* * *
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton--Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, every chance the justice minister gets she boasts to parliament about how many Canadians support her government's failed gun registration scheme.
She is loath to tell anyone that the strong support dropped from 75% to 32% when the cost of the firearms registry reached half a billion dollars. Last week the cost topped $685 million and is still climbing.
The most recent Environics poll the minister refers to contains some important facts she conveniently fails to report to her colleagues. When more than 2,000 respondents were asked what specific type of crime troubled them the most, they listed 23 different types of crime, but guns were never mentioned once.
When respondents were asked which of the 12 criminal justice priorities they would like to see government spending directed to, gun control measures were at the very bottom of the list. Programs for young people, cracking down on organized crime and more police on the street were numbers one, two and three.
* * *
Click here for the letter that was sent to the Ottawa Citizen