Vic Toews

[Points of Order, May 1st, 2003]

I bet.

[Public Works and Government Services, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, 10 years have passed and there is no legislated requirement for any public reporting of how assets are seized and how they are disposed. In this secretive, unchecked environment, an Ontario police officer was able to purchase, at a bargain price, a house seized from a drug dealer.

Why has the government failed over 10 years to take the necessary steps to ensure that this law does not promote the corruption of our justice system?

[Public Works and Government Services, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, under Canada's proceeds of crime law, police seize millions of dollars worth of houses, cars and other property bought with the profits of crime. Over the last 10 years, the value of the property has grown steadily but public accountability has not.

The system is ripe for abuse. Why has the federal government failed to establish a clear public process as to how these assets are disposed?

[Justice, March 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Police Association and the Police Association of Ontario represent thousands of front line police officers across Canada. They should be congratulated for their admirable leadership role in advancing public safety by calling on the federal government to institute a national sex offender registry, to reform the youth justice system, to toughen up our laws against organized crime and to reform our parole system.

The Canadian Alliance hopes that the police associations will also stand with the opposition in supporting today's motion calling on the federal government to determine the total costs of the firearms program, to provide a comprehensive cost benefit analysis for the program and to reduce funding to that program until this analysis has been completed.

Regardless of where Canadians stand on this important issue, it is important that all of us hold the Liberal government accountable for its spending of taxpayers' money.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, in terms of having to administer a budget as a provincial attorney general where the federal government passes the laws and then the province has to enforce them, what has been happening, of course, is that the federal government continues to reduce its financial contribution but downloads responsibilities. This gun registry has been siphoning direct funds away from support of front line police officers.

When I was the attorney general in Manitoba we specifically supported the hiring of more Winnipeg city police officers. We would have liked to have seen more of that, as well as more RCMP officers. Simply, the money was not there because the government refused to support front line police officers.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, if in fact I said $1 billion a year, that was a mistake. It was $1 billion up until this year, that we know of. That is what the statistics are. That is where the Auditor General ran out of paper to confirm this. Clearly the new estimate of the parliamentary research is somewhere in the range of $200 million a year.

In respect of the licensing program, the statistics are that the federal government spent, prior to this, about $10 million a year on licensing. We have gone from $10 million a year on a licensing program to now $200 million a year. Something is very, very wrong. Indeed, the member should be asking and joining with us to ask for this cost benefit analysis that the Liberals are hiding from Parliament. The Auditor General has already stated once that the government misled the House. Now it is trying to do the same thing again.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Well, she certainly has been more attentive than any minister has ever been, so I am confused. I am sorry, Madam Speaker.

Clearly the Liberal government has from the beginning been more interested in the appearance of public safety rather than public safety itself. The current justice minister, the solicitor general and their Liberal colleagues continue to politicize the ideal of public safety, which all Canadians support, by suggesting that gun control did not exist before this government came along.

Everyone knows that is ridiculous and it is nonsense, yet the government continues to criticize the Canadian Alliance, which wants to bring in a responsible mechanism to ensure that guns stay out of the hands of criminals. Why do the Liberals not do that? They are simply too proud to now admit that they have made a mistake.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address the motion presented today by my colleague, the hon. member for Yorkton--Melville. As members have heard from my colleague, the purpose of the motion today is to compel the Liberal government to determine the total cost of the firearms program and to provide a comprehensive cost benefit analysis for the program.

As for the question from the member opposite about why the CPA and the executive might be supporting this particular program, I think it is clear that if they actually had a copy of that cost benefit analysis they would soon change their minds about this horrible waste of money.

Minister after minister responsible for the Firearms Act has failed miserably to inform not only our front line police officers but Canadian taxpayers generally how much money this wasteful registry will cost and will continue to cost. Even the numbers that were eventually provided by the justice department were called into question by Canada's top auditor last December.

I can understand the police saying, “On the basis of what the Liberals have shown us, it seems to make sense”, but since the Auditor General has specifically stated that the Liberal government has misled Parliament, I think the CPA needs to re-examine its position. Let it be told the truth. We would not have a worry about debating this issue if the truth were told. Unfortunately, as the Auditor General said, we are not getting the truth from the government. Canadians are starting to wonder who exactly is minding the shop and why they should trust the Liberal government with their money.

Events and revelations during the last number of months have shown that the law concerning firearms registration in Canada is so dysfunctional, so unrelated to the actual task of tracking down and eliminating gun related crime, and such an embarrassing example of government mismanagement that to consider putting more money down a black hole would be absurd.

