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

[Parliamentary Coat-of-Arms]

Edited Hansard • Number 096

Tuesday, May 6, 2003

 

[Hansard – Page 5868]

 

Gun Control

    Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, the justice minister gave the Coalition for Gun Control $380,000 to promote the anti-gun agenda at the same time that he is starving programs in his own department. The minister has just cut $65,000 from the firearms safety training programs in Saskatchewan.

    Will the minister please explain how he can justify funding the Coalition for Gun Control while at the same time reducing funding to firearms safety training programs?

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    Hon. Wayne Easter (Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the whole purpose of the gun control legislation and in fact the discussion we had this morning is to make Canadian streets safer. That is what we intend to do. That is why we are bringing in Bill C-10A, to create greater efficiencies in the system so that we can do the proper training and at the end of the day have safer streets for all our people.

    Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, it seems very strange to me that it would make the streets safer by reducing firearms safety training programs.

    The minister is unable to produce a shred of evidence that banning hundreds of thousands of guns owned by law-abiding Canadians has any effect whatsoever at reducing the criminal use of firearms.

    Will the minister please tell us today which guns he is going to ban and also important, is he going to fully compensate the gun owners for the loss in value of their property?

    Hon. Wayne Easter (Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, obviously in the discussion earlier this morning the member for Yorkton—Melville was not listening. He does not want to listen. He does not want to hear the good news stories.

    I outlined a couple of examples in this morning's discussion from NWEST in terms of where the gun registry in fact helped them find illegal weapons and keep our streets safer.

    The member for Yorkton—Melville opposite does not want to admit there are some good news stories out there as a result of the gun control program.

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