PUBLICATION:        The Record (Waterloo Region)

DATE:                         2003.08.14

SECTION:                  Insight

PAGE:                         A9

BYLINE:                     STEVEN MARTINOVICH

PHOTO:                     Photo: CANADIAN PRESS

ILLUSTRATION:             Stickers question the wisdom of Canada's gun registry as Giovanni Interdonato inspects a shotgun in his gun shop in Toronto last winter. The sticker says, "If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns."; Photo: Steven Martinovich 

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Gun registry support just keeps on falling

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The federal government has long counted on the support of Canadians when it comes to its gun control agenda. That support has enabled it to pass increasingly stringent legislation culminating in Bill C-68, the act that created the out-of-control spending program known as the firearms registry.

A poll conducted by Calgary's JMCK Polling contained some uncomfortable news for the federal government. Only 39 per cent of Canadians still support the registry while 49 per cent want it scrapped.

With the exception of Quebec, support in each province for the registry was well below 50 per cent. Alberta led the way with only 27 per cent support but even Ontario, with a meagre 38 per cent support, registered strong disapproval.

Not surprisingly, the federal government dismissed the poll, which was commissioned by Canadian Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz, as mere anti-government partisanship.

"I don't put a lot of merit in Garry Breitkreuz's polls. He is trying to make his point and condemn the gun registry and that's his right to do so. I'm concerned about the slant," said Federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter.

It's humorous to see the federal government concerned about slant, but regardless of how the poll was constructed, Easter is wrong if he believes Breitkreuz's long established opposition to the firearms registry is the reason for the growing anger over the program. 

A more likely explanation for the poll's results is that Canadians are beginning to realize what the gun registry's critics have been arguing for years, that the program will not live up to the grand expectations that the federal government has set out for it.

For all the money spent on the registry, now totalling well over $1 billion -- 500 times the initial cost then justice minister Allan Rock quoted in 1995 -- Canadian Institute for Legislative Action executive director Tony Bernardo believes only 50 per cent of Canada's firearms have been registered, while Breitkreuz believes the number could be as low as 34 per cent.

Despite a deadline and the possibility of a prison sentence of up to 10 years, as many as several million firearms may yet be unregistered.

Perhaps a good reason for all of these unregistered firearms is that employees of the Canadian Firearms Centre are too busy enjoying life. Documents obtained by CanWest News Service show that the CFC has spent $13 million on travel expenses during the last six years -- $209,000 alone for former CEO Gary Webster's travels between Edmonton and Ottawa, while another $500,000 went to "hospitality."

None of that compares to the $200 million, an expense 100 times the original quoted cost of the entire gun registry, spent on a computer system that just didn't work.

Given the history of fiscal mismanagement by the Chrétien government none of this should be a surprise. Rather than spend money needed on the military or health care, the government opted for a publicity friendly initiative it believed would show the party to be tough on crime by going after legitimate firearms owners, and fulfil its long sought after dream of universal registration and eventual confiscation.

The Canadian public is beginning to see through the web of distortions and outright lies and is voting in two ways: by not supporting the firearms registry and, more worrisome to the federal government, by refusing to register firearms.

The collapse in support for the firearms registry has little to do with a hidden agenda by Breitkreuz. It does have everything to do with yet another expensive boondoggle foisted upon Canadians by a federal government more interested in feel-good programs, regardless of their efficacy, than responsible governance.

Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer in Sudbury.