I ask members to look at some of the editorials put out today. The National Post of Canada: “$59-million more down the hole”. The editorial in the Winnipeg Free Press : “It's still a waste”. No one who thinks about this in any rational way can in any way justify the expenditure of government money--no, better put, taxpayers' money, because that is whose money it is.

Although the Canadian Alliance has held this position in opposition to the firearms registry, it is clearer than ever that funds flowing into the firearms program must be reduced until a total cost benefit analysis and accurate cost projection has been completed.

When the Canadian Alliance claims of over-expenditure and mismanagement of the registry were finally confirmed by the independent Auditor General last December, the Liberal government was at a loss as to how to respond because the facts were impossible to deny. Canadians know that this registry has been riddled with administrative errors, budget overruns, mismanagement and lack of accountability since it was implemented in 1995.

We also know that the costs have ballooned to almost $1 billion. We must remember that when the Auditor General said $1 billion, it was not in fact $1 billion: That is where she ran out of paper. There simply was no paper to confirm any of the other expenditures. She has stated that she needs another three to four years to determine what these costs are because she has to wait until the program is implemented. The program will not be implemented for another three to four years. A Library of Parliament research paper now has stated that the registry is likely to cost an additional $1 billion over and above the current $1 billion, just over the next five years. Let us think of it: another $1 billion over another 5 years, or $200 million a year. Given the track record since last December, it has spent over $60 million. I am beginning to mix up my m's and my b's because the expenditure is so unbelievable, but it has spent $60 million just since last December, so the projection of $200 million a year is not unreasonable.

Most people simply cannot imagine how much money that really is. To put it in real terms, a billion dollars could have, for example, financed the purchase, installation and operation for one full year of 208 MRI systems in cash strapped Canadian hospitals. At least we know that in that context the money would have saved lives. Instead, we have individuals in Winnipeg and Manitoba hospitals dying in waiting rooms because they cannot get treatment. This government and this justice minister are pumping money into a gun registry that is not preventing crime and our citizens are dying in waiting rooms in our hospitals. It is shameful. The solicitor general, who has been dumped on with this unfortunate project, is now trying to say, as he has to, that it is a great system and “I am there to make sure it works”.

Three justice ministers have been unable to do anything with this and what the government is now doing is dumping it onto the solicitor general, the new guy on the block. Why is it doing that? The government is doing it so that it can hide the true operational costs of the registry in operational programs.

What it will do is pump up the budget for the RCMP and then tell all Canadians to look at how much money is being given to the RCMP. As it pumps up that budget, it will use the money not for front line policing but for the gun registry and it will at the same time say, “Look how supportive we are of the police”. These are the kinds of devices that mislead not just front line police officers but the Canadian taxpayer generally, and it is disgusting.

Why is the government not prepared to show that cost benefit analysis? It is not prepared to show that cost benefit analysis because that would expose what it is doing in terms of hiding where this money is going.

Statistics Canada told us that the implementation of Bill C-68 has not resulted in any quantifiable decrease in gun related crime. We remember the former justice minister, the current industry minister, saying that it saved 300 lives a year. Pure rubbish. Pure nonsense. And yet these kinds of statements are made deliberately without any basis in fact. Statistics Canada does not support it. The justice minister's statistics do not support it, and indeed, the cost analysis the government is hiding from the Canadian taxpayer will not support it.

Why will the government not show the analysis if it demonstrates money paid for good value? Why will the government not show it? Because it realizes that it has gone down the road of blowing a billion dollars here and a billion dollars over the next five years, and it is too ashamed to show Canadians. The government simply wants to get past the hump of the next election and then let the thing fall apart.

Madam Minister, why cannot Canadians see the facts today? Why?

[Child Pornography, March 21st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government may talk about protecting children, but it does exactly the opposite.

Prominent human rights lawyer David Matas has recently stated that Bill C-20, the proposed child pornography legislation, goes in exactly the wrong direction. Instead of narrowing the defence of artistic merit, indeed it broadens the defence.

When will the government finally find the courage to protect children, rather than siding with the interests of child pornographers?

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is not showing respect for the system. It is incredible for this minister of the Crown to suggest that reasons of a judge delivered in public are only a draft. The reasons of a judge, in fact, are final. They are the law. It is clear that this is simply a desperate attempt by the minister to avoid the consequences of misleading Parliament.

How can Canadians have any confidence in the system and in the minister, given his conduct?