Garry Breitkreuz

[Firearms Program, December 12th, 2002]

All those people blathering over there better listen carefully. The minister's gun registry is such a boondoggle that the minister does not even keep track of the current addresses of 131,000 persons prohibited from owning firearms and he has no provision to check if their guns have been removed from their possession or to ensure that they have not acquired more guns illegally. Instead of keeping track of 131,000 convicted criminals, he is going to try to keep track of two million law abiding gun owners. Is there any sense in that?

He has his priorities backwards, because he thinks it is easier to track two million law abiding and honest people than 131,000 convicted criminals. That is the only explanation I can imagine.

Now the minister claims that thousands of convicted sex offenders have privacy rights. Where is the minister's concern about the privacy rights of two million completely innocent firearms owners whom he forces to report their changes of address or go to jail for up to two years?

What the minister should have said today is that the gun registry is such a mess that it is impossible to fix, that he is going to do the right thing and kill it, scrap it and abolish it.

[Firearms Program, December 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the minister's statement. I wonder why he even bothered to make the statement, because he did not say anything new. There was nothing of substance that merits taking time in the House to make this statement. He is saying the same old nonsense we have heard for a long time. He continues to defend a program that Parliament now refuses to fund.

We were hoping that the minister would finally accept responsibility for the fiasco and announce his resignation for the biggest cost overrun the Auditor General has seen in any government program. We were also hoping that the minister was going to announce this morning that he was scrapping the gun registry because it already has wasted almost $1 billion. For that billion dollars, he will only have registered one-third of the guns in Canada. Is he going to waste another billion or two or three before he admits the program is a dismal failure? How much is it going to be? We cannot get that response.

If he is not going to resign or scrap the gun registry, at least he could have announced this morning a general amnesty to allow all firearms owners the time they need to fully comply with the law. Because his own bureaucracy cannot get the paperwork done, he has put in place a six month moratorium or amnesty for owners to get their papers, all because his bureaucrats need more time to process the firearms licences and registration certificates. Does he really want to drive millions of gun owners and guns underground?

The Liberals issued a general amnesty in 1978, and the Conservatives also did it in 1992. What possible excuse can the minister have for sticking to a completely arbitrary political deadline of December 31 of this year?

The minister's own user group on firearms tells the minister that the way his program is designed is driving firearms into the black market, the exact opposite of what the public and Parliament were promised. Is the minister listening to his own user group? Has he even met with the group yet?

Poorly drafted legislation and an up to 90% error rate in the system are making it impossible for police to know who owns guns or where they are stored. That is the very thing the minister promised the police that the gun registry would do.

The three justice ministers who have been in charge of this file have so infuriated provincial and territorial governments that eight of them have opted out of the administration of the gun registry, and the western provinces refuse to enforce the Firearms Act. This is criminal law that the provinces do not want to have any part of, which ought to indicate to Canadians that there is a serious problem here.

This week the Nunavut Court of Justice suspended firearms registration requirements for the Nunavut Inuit because of lack of service, poor communication and low compliance. I remind the minister that he is responsible for ensuring that all Canadians are treated equally before and under the law. If they no longer have to comply with it, what about the rest of us?

[Firearms Registry, December 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, that answer is irrelevant. I have to conclude that the minister does not know the answer.

Last week the Ontario Police Association said that the $1 billion that has been wasted on the gun registry would have been better invested in front line policing.

Today's newspaper reports that the minister's claimed drop in firearms deaths predated the gun registry by a decade. Also, the 20-year-old gun licensing system that was supposedly producing these results cost less than half of the present system to operate.

How much will it cost to register all the guns and--

[Firearms Registry, December 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Auditor General's report did not tell us what are the big costs still to come in the gun registry, namely, enforcement costs, court costs, economic costs, and annual maintenance costs.

Parliament and the public have been misled for seven years. Will the minister now come clean and tell us how much it will cost to complete the registry and how much it will cost to maintain it?

