Jim Abbott

[Firearms Act, June 12th, 1995]

Zero.

[Firearms Act, June 12th, 1995]

It was a national crisis.

[Firearms Act, June 12th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I heard earlier in a speech by one of the government members that the objective of the legislation was to improve public safety on the streets and in our homes. Every single Reform member in the House is out for exactly the same objective, to improve public safety on the streets and in our homes. Unfortunately the bill has very little to do with that.

I have asked a number of people, including members of the House, to explain what they think the bill is all about. One member suggested that it was the warm fuzzies, the warm fuzzies simply being that it makes us feel good, that it makes us feel better.

The justice minister has been very interesting in coming forward with a figure of $85 million to make his creation work, $85 million to register seven million guns. We are taking at look at the imposition of registration and we are taking a look at the expenditure of $85 million. It reminds me an awful lot of the idea of what it would cost for transportation of a particular entity.

If we take into account only the capital cost of the car and not any of the actual running expenses, we might get a rather distorted picture.

I do not buy the justice minister's estimate of $85 million by a long shot. I do not think it is anywhere even remotely close. At best, even if that was the federal cost, what about the provincial cost?

I asked the justice minister about a situation where environmental activist Paul Watson talked about the fact that he had used a stun gun in either New Brunswick or the province of Quebec, I cannot recall. He rose in the House and made the very clear point that the administration of justice was a provincial issue, a provincial responsibility.

Even if the $85 million figure were believable, which I do not think it is, the real cost of administering this useless program will fall to the provinces.

I also cite from page 13480 of Hansard , June 8, wherein the Speaker of the House made a ruling on a point of order raised by the House leader for the Reform Party. I recognize that clause 98 was dealt with in Motion No. 3. Nonetheless this is germane to my argument. He said:

Clause 98 as introduced in the House had the concept of "police officer" for which the concept of "inspector" has been substituted by the committee. It still remains a provincial ministerial responsibility as to which class of individuals shall be so designated. It may well be that a provincial minister decides to recruit an entirely new class of individuals for the purpose of clause 98, but it clearly remains the decision of the provincial authority to do so. Whether the class of individuals are called inspectors or police officers has no direct impact on the royal recommendation attached to the bill.

He was ruling on the fact, in the judgment of the Speaker, that the costs of the program were actually going to be borne by the provinces in the same way as the cost of driving the automobile once it is purchased are borne by the owner. In actual fact the cost to the Canadian taxpayer, even if we could believe the $85 million as a starting point, is $85 million to buy into the initial registration of the program. The enforcement of the program will be something quite different.

Let us deal with the $85 million figure. I want to restate for the third or fourth time that I do not buy the $85 million figure even at the federal level. What could we do with money equivalent to that?

I read in the June 10 Gazette :

The RCMP will spend $68 million over the next few years in an attempt to curb smuggling along the 700-kilometre border between Quebec and the U.S.

The largest number of new officers will go to the Valleyfield detachment, near the Akwasasne Mohawk reserve.

Akwasasne, which straddles the Canada-U.S. border and incorporates parts of Quebec and Ontario, is considered a key crossing point for contraband.

If we are to spend $68 million in that case or if we are to spend, as the justice minister has suggested, this impossible figure of $85 million, would it not be good if we could actually spend it on something that would accomplish that for which it is being spent?

It seems rather illogical when one refers to the polls that the justice minister and parliamentary secretary keep referring to. They say that 60 per cent, 68 per cent or 75 per cent of people are in favour of registration. That is terrific, except invariably-and I will make up a figure-68 per cent of people are in favour of registration but 72 per cent of people do not think it will do anything. What is the point of the registration program if in the belief of Canadians it will not do anything? Why are we getting into it in the first place? Why are we harassing ordinary law-abiding Canadians?

With respect to the source of weapons coming into Canada, I will read a small part of a very profound report by the MacKenzie Institute. It is rather detailed but is also quite enlightening.

