PUBLICATION:        The Calgary Sun 

DATE:                         2004.03.12

EDITION:                    Final 

SECTION:                  Editorial/Opinion 

PAGE:                         15 

BYLINE:                     LINK BYFIELD 

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FORGET FIREWALL

WHAT CANADA BADLY NEEDS IS SMALLER FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

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Of the hundreds of public presentations made to a committee of MLAs last month on "Strengthening Alberta's Role in Confederation," the prize for brevity goes to Glen Parent of Wainwright. "Imagine," he told the committee, "that Alberta had not joined Confederation in 1905. And imagine if Ralph Klein and Paul Martin met today to negotiate Alberta's entry into Confederation. How do you think that meeting would go?

"I suppose Martin would say, 'Ralph, here's the deal -- what I will do is make all your people register their guns, then I'll tell your wheat farmers that once they harvest their crops, it all belongs to me. Then I'll enact an accord that will hamstring your oil industry. And Ralph, all you have to do in return is give me $9 billion a year. So what do you say?' "

Parent has a point. There's no way Albertans would join the present federal structure today on the present federal terms. That was the purpose of the government's hearings. What sort of federal arrangement would make sense? The committee reports in the summer.

Most of the presenters favoured greater provincial powers. This isn't because they're closet separatists. It's because the national government has invaded so many provincial areas of jurisdiction that the federal system no longer works. It's bad for Canada, not just Alberta.

Take Parent's example of gun control, something that still riles any Canadian who isn't brainwashed. Ottawa's 1995 Firearms Act was not only pointless, for the obvious reason that criminals do not register guns, but also an attack on the provincial right to regulate private property. Ottawa knew this, of course, but didn't care.

Ottawa always craves greater political power and control, and the only place to get it is to poach it from the provinces. So it claimed the Firearms Act would control crime (a national jurisdiction), and the federally appointed judges in Alberta and Ottawa agreed. So much for the Constitution.

As a result, we have spent almost $2 billion (according to the most recent estimates) paying 1,800 new federal bureaucrats to snag hobbyists, hunters and farmers across the country with absolutely useless red tape on a matter that is none of Ottawa's business and probably hasn't stopped a single crime.

We're indebted to Saskatchewan Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz for almost everything we know about the gun registry, such as the following.

- The system has a 71% error rate in licensing owners and a 91% error rate in registering individual guns.

- The government admits it registered 718,414 guns without serial numbers. It has sent owners little stickers with made-up serial numbers, which can be peeled off by anyone.

- A gun's federal registration certificate does not contain the name of the owner, model, calibre and magazine capacity. I'm serious. It shows the manufacturer and the serial number, among which there are known to be at least 222,911 unexplained duplicates.

- The government spent $29 million on advertising the gun registry -- including $4.5 million to Group-Action, now under RCMP investigation.

- Pistols have been federally registered since 1934, yet there is no case on record of a handgun having been used in a crime by its registered owner. So what was the point?

- A reasonable estimate is that the Firearms Act has made criminals of one million Canadians who refuse to license and register.

Now this disaster shows what happens when Ottawa finds a bogus pretext to seize turf from the provinces. Billions are wasted, people are put in jail, rights are trampled, distrust and resentment spread. And we haven't even looked at health care, the Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, fiscal equalization and our Ottawa-run police force.

Would Albertans join such a screwed-up arrangement today? Not on your life. However, the real question is what we can do about it. And the answer lies not in "firewalls," but in returning our country to its original design with much less federal government.

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For more information about the $2 Billion Boondoggle: www.garrybreitkreuz.com