Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.
Yorkton-Melville		 News Release

For Immediate Delivery

May 14, 1998

HOW MUCH WILL GUN REGISTRATION COST? JUSTICE SPENDS ANOTHER $17 MILLION!

"The costs keep piling up and the government is hiding the truth from Canadians."

Ottawa: Today, Garry Breitkreuz, MP (Yorkton-Melville) was browsing through the May 11th edition of The Ottawa Business Journal and there on page 25, buried in the fine print, were the details of another $17 million spent to implement the new Canadian Firearms Registration System. "The Department of Justice has admitted that the costs will exceed their original $85 million estimate but they won’t tell anyone how much more it’s going to cost taxpayers," reported Breitkreuz. "What are they hiding?"

Here’s a list of seven contracts (we know about) that the Justice Department has entered with computer companies in just the Ottawa-Carlton area:

SHL Systemhouse Co., Ottawa $15,000,000.00

EDS Canada, Ottawa $ 1,095,614.60

EDS Canada, Ottawa $ 665,689.95

Eagle Professional Resources Inc., Gloucester $ 202,044.52

AJJA Information Technology Consultants Inc., Ottawa $ 187,118.02

Semantic Consulting, Ottawa $ 172,191.52

Kleins Consulting, Ottawa $ 157,265.02

On February 13, 1998, Justice Minister Anne McLellan, responding to one of my written questions in the House of Commons, said that the government had only spent $34.3 million since 1995 on implementation of Bill C-68, the Firearms Act. Two months later, the Justice Minister and her officials told the Standing Committee on Justice that they had spent "approximately $66 million." Firearms experts have projected the total cost may exceed $1.2 billion to fully implement the scheme.

"The Justice Department spending estimates for the last two years have been so vague as to be practically useless to hold the government accountable for their spending in this area," said Breitkreuz. The Minister shouldn’t hide the truth from Canadians any longer. She knows that public support for her ineffective registration scheme drops dramatically as taxpayers become aware of the real costs. Most voters know that this money could be better-spent on real crime-fighting initiatives. The Auditor General for Canada is now working on determining what the real cost to taxpayers will be," concluded Breitkreuz.

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For more information please contact
The Office of GarryBreitkreuz, M.P.

Yorkton: (306) 782-3309
Ottawa: (613) 992-4394