We have provided our estimate of the cost of implementing universal registration over the next five years. We say that it will cost $85 million. We have also said that we will put before the parliamentary committee, on which all parties sit, details of those calculations showing our assumptions and how we arrived at those figures. We encourage the members opposite to examine our estimates. We are confident we will demonstrate that the figures are realistic and accurate.

In so far as the cost to firearms' owners is concerned, the system of registration that we envisage if this legislation is enacted would commence next year with the registration of owners. Those who own firearms would be asked within five years to pick up a card, conveniently available in their communities, to identify themselves by name and address and to return it. They would then be sent a permit or a licence to own a firearm. In the first year of the five-year implementation period we expect that the cost to the firearms owner would be zero. If it is not zero, it would be a nominal amount in the range of $10.

The second phase of registration, the registration of the firearms themselves, would commence two years later in January 1998. Again firearms owners would be asked to fill out a card, which they would pick up in their communities, identify their firearms by make, model and serial number, to return it and we will send them a registration certificate for their firearms. Once again, this would be phased in over five years from 1998. Once again, in the first year of implementation, the cost would be zero, or if not zero a nominal amount in the range of $10 to register up to 10 firearms.

If we contrast the relative convenience of such a system-all we are asking of firearms owners is to fill out two cards and mail them in-with the advantages that responsible people say we will achieve through such a system, it seems that on any cost-benefit analysis registration is justified.

It is said that such a system will be complex and bureaucratic. Surely it is evident from the description which I have given that it will be just the opposite. We can take the opportunity of designing and implementing such a system in collaboration with provincial authorities, with the input of the firearms groups to eliminate irritants, to overcome paperwork burden, to simplify and streamline the system so that all of our objectives can be achieved at the same time.

It is crucially important, in my judgement, that as we debate this question of registration, in respect of which there are strongly held views on both sides, that we do so on the real facts. Let us confine ourselves to the reality of the situation. Let us not hear that the registration system will cost $100 per firearm. Let us not hear that it is a prelude to the confiscation by the government of hunting rifles and shotguns. Let us not contend that it will cost $1.5 billion to put in place.

That is the way to distort the discussion. That is the way to frighten people. Surely this debate must be carried out on the real facts. When the real facts are addressed it seems clear that the objectives of which I spoke at the outset can be achieved while respecting the legitimate uses of firearms. This can surely be done without imposing unduly on firearms owners through the introduction of universal registration for the reasons I have described.

Someone on the west coast did a study for the Fraser Institute pretending that the cost of registration would be $1.5 billion because the cost to register a handgun under the existing system is on average $82. Factoring in the present antiquated system and individual police inquiries about the background of the applicant, it works out to $82 per handgun on average.

That person has taken that number and applied it directly to the six or seven million long arms in the inventory existing in Canada today. However, he has overlooked the fact that in the registration of the existing inventory of long arms we are going to ask only that the owners mail in a card to identify themselves and their firearms. There will be a simple CPIC check to ensure that there is no order prohibiting the owner from having firearms and then he or she will be licensed and registered. This will cost nothing like the $82 which this man pretends is going to be the cost of registration in Canada. This is trafficking in fictions and not meeting the point on the merits.

The third thing has to do with cost. There is a fellow in Simon Fraser University who claims the registration system will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to establish. First of all, he takes the $82, which is the average cost of registering a handgun today, and he multiplies it by the total number of firearms - as he says, 5 or 6 million for the purposes of his calculation - and it comes out to $500 million or $600 million for registration. That of course totally overlooks the reality that when we take people in as licences, when we register in the first instance, we're not doing the full check that is done on the registration of a handgun today. All we're doing is a screening to ensure that those who are getting licences are not on CPIC as having prohibition orders against them and do not have criminal records for violence in recent years, and that can be done quickly and inexpensively. Let's not confuse apples and oranges. Eighty-five million establishes the system. The fees from renewals of licences every five years fund its continued operation together with the fees for new transactions and transfers. The system functions from that revenue at almost break-even, and that's a lot better than we're doing right now.