Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, the work of Minister Guarnieri was from January through to May 2004. I'm not sure to which recommendations you may be referring. She, of course, was involved in a number of public consultations on the firearms program. Her ultimate advice would have been provided for c

Public Safety committee  I'm reluctant to speculate. I think, though, from the perspective of parliamentarians, I can say with confidence that all members of Parliament are getting much more information today about the program than they ever did before. While it's not perfect, there's better-quality inf

Public Safety committee  First, this is a decision for the Prime Minister, in keeping with the laws and regulations. I don't see any reason to not continue with the achievements made over the past three years, even with the RCMP.

Public Safety committee  Actually we did, and in some of the cumulative costs that we've reported, we made a reasonable effort to do that, bearing in mind that we didn't have the facility to go in and do an audit of every other organization. But we did reasonable estimates based on input.

Public Safety committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, it's true these are new recommendations and that the centre, which is now with the RCMP, will be taking subsequent action. But I think it's important to point out that at the time of the 2002 audit, indirect costs were not being reported and that we have atte

Public Safety committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, to be precise, the opinion was with respect to the $21.8 million in 2003-04. As I indicated earlier, the $21.8 million was identified by our own accounting staff at the Firearms Centre. The initial impression, and I think the expected opinion of the accountin

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, I certainly couldn't be precise with that. The only thing I could offer for the committee's consideration is that I recall about three years ago a representative of the Canadian Professional Police Association indicated that the previous firearms acquisition certificat

Public Safety committee  I couldn't comment, because what we reported on—the only figures I have confidence in reporting on—is what the total cost of the registration program was, so I'm afraid I can't speculate on that.

Public Safety committee  I can't tell you exactly on long gun registration. I can say with certainty that for the year just completed, 2005-06, of the $82.3 million budgeted for the Canada Firearms Centre approximately $15 million was for registration-related activities. That would be registration of all

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, I have some vague familiarization with it. Just to repeat, our singular and sole focus—my focus since my appointment—was to address the issues on a go-forward basis and get better information and get the costs under control and provide a better service to Canadians. I

Public Safety committee  Of course. I am absolutely sure that during the time when I was in charge of the centre, all the rules were followed.

Public Safety committee  In February 2003.

Public Safety committee  Frankly, sir, I was not in charge of looking into the situation that existed before I was appointed. My mandate was to do whatever was needed to establish a functioning centre.

Public Safety committee  On government accounts, I sign them off with the chief financial officer, and we did it in concert with the Treasury Board Secretariat.

Public Safety committee  Let me try to explain. Several factors contributed to the increase in costs, especially in the field of computerized systems, and I thought that the Auditor General had set them out clearly in her report. Quite a few other costs had not been provided for, such as expenses in cour