[Gun Control Legislation Expiry Act, December 9th, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-330, an act to provide for the expiry of gun control legislation that is not proven effective within five years of coming into force.

Mr. Speaker, I am reintroducing this bill for the fourth time. I would like to thank the member for Prince George—Peace River for seconding my firearms law sunset act.

Never in the history of ill-conceived gun control laws has the need for this legislation been more obvious. The firearms law sunset act guarantees that scarce tax dollars will only be spent on gun control measures that actually improve public safety.

My sunset law would require the automatic repeal of any gun control measure five years after it has been implemented unless it can pass a public safety test administered by the Auditor General for Canada which proves the measure is cost effective at achieving its stated purpose. I believe all laws we pass in the House must be cost effective at achieving their stated goals. Sunset provisions are the only way of guaranteeing it.

In conclusion, maybe we cannot repeal Bill C-68 right now, but by passing this bill we can ensure that all ineffective measures like Bill C-68 imposes on Canadians and the billions more it will waste in the future are redirected to fighting real crime and curtailing the activities of street gangs, organized crime and terrorists.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Firearms Registry, December 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the cover-up continues. The government has not answered the question. Listen to this.

The Auditor General reports that about 90% of licence and registration applications contain errors. The RCMP says that there are so many errors in the gun registry that criminals could be issued firearms licences. This Goliath of a gun registry has been dealt a mortal blow and now the Liberals have put it on life support. Why do they not just pull the plug?

How much more is it going to cost taxpayers?

[Firearms Registry, December 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is getting even worse. I have in front of me a report from a former Liberal justice minister, Ron Basford, saying that in 1976 there were 10 million guns in Canada with a quarter of a million guns being added to that stock every year. That means there are 16 million guns in Canada today and only one-third of them have been registered; $1 billion and only one-third of the firearms have been registered. The firearms fiasco is becoming an even bigger boondoggle.

I ask again, how much will it cost to complete the registry?

[Firearms Registry, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I gather from the answer that he does not know what he is doing, so I will ask him again. How much will it cost to complete the registry and how much will it cost to maintain it after that?

[Firearms Registry, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in case the justice minister did not understand the Leader of the Opposition, who clearly indicated that he would consent to the withdrawing of funding from the gun registry, I would like to ask the question again. How much will it cost to complete the gun registry and how much will it cost to maintain it?

[Privilege, December 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege regarding a grave matter relating to information that I requested through a question on the Order Paper. Recent events have led me to believe that there has been a deliberate attempt by the Department of Justice to deny me a correct answer.

My question of privilege will charge the parliamentary secretary who delivered the answer to the House and the Minister of Justice who is responsible for his department with contempt for sending me misleading information with regard to Question No. 131 from the last session.

I will present four points, Mr. Speaker, that you will need to consider together before a prima facie case of privilege can be made. I would ask that the Speaker examine, first, the question that I submitted to the government; second, the response given by the parliamentary secretary; third, the Auditor General's report and her comments following the tabling of her report; and fourth, the perception created in the public's mind through the media.

I will begin by laying out the procedural grounds on which this question of privilege is based.

I refer to a Speaker's ruling from December 16, 1980, at page 5797 of Hansard . The Speaker said:

While it is correct to say that the government is not required by our rules to answer written or oral questions, it would be bold to suggest that no circumstances could ever exist for a prima facie question of privilege to be made where there was a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an hon. member,...

On page 141 of the 19th edition of Erskine May, it states:

Conspiracy to deceive either House or any committees of either House will also be treated as a breach of privilege.

I refer to Erskine May's 21st edition which describes contempt as:

--any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results may be treated as contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence.

I would place much emphasis on the word omission in that citation.

I requested information in accordance with Standing Order 39(1), which states:

Questions may be placed on the Order Paper seeking information from Ministers of the Crown relating to public affairs; and from other Members, relating to any bill, motion or other public matter connected with the business of the House, in which such Members may be concerned;...

