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37th
Parliament, 2nd Session
(September
30, 2002 - )
Edited
Hansard • Number 153
Friday, November 7, 2003
[Hansard
– Page 9318]
Justice
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, on February 16, 1995, the justice minister promised the House that “Registration will assist us to deal with the scourge of domestic violence”. This week, Statistics Canada reports that family homicides have increased by 28% in the last three years, and domestic homicides with registered guns have almost doubled in the last year. How many lives would have been saved if the government had spent $1 billion addressing the root causes of domestic violence?
Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to give all members in the House and Canadians listening a few facts. Between July 1, 2003 and October 27, 2003, a total of 343,683 registration certificates were issued. Some 84% of the applications since July 1 have been received via Internet. The phone service at Miramichi is excellent. As a result of increased volumes due to hunting season, response times have increased from one minute to two minutes. More than 1.95 million people have--
The Speaker: The hon. member for Yorkton--Melville.
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, what a totally irrelevant answer. My question was about domestic violence and getting at the root causes of it, and the minister did not answer. The justice minister's performance report tabled in the House last week documented an additional $47 million in indirect costs for the gun registry, never before reported to the House. However, the report did not answer the one question everyone has been asking for the last 11 months. How much will it cost to fully implement the registry and how much will it cost to maintain it?
Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I wonder if perhaps the member opposite was not in the House when we voted the budget items and the supplementary estimates.
* * *
LIBERALS REFUSE TO SAY HOW MUCH IT WILL COST TO FULLY
IMPLEMENT THE GUN REGISTRY. THE
AUDITOR GENERAL SAYS THE GOV'T TOLD HER IT WOULD TAKE 3 OR 4 MORE YEARS!
November
6, 2003 - Excerpt from the Auditor General's letter to Garry Breitkreuz, MP:
"Earlier this year, I advised the House of Commons Standing Committee on
Public Accounts that our Office will consider doing a value-for-money audit on
the firearms program when the program has been operating at a steady state,
which Justice Canada has indicated could take three to four years."
NEWS
RELEASE - November 5, 2003
DOMESTIC
HOMICIDES CONTINUE TO RISE DESPITE BILLION-DOLLAR GUN REGISTRY