37th Parliament, 2nd Session
(September 30, 2002 -     )

[Parliamentary Coat-of-Arms]

Edited Hansard • Number 113

Friday, June 6, 2003

 

[Hansard – Page 6969]

Firearms Program

 

    Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, we have just made another damning discovery about the government's firearms fiasco. In an effort to push out a pile of paper called gun registrations, the Liberal government failed to complete the background checks and call character references before issuing firearms licences.

    Talk about straining at a flea and swallowing a camel. If the Solicitor General is trying to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, why did he not do the reference checks? Why?

    Hon. Wayne Easter (Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we have for a while discovered the benefits of the gun registry program. In fact, the registry program provided assistance with 347 investigations in the month of April alone. We conducted 113 firearms traces. We provided assistance with 17 search warrants through the Canadian Firearms Centre. We provided 19 training and/or presentation sessions to ensure that guns are stored safely and used appropriately.

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