NOTE:  This story also ran in the Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, Edmonton Journal, Victoria Times Colonist, Windsor Star, and Regina Leader Post.

PUBLICATION:              National Post

DATE:                         2004.07.23

EDITION:                    All but Toronto

SECTION:                  News

PAGE:                         A6

BYLINE:                     Robert Fife

SOURCE:                   CanWest News Service

DATELINE:                 OTTAWA

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Gun registry used for U.S. bungling study: N.Y. Management centre: Report into $1B program called Canada Firearms: Armed Robbery

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OTTAWA - Canada's $1-billion gun registry is being used by a U.S. project management centre for senior corporate executives as a case study in incompetence and financial mismanagement.

New York-based Baseline, which conducts case studies on information technology, has published an analysis of the gun registry titled: "Canada Firearms: Armed Robbery."

The study examines how the gun registry developed from a simple $119-million system to track firearm ownership into a large, complex electronic database with a $1-billion price tag.

"What was supposed to be a relatively modest information technology project ballooned into a massive undertaking. At last count, the program had amassed more than $1-billion in costs, and the system has become so cumbersome that an independent review board recommended that it be scrapped," Baseline said on its Web site.

The study said Canada's firearms registry project offers multiple lessons for government and corporate project leaders on the difficulties involved in undertaking such a controversial project.

The registry was supposed to cost less than $2-million when licensing and registration fees were included, but costs soared out of control as a result of bureaucratic errors, poor planning, unforeseen expenses and an increasingly complex computer system.

From the start, the U.S. study said, Ottawa failed to develop a clear understanding of the project's scope and made a serious error in having the Justice Department manage the registry when it had never undertaken a technology initiative of this size and complexity.

The government first set up a simple database where firearms owners would register their guns, but this quickly expanded into a large, complex computer network after Ottawa changed the criteria.

Costs began to escalate when Ottawa decided the Canadian Firearms Centre should be able to tap into the computer records of every police agency in the country to determine if gun licence applications were involved in domestic violence or related incidents.

There were also numerous changes to licence and registry forms, rules and processes that caused huge delays and mounting expense, according to the analysis.

"By 2002, more than 2,000 orders for changes had been made, each requiring additional programming," the study said. "Changes to the software required dealing with close to 50 different departments or agency computer systems from the RCMP to each provincial ministry of transportation for drivers licence checks."

The study said ongoing maintenance, development and support costs also flew out of control, rising to $688-million by 2001 and now hovering close to $750-million.

"Of that amount, $250-million went to the computer systems. Support, such as call centres, accounted for $300-million. The remaining $138-million went to advertising and public outreach programs to encourage compliance."

Annual maintenance costs amounted to 55% of the operating budget, significantly higher than the industry norm of between 10% and 20%, while the anticipated revenue from the controversial program evaporated.

"Those costs were to be offset by $117-million in gun-owner registration fees, leaving taxpayer with a bill of $2-million. Instead costs have soared to more than $1-billion."

The U.S. study does not draw conclusions on whether the gun registry is effective in crime prevention, although it notes police rely on the database to determine if weapons are present before entering homes.

Prime Minister Paul Martin has refused demands from the Conservative party and six provinces to scrap the gun registry, but he has capped funding for the program at $25-million a year, starting next fiscal year. The cost of the registry is currently $33-million annually, down from $48-million in 2001-02.

Gun registry fees -- in the range of $18 to $25 -- will also be reduced to encourage compliance with licensing.

As of May, seven million guns have been registered out of the estimated 7.9 million in circulation. More than 12,000 licence application were revoked due to public safety concerns while two million Canadians had filed and received licences to own firearms.