NEWS RELEASE

May 11, 2004                                                                                                     For Immediate Release

SCRAPPING THE GUN REGISTRY IS THE ONLY OPTION – COVER-UP CONTINUES

“New documents show hundreds of millions wasted that should have been spent on real police priorities.”

Ottawa – Garry Breitkreuz, Deputy House Leader and Official Opposition Justice Critic for Firearms, released more damning documents from the Commissioner of Firearms and called the Liberals latest gun registry proposals an election gimmick.  “Last Friday, we received 81 pages of Ministerial Briefing Notes.  As usual, they withheld 143 pages and whited-out sections of 23 other pages,” reported Breitkreuz.  “They even invoked Cabinet secrecy to exempt four of the pages.  Considering that the documents also revealed the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars should make everyone wonder, what are the Liberals hiding?”

NEW GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS OBTAINED BY BREITKREUZ REVEAL:

• Value of Major Firearms Contracts (April 1, 1996 to December 31, 2003)             = $ 255,805,919
• Value of All Firearms Contracts (April 1, 2003 to March 31, 2004)             = $   87,963,439
• 336,475 Program Refunds Issued (April 1, 1999 to March 31, 2003)            = $     6,500,000
• Annual Accommodation Costs for 27 Firearms Program Locations                        = $     2,585,646
• Funding for Aboriginal Organizations (April 1, 1999 to March 31, 2004)            = $     1,381,231

“The documents provided to the Minister also show a surprising dearth of data after ten years of bureaucratic bungling and more than a billion dollars wasted,” declared Breitkreuz.  “It appears the bureaucrats were reluctant to tell the Minister the truth.”

“Why aren’t politicians like Paul Martin, Anne McLellan and Albina Guarnieri perceptive enough to see that you don’t measure success of a government program by the size of the bureaucracy or the amount of paper shuffled?  This appears to be the root of the problem with the Liberals’ misguided approach to gun control.  Despite all this incredible effort by hundreds of bureaucrats and at least a billion dollars spent, homicides are increasing, including domestic homicides; suicides are increasing; and violent crime has more than quadrupled since 1962.  If they had registered more guns, would their gun control program have been more successful?  No,” exclaimed Breitkreuz.  “All the wild promises made by the Liberals in 1995, while ramming Bill C-68 through Parliament, have been broken.”

“There’s only one way to save money with this billion-dollar boondoggle and that’s to scrap it altogether, and redirect the money saved to real policing priorities.  That’s exactly what a Conservative government will do,” promised Breitkreuz.

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