NOTE: Versions of this article also appeared in the National Post and the Regina Leader Post

PUBLICATION:          The Ottawa Citizen

DATE:                         2004.02.25

EDITION:                    Final

SECTION:                  News

PAGE:                         A5

BYLINE:                     Tim Naumetz

SOURCE:                   The Ottawa Citizen

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Gun registry to cost another $100M this year; will exceed $1B: 'Scandalous' forecast could climb further, Alliance MP says

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The solicitor general's department expects to spend at least $100 million on the federal gun registry over the next 12 months, and millions more may be spent by other departments on the controversial program.

The latest forecast, contained in spending estimates released yesterday, will take the total cost of the registry to slightly more than $1 billion by the end of March next year, more than the amount Auditor General Sheila Fraser forecast in her scathing 2002 report on the program.

The registry will surpass the $1-billion mark despite measures the government took that were intended to rein in costs, and the expenditure of $100,000 for two studies that were supposed to help streamline the program.

Furthermore, the cost forecast for the next 12 months is $5 million more than the government planned to spend on the program for that period when it introduced changes following the studies last year.

The registry and licensing system will have cost a total of $947 million by the end of this March, according to figures released recently by the Canada Firearms Centre. That figure includes $17 million spent over the last year by other departments and agencies, including the RCMP, Corrections Canada and the border service.

"This is a scandalous amount," said Canadian Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz. "I just don't know how much we can take of this anymore."

Mr. Breitkreuz said the cost forecast will likely rise even further when the government tables more precise estimates in the form of planning and priority documents next month. Spending by other departments may not be revealed until the fall.

Associate Defence Minister Albina Guarnieri, who is reviewing the program, may not conclude the review before Prime Minister Paul Martin calls an election. The call for a May 10 election is expected shortly after the government tables a budget in late March.

In 1995, when former justice minister Allan Rock tabled the Firearms Act, the program was to cost $2 million.

The registry's problem-plagued computer system, which cost $350 million, is already out of date and a replacement system is expected to cost nearly $300 million to establish and operate over the next decade. Legal challenges from provincial governments added to the cost, as did resistance from hundreds of thousands of gun owners.

Despite all the money that has gone into the program, hundreds of thousands of gun owners remain unlicensed and estimates of the number of firearms unregistered range to two million.

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FIREARMS PROGRAM COSTS STILL BEING HIDDEN FROM PARLIAMENT AND THE PUBLIC

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/breitkreuzgpress/guns113.htm