Edited
Hansard • Number 038
Wednesday, December 4, 2002
Firearms Registry
[Hansard –
Page 2251]
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, due to the government's cost laundering, the Auditor General found it so difficult to obtain reliable information from the justice department that she called off her audit of the gun registry before it was completed. The true cost may be even worse, more than $1 billion.
The justice minister and his predecessors used to say they were completely responsible and accountable for the firearms program. Obviously accountability means nothing to the government because all three are still sitting on the front bench.
Given the scope of this financial disaster, why has the Prime Minister not fired the minister responsible?
Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as I said, of course we have been discussing with the Office of the Auditor General with regard to the way we should report, as well as to what extent Justice Canada should report. That has been the subject of many discussions between the two departments.
Having said that, we have accepted the recommendations. We have asked for an external audit as well. We will make sure that we fix the problems.
The difference between those members and us is that on their side, they do not believe in our policy.
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, let me tell the minister about his policy.
The Auditor General reported that the gun registry has cost 500 times more than what Parliament and the public was originally promised. The RCMP has been registering handguns since 1934, but firearms homicides with handguns have doubled over the past 30 years.
Clearly, registration does not lower homicide rates. Obviously this is bad policy. Given all of this, why not just scrap the program?
Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, what the member just said proved that those members do not believe in safe communities. They do not believe in our policy. They do not believe in gun registration.
What we are talking about here is about values. It is about making our communities safer. Having said that, let us proceed with a quote from Mr. Vince Bevan, the chief of police from Ottawa-Carleton. He said, “Information is the lifeblood of policing. Without information about who owns and has guns, there is no way to prevent violence or effectively enforce the law. This law is a useful tool which has already begun to show its value in a number of police investigations”.
* * *