By the time of writing, 102 weapons which have been sold to the four Mohawks were recovered by Canadian police forces. Details on these firearms include the following: 65 light semi-automatic pistols; 32 semi-automatic pistols; four revolvers; one submachine gun; at least another 21 light semi-automatic pistols, 39 semi-automatic pistols and four Cobray submachine guns pass through this connection into Canada.

What possible effect did or would the registration program have on the passage of this arsenal?

Other weapons that were not traced to Vermont but were seized along with those 102 weapons included five assault rifles, two submachine guns, a sawed off shotgun, 14 other pistols and 23 unspecified weapons. At least five of these were also smuggled in from the United States. Of the 102 weapons, various Canadian police forces have provided information on the crimes the firearms were associated with, and/or the history of the suspects who had been in possession of the firearms.

The arms provided by the four Mohawks were linked to the following crimes and criminals. Again, I am only going to read a small part of the list. "Thirty-five were associates and/or members of the Russian Mafiya, Armenian thieves", and it goes on and on.

The connections are amazing. The point I am trying to make is that our border at this point is no bar to guns. A registration program is going to have no effect in changing that situation. This is underscored and underlined even by the Canadian Police Association.

My point is why are we going after targeting law-abiding Canadian citizens when the surveys themselves which supposedly support registration say that people recognize registration will make no difference. We are going after the wrong people.

[Questions Passed As Orders For Return, June 12th, 1995]

Soon again.

[Petitions, June 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to present a petition on behalf of residents of the town of Elkford in my community.

Your petitioners call on Parliament to enact legislation against serious personal injury crimes being committed by high risk offenders by permitting the use of post-sentence detention orders and specifically passing Bill C-240.

I am particularly pleased to present this petition because of a serious situation they were in. They asked me what to do. I suggested that they do exactly this, that they petition the government.

[Alternative Fuels Act, June 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying for the Liberals: "If it moves, regulate it; if it does not, tax it". It seems to me that this bill is yet another one of them that is being supported. I recognize that it came originally from the other place of great rest. We took a look at it and we are wondering what we should be doing about it. Then when the Liberals took it under their wing as if it were one of their own, we really started to take a look at it and we realized that it fit the principle of "if it moves, regulate it".

One of the biggest problems we have in Canada today, whether it is this bill or anything else, is the constant, never-ending interference of all levels of government in everything we could possibly imagine: if it is interaction between people, let us legislate it and get it made right by legislation; if it is interaction between people relative to commerce then we have to make sure we have that absolutely airtight.

What do we have motor pool managers for? Why do we have departments in the government and crown corporations that look after matters like this? What is their job? If their job is not to manage, if their job is not to make good sound judgments that can be based strictly on economics or can be based on a combination of economics and environment or can be made strictly for the purpose of environment, what are they there for? The government desires to consistently interfere and get into the faces, get into the lives, get into the wallets, get into the back pockets of every Canadian. It is a piece of work.

In doing a little research for this, I reviewed a document called "Comparative Analysis of Alternative Transportation Fuels", put out by Clean Fuels Consulting Inc. in Toronto with branches in the States. I was interested in page 5 of the document which relates directly to my question of what do we have motor pool managers for, why are they there, do they not have any level of expertise. I do not profess to have any expertise so I went to the source.

As an example: "High alcohol fuels have problems with cold starts because the fuel does not vaporize easily. This problem does not exist for compressed natural gas and propane, where the fuel is already in the vapour phase to begin with. However,

these gases have a high ignition temperature and a high ignition delay, which could cause some cold start problems."

Rather than taking the time of the House to read more of this documentation, I just cite that as one example of the little bit of research that even a novice like myself can do to come across the fact that there are some serious problems that professional motor pool managers, people in the whole business of moving vehicles, moving people or materials in those vehicles, should be able to have a handle on. I would bow to their wisdom before I would bow to the wisdom of any member of the House, unless they had equal understanding, background, and schooling.

