PUBLICATION:          The Leader-Post (Regina)

DATE:                         2004.02.28

EDITION:                    Final

SECTION:                  Viewpoints

PAGE:                         B7

SOURCE:                   The Leader-Post

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Gun registry costs up again

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In Brief: It seems that the federal government just cannot get its spending on the firearms registry under control.

In the next year, at a minimum another $100 million will be flushed down the open drain that is the federal gun registry.

According to the government's spending estimates for 2004-2005 tabled in Parliament this week, the solicitor general's department anticipates it will spend at least $100 million on the registry.

Then you can add to that millions in indirect spending by other departments. (Last year, other government agencies and departments including the RCMP and the border service, spent an estimated $17 million)

The new spending will bring the total cost of the program to more than $1 billion since it was launched in 1994. (Figures released last month by the Canada Firearms Centre which administers the program, showed that total spending would reach $947 million by the end of March.)

No matter what it does, the government cannot seem to get this money-gobbling monster under control. (The program was projected to have a net cost of $2 million when it was announced.)

Consider that in the year since the government temporarily suspended funding for the program and brought in sweeping changes intended to cut costs, program spending will be $133 million, $20 million over budget. And the estimated spending for 2004-2005 is $5 million more than the amount the department said last year it intended to spend during the period.

Prime Minister Paul Martin has assigned Albina Guarnieri, the minister for civil preparedness, to review the program. But Westerners shouldn't get their hopes up that the registry will be disbanded. The prime minister has already said it will be maintained. (The registry still enjoys heavy support in Quebec and urban Ontario, two Liberal strongholds.)

 Westerners will welcome the news that cabinet is said to be considering removing the offence of not registering a firearm from the Criminal Code. Instead, the offence would fall under the Firearms Act and any one found in possession of an unregistered firearm would face a fine and would not have a criminal record.

But that won't do anything to end the unconscionable waste of taxpayers' dollars. Only one thing will do that: Ending the program.