NEWS RELEASE

May 02, 2003                                                                                               For Immediate Release

TWENTY REASONS TO HAVE A PUBLIC INQUIRY OF FEDERAL FIREARMS FIASCO

“Parliament still being kept in the dark.  Only a public inquiry will shed any light on this mess.”

Ottawa – Last night, Garry Breitkreuz, Official Opposition Critic for Firearms and Property Rights, spoke in support of a votable Private Members’ motion introduced by Pierrette Venne, MP for Saint Bruno-Saint Hubert.  M-387 states: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should immediately suspend application of the Canadian Firearms Programme in order to hold a public inquiry into the reasons for the Programme’s extraordinary cost overruns, and to submit a structured and detailed strategic plan that would have to be approved in advance by this House.

Here are Breitkreuz’s twenty reasons why a public inquiry is needed:  

1.  Government still has not reported to Parliament what the total cost of the firearms program has been so far.

2.  Government still has not reported to Parliament what the total cost will be to fully implement the firearms program.

3.  Treasury Board officials finally admitted that even they won't know the total cost of the firearms program until fall.

4.  The government has been hiding the truth from Parliament and the public for seven years and hasn’t been any more forthright in the last five months.

5.  The government’s estimates are still grossly understated because the Justice Department’s Plans and Priorities Report for 2003-2004 was tabled in March with 111 blanks.

6.  The government refuses to reveal the costs of enforcement and compliance as recommended by the Auditor General.

7.  The government refuses to release the cost benefit analysis on the firearms program by declaring it a Cabinet secret.

8.  Twenty-one months have passed and the Privacy Commissioner is still waiting for the Justice Minister’s response to his many recommendations about the mishandling of private and personal information in the firearms program.

9.  More than 500,000 gun owners in Canada failed to obtain a firearms licence and cannot register their guns without one. 

10. More than 600,000 individuals still have to register or re-register their firearms before the end of June and Justice Department officials admitted they had received only 53,000 letters of intent to register.

11. The government refuses to release the entire 115-page report on the economic impact of the gun registry, once again declaring it a Cabinet secret.

12. Up to ten million guns still have to be registered.

13. Five million registered firearms still have to be verified by the RCMP.

14. Seventy-eight percent of the firearms registered have blank or unknown entries.

15. 813,822 firearms have been registered without serial numbers and millions of firearms cannot be uniquely identified.

16. 131,000 persons prohibited from owning firearms by the courts are not tracked by the system.

17. Tens of thousands of licenced gun owners cannot be located in the registry or the licencing system.

18. Eight provinces and three territories either want the gun registry suspended or scrapped all together with the western provinces refusing to prosecute Firearms Act offences.

19. The Firearm Interest Police database is operating contrary to the Privacy Act and the Charter of Rights.

20. Three constitutional challenges by Aboriginal people are currently before the courts and gun registration for Inuit people has been stopped by a court injunction.

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