This request of mine was done under our rules and is considered a proceeding of Parliament for the purpose of privilege. Joseph Maingot's first edition of Parliamentary Privilege in Canada defines a proceeding in Parliament on page 70. It states:

Since two of Parliament's constituent elements, the House of Commons and the Senate, were established for the enactment of laws, those events necessarily incidental to the enactment of laws are part of the “proceedings in Parliament”. However, Parliament has also always been a forum to receive petitions, and the Crown's satisfying the grievances of members before granting supply eventually led to straightforward requests for information. Therefore, the events necessarily incidental to petitions, questions and notices of motion in Parliament in the seventeenth century and today are all events which are part of “proceedings in Parliament”.

Mr. Maingot went on to state:

Privilege of Parliament is founded on necessity, and is those rights that are “absolutely necessary for the due execution of its powers.” Necessity then should be a basis for any claim that an event was part of a “proceeding in Parliament,” i.e., what is claimed to be part of a “proceeding in Parliament” and thus protected should be necessarily incidental to a “proceeding in Parliament.”

On page 72 there is a quote from the Report of the Select Committee on the Official Secrets Act in 1939, which stated:

(A proceeding in Parliament) covers both the asking of a question and the giving written notice of such a question,...

The question I asked was the following:

With regard to the Canadian Firearms Program: (a) what is the proposed budget allocation for fiscal year 2002-03; (b) what are the line-item cost projections for fiscal year 2002-03; (c) what are the cost projections by department and agency for 2002-03; (d) what is the total cost of the program since its inception in 1995; and (e) what is the projected annual cost for each of the next 10 years?

On Wednesday, April 24, 2002, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice responded. He said:

(a) The Canadian Firearms Centre’s, CFC, proposed budget allocation for fiscal year 2002-03 is $113.5 million.

(b) The CFC line item cost projections for 2002-03 are as follows:

Vote 1--Operating Expenditures: $97.3 million

Vote 5--Contributions: $10.4 million

Statutory--Employee Benefits: $5.8 million

(c) The cost projections by department and agency that will receive funding through the Canadian Firearms Centre in 2002-03 are as follows:

Department of Justice--CFC: $109.5 million

Solicitor General--RCMP: $3.0 million

Canada Customs and Revenue Agency: $1.0 million

(d) The total cost of the program since inception in 1995 is:

From 1995-96 to 2000-01 the net cost of the program incurred by the Department of Justice--CFC is $484.1 million. This consists of $551.5 million in gross expenditures minus $23.1 million in C-17 expenditures minus $44.3 million in net revenue.

As of March 31, 2002, period 12, the net cost of the program incurred by the Department of Justice--CFC for fiscal year 2001-02 is $88.6 million. This consists of $102.9 million in gross expenditures minus $14.3 million in revenue.

(e) The projected annual costs for the next 10 years are as follows:

i. For 2002-03 the net costs are projected to be $101.2 million (this consists of projected gross expenditures of $113.5 million minus $12.3 million in revenue);

ii. For 2003-04 the net costs are projected to be $59.8 million (this consists of projected gross expenditures of $95.0 million minus $35.2 million in revenue);

iii. For 2004-05 the net costs are projected to be $44.8 million (this consists of projected gross expenditures of $80.0 million minus $35.2 in revenue);

iv. Funding has not yet been finalized for fiscal years 2005-06 through 2011-12, but is expected to continue to decrease.

Yesterday the Auditor General tabled her report in Parliament. It states:

In 1995, when the program was introduced, the Department of Justice told Parliament that the program would cost taxpayers about $2 million after cost recovery from license and registration fees. The Department now estimates that by 2004-05 the cost will be well over $1 billion and only about $140 million in fees will have been collected. What's really inexcusable is that Parliament was in the dark. I question why the Department continued to watch the costs escalate without informing Parliament and without considering the alternatives.

She made the comment that: “Even though the department has many explanations for this ballooning of costs, it never shared any of them with Parliament”.