For example, in talking about gasoline, another piece of research that came to me is that emission controls are working. In the past 15 years, unburned hydrocarbon emissions have been reduced by 98 per cent, nitrous oxides by 90 per cent, and carbon monoxide by 96 per cent.

Again, I do not cite these numbers to in any way infer that I am an expert on this topic. I am merely asking, other than any members in the House who by pure coincidence happen to be experts, why are we as members of Parliament coming forward with this kind of legislation that will give quotas?

I go back to the fact the government seems to have a thing about quotas for everything. If the country does not have enough of this kind of person in this kind of industry, then we will have a quota. We have seen what the people of Ontario thought about that kind of legislation last night.

The government just does not get it. It does not understand there is such a thing as a free market that actually drives the economy, that brings us to a norm, to a proper level.

This morning I received a letter from a gentleman from Superior Propane in Unionville, Ontario via fax. I appreciated receiving the letter. He was trying to suggest to me reasons why this is a good bill and should be passed. His concluding sentence is: "I look forward to the record of the vote showing your endorsement of this valuable bill".

I am prepared to listen to the debate on this bill and make a determination which way I will be voting at the conclusion of the debate but it is pretty obvious which direction I am leaning at this point.

He says: "I am contacting you regarding S-7, an important piece of legislation awaiting third reading in the House". Then he explains five benefits of passing the bill like "industrial benefits resulting from increased private sector investment of $40 million to $50 million".

With government mandating certain things through legislation we are going to be generating $40 million to $50 million worth of private sector investment. The question I have is, if we were not mandating this would that private sector investment be happening? In other words, I want to get a balance between those things.

His second point is diversification of transportation energy, thus increasing competition among transportation fuel suppliers and economies to consumers. His third point is expanded markets for canola farmers. His fourth point is diversification of the western economy.

It raises this question in my mind. If we have literally millions of vehicles that roll up and down the road, whether private vehicles, cars, trucks or whatever, or if we have vehicles that are not in the private sector but are owned by government, what is the comparison?

The number of government vehicles is in the tens of thousands whereas the number of vehicles that are actually on the road are in the many millions. It then begs the question: Why are we doing this? We are talking about expanded markets for canola farmers. Surely converting the tens of thousands of vehicles that are owned by the federal government is not going to make a significant difference to canola farmers, and diversification of the western economies is, with all due respect to this gentleman, something of a stretch.

However, in his fifth point he suggests the savings to the taxpayers resulting from reduced operating costs in the federal fleet are estimated at $4 million to $6 million annually. It then begs the question: If savings of $4 million to $6 million annually could be had by making these conversions, and if the government presently is trying to watch every dollar it is presently spending, why is it necessary to pass legislation? If the motor pool managers and the people who are in charge of these fleets cannot see there is a $4 million to $6 million annual savings and they are not prepared to do it, maybe they should be fired.

I go back to page 13 of my research on this comparative analysis of alternative transportation fuels. I refer to what my colleague from Edmonton Southwest was mentioning about the situation in Brazil and I will recall one sentence. From 1989 to early 1990 there was an acute shortage of ethanol and consumers with dedicated ethanol vehicles waited in long fuel lines.

We have seen with this and also with the artificial level of taxation on propane that the government has a tremendous ability to manipulate the private sector. Within the bill there consistently appears the phrase "where it is cost effective and operationally feasible". I am suggesting, is this legislation actually necessary? Are there not some other ways of achieving exactly the same thing? Surely we can reduce the amount of legislation that is currently on our slate. It seems to be pushing the government to all of these wonderful hours of time allocation and extended hours. Perhaps we could just dispose of this bill.

[Alternative Fuels Act, June 9th, 1995]

He rode a bike in Beijing.

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1995]

A little red book? Oh.

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1995]

Well, identify the document.

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would suggest it would be valuable if the parliamentary secretary were to identify the document he is reading from. I am making a statement that there is no such authorized publication by the Reform Party in that form.