NEWS RELEASE

March 23, 2004                                                                                              For Immediate Release

MARTIN’S LIBERALS STILL COVERING UP FACTS ABOUT $2 BILLION GUN REGISTRY

“Anne McLellan’s failure to answer my questions shows she’s trying to hide her past mistakes with rhetoric.”

Ottawa – Garry Breitkreuz, Deputy House Leader and Official Opposition Justice Critic for Gun Control, attacked the Liberals’ continuing pattern of cover-up and deceit in their responses to his gun registry questions in the House of Commons yesterday.  “For 10 years, I’ve been asking clear questions and for 10 years the Liberals have been ducking and diving,” declared Breitkreuz.  “They respond to questions but never really answer any of them.”  Breitkreuz was complaining about Minister of Public Safety Anne McLellan’s responses to his Order Paper Questions Q-7, Q-14, Q-15 and Q-16, tabled in the House of Commons. 

“Prime Minister Martin supports Jean Chretien’s cover-up of the gun registry cost-benefit analysis by declaring it a Cabinet secret.  Deputy Prime Minister McLellan knows that providing real answers to my questions will expose her complicity in the cover up,” said Breitkreuz.  “The bureaucrats take their lead from the Minister and stonewall, delay or refuse to provide documents requested in over 450 Access to Information Act requests.  And the long suffering taxpayer keeps forking out billions for this pitiful performance.”

“I asked 18 specific questions and 16 of them remain unanswered.  “How can they spend a billion dollars on the firearms program and not even have statistics to prove that it works?” asked Breitkreuz.  “A succession of Justice Ministers, including Anne McLellan, made very specific promises in Parliament about what the gun registry was supposed to cost and the results it was supposed to achieve.  Did they not think that they were going to have to provide proof that their billion-dollar boondoggle actually worked?”

McLellan’s responses were high on rhetoric but she failed to back up her rhetoric with facts.  “It’s one thing to promise the firearms program is meeting ‘public safety objectives in a cost-effective manner’; but if she can’t defend her statements with hard data, why should anyone believe her?” asked Breitkreuz.  “The Liberals’ responses to my questions prove that all their promises about the firearms program were empty promises.  It also proves that we can’t believe a thing they say about the firearms program in the future.  The Liberals’ incompetence on the firearms file should tell all Canadians they aren’t fit to govern,” concluded Breitkreuz. 

Background Information:

What the Liberals Failed to Tell Us About the Cost and Effectiveness of the Gun Registry:

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/Article318.htm

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