She points out in her report that:

The information the Department provided states that by 2001-02 it has spent about $688 million on the Program and collected about $59 million in revenues after refunds. We believe that this information does not fairly present the cost of the Program to the government. The Department also did not report to Parliament on the wider costs of the Program as required by the government's regulatory policy. Furthermore, the entire Program was designated as a Major Crown Project. Treasury Board policies require departments, at a minimum, to annually report the following types of information to Parliament: description of the program, total expenditures to date and planned expenditures to future years to the completion of the project, etc.

She then states:

The Department has not fully reported this information.

Finally, the Auditor General reports:

The financial information provided does not fairly present all costs. 10.48 in our view, the financial information provided for audit by the Department does not fairly present the cost of the program to the government. Our initial review found significant shortcomings in the information the Department provided. Consequently we stopped our audit of this information that because we did not believe that a detailed audit would result in substantially different findings.

The second edition of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada at page 234 explains that in order for the Speaker to find a prima facie case in a matter involving a deliberate misleading statement there must be “an admission by someone in authority, such a Minister of the Crown or an officer...”

The Auditor General is a very senior officer of Parliament. If information was withheld from her, then that too is inexcusable, but information being withheld from Parliament is contempt. It was not as if no one asked the government for this information. Clearly my question did ask for that information and I was given unreliable and bogus information.

When I received my answer to Question No. 131 I had no choice but to take those figures the government provided as the answer. Had I known that the department either really did not know, which would have been a better answer, at least I would know the truth and not use information that was misleading.

There is a chain reaction of using misleading information. The department misleads the parliamentary secretary who misleads Parliament who then misleads the members. Sometimes the right answer is “I don't know”. The other possibility, and this is the position of the Auditor General and the media, is that the government knew and did not share that information, deciding instead to provide me with numbers for the sake of providing me with numbers, perhaps to avoid the 45 day review of a committee, I do not know, but it is clear it did not provide the correct numbers and it was deliberate.

Whether you are of the opinion personally, Mr. Speaker, that the government did or did not deliberately mislead or withhold information from Parliament, there is the perception out there that it did. On that basis only this House must take action and get to the bottom of this issue for, if nothing else, preserving the dignity and authority of this institution and its members.

I refer you, Mr. Speaker, to the headline in the Globe and Mail which says, “Lies and contempt for Parliament at root of scandal in gun registry”. What impression does that give? I have never seen that in all my years as a member of Parliament.

The Ottawa Citizen reads, “Government accused of hiding secret audit. Different issue but same AG report and same theme”.

The Winnipeg Sun states, “Liberals lied”.

There was a case in 1973 when the member for Northumberland--Durham received a letter from the then solicitor general stating that the RCMP did not make a practice of opening mail. Subsequent questions in the House by the same member on November 9, 1977, to the then solicitor general regarding mail openings by the RCMP provided a sufficient and direct relation with the proceedings in Parliament for the purpose of privilege. Later remarks before a royal commission by a former commissioner of the RCMP “the practice was very often ministers' letters were not exactly drafted on precise statements of fact”.

The sum of this evidence permitted the Speaker in 1978 to find a prima facie case of contempt where the RCMP were alleged to have deliberately misled a minister of the crown and the member for Northumberland--Durham, resulting in an attempt to obstruct the House by offering misleading information.

Whereas, Mr. Speaker, the case of the member for Northumberland--Durham dealt with the matter of an official deliberately misleading a member, this case that I bring to your attention is a case where a department is deliberately trying to interfere with me as a member of Parliament by deliberately not being forthright with resources and causing information to be withheld.

In summary, I established that the government was asked this information through a proceeding of Parliament. I have provided the bogus answer to the Speaker. The Auditor General has confirmed that the government withheld this information from Parliament, and the impression in the public domain is that the government lied to Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that you review this matter and I trust that you will find that there is a prima facie question of privilege here.