PUBLICATION:
National Post
DATE:
2003.02.27
EDITION:
National
SECTION:
Editorials
PAGE: A19
SOURCE:
National Post Canada
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Let
the registry die
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Last
December, Sheila Fraser, the Auditor-General, made a dire prediction. She said
the cost of the federal government's gun registry would exceed $1-billion by
2005. Not even four months later, Ms. Fraser is poised to say "I told you
so." In Parliament yesterday, Martin Cauchon, the Minister of Justice,
asked for $172-million in new funding for the registry. Add that to the
$800-million already eaten up by the program, and Ottawa is just $28-million
from hitting the nine-zero barrier almost two years ahead of schedule.
In
the wake of the December revelations, we'd hoped the government might be so
embarrassed that they'd cut their losses and shut the registry down. Indeed, Ms.
Fraser's report forced the Liberals to deny a December request from Mr. Cauchon
for $72-million in new funding. But as his $172-million request yesterday shows,
Mr. Cauchon has not given up. Apparently, he's determined to throw good money
after bad.
For
a moment, let's put aside the terrible judgment the Liberals have shown in
sinking this kind of cash into a program that likely won't save a single life.
(The registry will inconvenience hunters and target shooters. Crooks and
murderers typically use stolen guns brought in from the United States, which, of
course, aren't registered.) As a matter of logistics, we are simply amazed that
it was humanly possible to waste this amount of money on a program that is,
essentially, a conventional database.
Tracking
the existence, ownership and status of a few million guns is not rocket science.
Credit card companies, banks and utilities manage data-collection and
-management tasks on this scale for pennies on the dollar compared to what
Ottawa is paying. Perhaps that's because Ottawa treats the gun registry as a
regional job creation scheme, spreading out the mind-numbing bureaucratic tasks
between offices in Quebec and New Brunswick. Unlike the federal government,
private companies also have some idea how to run large-scale computer networks:
Gun registry officials have already spent tens of millions of dollars replacing
computer and software systems that never worked properly in the first place.
That $800-million has already been wasted on the gun registry is a national embarrassment. That Mr. Cauchon wants to throw another $172-million down the hole is an outrage. Liberal backbenchers should find the backbone to deny the Justice Minister another cent. The Liberals clearly do not have the political courage to end the registry by decree. The next best option would be to let it die of starvation.