“Documents
show BDP Business Data Services Limited has been processing firearms licences
for two years
and
gun registrations for at least the last six months.”
Ottawa
– Garry
Breitkreuz, Official Opposition Critic on Firearms and Property Rights, released
151 pages of documents obtained from the Department of Justice proving that the
gun registry has already been privatized. “The
government hasn’t been completely open with the Canadian people about the
extent of the privatization process,” commented Breitkreuz.
“Now we find out that last November the department issued an $8.5
million amendment to an existing contract to allow a private company to process
tens of thousands of firearms registration applications.” This
despite the fact that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada still has not completed
his investigation into the privacy implications of the government’s
outsourcing plans for the Canadian Firearms Program.
Last August, the Privacy Commissioner published a scathing report
with respect to the Information Handling Practices of
the Canadian Firearms Program.
Documents
obtained by Breitkreuz show that on July 18, 2000, BDP Business Data Services
Limited was awarded a $4.8 million contract by the Department of Justice to
process firearms licence applications. Since
that date, the original contract has been amended thirteen times. As of November 20, 2001, total value of the BDP contract had
exceeded $17.6 million!
The
Minister of Justice keeps claiming that privatization will improve the services
provided to law-abiding firearms owners in Canada.
For example, here’s what Minister Cauchon had to say in the House of
Commons on April 23, 2002: “As we said, the
registration and the licensing process is working well. Not long ago, we talked
about the question of outsourcing in order to keep offering our Canadian
population very good services on that side.”
In January, newspapers reported that the government was in the process
of awarding a 15-year contract to a private company worth an estimated $300
million to run the fatally flawed gun registry.
But
initial data indicates that error rates went up since BDP took over the
processing,” revealed Breitkreuz. Justice
Department documents dated April 10, 2002, show that since BDP got involved in
the processing of firearms licence applications, the number of licences issued
with the wrong photograph increased from zero in 1999, to 99 in the year 2000,
and to 157 in the year 2001. Another
Justice Department document dated May 19, 2002, shows that so far in the year
2002, they also issued 563 licences with the wrong name, 178 licences with the
wrong birth date, and 38 more licences with the wrong photograph.
Remember, this is the same system that also issued a Firearm Registration
Certificate for a Black and Decker soldering gun, re-registered a handgun as a
machine gun and issued 24 Firearms Registration Certificates for eight rifles.
“So much for the Justice Minister’s claims that the gun registry is ‘working
well’
and his promise of offering ‘very good services’
through privatization.”
“I’m
all for privatization of government services when it saves taxpayers’ money
and improves service to the public,” said Breitkreuz.
“But the privatization of the gun registry is another bogus attempt by
the Liberal government to hide the truth about another billion-dollar
boondoggle. Unfortunately, the only
ones who suffer are law-abiding, responsible firearms owners and front-line
police. Public
safety priorities have been sacrificed for political grandstanding.
Hopefully, the Auditor General’s audit of the gun registry to be tabled
in Parliament in November, will put an end to this totally useless firearms
fiasco,” concluded Breitkreuz.
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