Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

Comité permanent de la justice et des droits de la personne

EVIDENCE number 70,
Témoignages du comité numéro 70

The Chair (Hon. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.)): I call to order the 70th meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Today, pursuant to Standing Order 81.5, supplementary estimates A 2003-2004, we're looking at Votes 1(a), 7(a), 8(a), 35(a) and 40(a) under the Solicitor General, referred to the committee on Tuesday, September 23, 2003, and we have the Solicitor General of Canada Mr. Easter, and other witnesses that he will identify I'm sure. So welcome to the committee, and we look forward to your presentation.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Minister, for coming before the committee here to answer our questions.

I have two main questions. The first question stems out of the Report of the Auditor General last December 3. She stated that the biggest problem she detected with the gun registry was not the huge cost over-runs, which were very serious and concerned her greatly, but the fact that Parliament was being kept in the dark. Now, nine months have passed since that time and the minister in charge of the gun registry promised Parliament and the Auditor General that he would tell us how many millions other government departments and agencies have spent on the gun registry. We still have not received an answer.

I put it to you again today, how much is the gun registry going to cost to fully implement and how much is it going to cost to maintain year after year? Can you give us an answer today? It's been nine months since the Auditor General said that this has to be reported properly.

Mr. Wayne Easter: As we've made very clear, the Government of Canada was very concerned about the cost over-runs in the Canadian Firearms Program since it's implementation. We accepted the recommendations of the Auditor General. We're moving to implement those recommendations. In fact, it is one of the reasons the decision was made to transfer the Canadian Firearms Centre from the Department of Justice to the Department of Solicitor General. That's now up and running.

We have announced early in the year, both the Minister of Justice and myself, an action plan for the firearms program and off that action plan there were 16 points; 12 of them are completed. I don't want to take the time here, but I can get into them if you want me to. 12 of them are done, 4 are still under way.

In terms of the Hession report, there is a number of recommendations there as well, 16; 11 of those are done, 3 are ongoing and 2 are not done, because they require some legislative change. But the bottom line is we have reduced costs and improved management. We've improved the service to the public very substantially. We've sought input from parliamentarians and stakeholders. Those discussions are ongoing and we've strengthened the accountability and transparency and that's what this meeting is about. The funding is outlined in the estimates and the subs.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Mr. Minister, you're not answering my questions. In all due respect, I have asked how much is it going to cost to fully implement and how much is it going to cost to maintain? That's what the Auditor General said. There were many departments and agencies that she could not gather the costs from.

Let me give you some idea of what I'm talking about. The Library of Parliament showed that the enforcement costs alone could easily add up to another $1 billion; that the compliance costs for licensing and registration could cost another $1 billion. That's a total of $3 billion. When are you going to provide this kind of vital information to Parliament?

Mr. Baker told a meeting of the Senators and MPs that the government had completed a cost-benefit analysis on the gun registry, but he couldn't release it because it was a cabinet secret.

Are you prepared, Mr. Minister, to provide us with a real cost benefit analysis report today? Are you going to come clean and tell us what all the costs are and will you release that cost-benefit analysis? I don't hear the answer coming from you at all, not even remotely, addressing what I'm asking you.

Mr. Wayne Easter: I will ask Mr. Baker to come in on some of the question, but I want to outline very clearly to Mr. Breitkreuz that I've always come clean on this issue. We've been very transparent on this issue. We have said we would get the costs under control.

I know from your perspective you're almost on a...you're on a personal vendetta on this issue, but that's your choice and that's your right. But if we went on the kind of haunt that you're talking about where you trace a piece of paper here and a piece of paper there, we put the costs up front that they can be seen. They're in the estimates and they're very clear and we said we would manage this CFC in a transparent way and we're in fact doing that.

Mr. William Baker: Mr. Chairman, as you are aware, the Minister of Justice accepted the recommendations of the Auditor General's report, and our commitment to follow through and make those improvements still holds firm.

When we're talking about full cost reporting, the first step had to be doing work on identifying what those additional costs were, particularly with respect to other departments incurring costs related to the firearms program. We have done that for the last fiscal year. There are some limitations, obviously, in going back in time because not all the records were kept but we started doing that with the last fiscal year and those details will be reported in the Department of Justice departmental performance report when it is tabled later this fall. We will have to await that. It is in the Department of Justice departmental performance report because, of course, the program was in the justice department for that year.

The second point I would make is with the decision to transfer the program to the Department of the Solicitor General there was also a decision made to establish the Canada Firearms Centre as a separate departmental entity in government, which means it now has its own vote structure that has been set up, its own budget and its own separate reporting to Parliament. That whole process will begin in earnest next year as we begin our full year of operation as a stand-alone organization. There will be detail in the justice DPR coming out soon. There will also be a separate budget when the main estimates come out next year and our own report on plans and priorities and then a full departmental report next fall as a full entity. We're making good progress in achieving the objectives.