minister of Justice, not the Solicitor General. The Minister of Justice has discharged these responsibilities under the Firearms Act for more than seven years. Why is it necessary to change ministerial responsibility now after so many years? What can the Solicitor General do better than the three justice ministers have done? Clearly, these are questions requiring full debate in the House of Commons.

Why is the government amending an act of Parliament without giving Parliament the opportunity to debate and vote for or against the amendment? Why does the government have such contempt for what is clearly stated in an act of Parliament passed by the House? The lawyers in the Library of Parliament stated:

It is unclear if this statute of general application can be used to re-define the Minister responsible in statutes of specific application...

I ask the Speaker to clarify this important issue for Parliament.

In the House of Commons Debates for April 29, 1971, Speaker Lamoureux stated:

In my view, parliamentary privilege does not go much beyond the right of free speech in the House of Commons and the right of a member to discharge his or her duties in the House as a member of the House of Commons.

One of the most important duties is to represent my constituents in the House and to vote on their behalf. The government's actions have prevented me from debating and voting on an important amendment to a bill that is very important to them. The government's actions have directly impeded my work as a member of Parliament.

Joseph Maingot's “Parliamentary Privilege in Canada”, second edition provides “A practical definition” of parliamentary privilege on page 13, which states:

If someone improperly interferes with the parliamentary work of a Member of Parliament--i.e. any of the Member's activities that have a connection with the proceeding in Parliament--in such a case that is a matter involving parliamentary privilege. An offence against the authority of the House constitutes contempt.

I believe the Prime Minister's order in council registration number SI/2003-0096 dated Friday, April 11, 2003 has improperly interfered with my parliamentary work as a member of Parliament and has also undermined the authority of the House.

I believe changing the definition of federal minister in the Firearms Act from the Minister of Justice to the Solicitor General by order in council using the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act rather than bringing the proper amendment before the House undermines the supremacy of Parliament and constitutes a prima facie breach of privilege. Mr. Speaker, if you agree, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion and appreciate your attention to this matter.

[Firearms Registry, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, that is no answer.

Why are all those spaces blank with the costs unreported? We do not know what it will cost. If Mr. Hession's report was so valuable why is there not some reflection of that in the bill that is now before Parliament, Bill C-10A?

These amendments to the gun registry, which were tabled yesterday and debated yesterday, have been kicking around this House for more than two years.

Why does the minister not just admit that there are no amendments that can fix the firearms registry? Why not just scrap it?

[Firearms Registry, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the justice minister's Plans and Priorities report confirm that the firearms program will cost more than a billion dollars by 2005. However, in an unprecedented move, the minister tabled his estimates report with 105 blanks, so no one can tell how much it will really cost.

In December the Auditor General told the government to stop keeping Parliament in the dark.

Why is the minister's report to Parliament filled with blanks rather than facts and figures?

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

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?

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

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?