Why Can’t Bill Blair Buy a Scapegoat?

Scapegoat: one that bears the blame for others[i]

 

Twice Public Safety Minister Bill Blair released a tender seeking a company to manage his proposed Firearm Confiscation Compensation scheme.

Twice the government’s tender ended without a single expression of interest.[ii]

What does it say about Bill Blair’s hairbrained scheme when $78,000,000 can’t buy him a scapegoat?

It says confiscating guns from licenced owners (but not drug dealers and gangs[iii]) is a colossally stupid idea and nobody is willing to take the blame for Bill Blair’s failure.

This scheme comes with such a vile stench that no project management company in Canada (not even SNC-Lavalin or the WE Charity) is willing to grab the massive payoff there for the taking.

This double-rejection ought to be a wakeup call for Bill Blair and the entire Trudeau government.

But it won’t be.

They’ll just kick the deadline down the road and pretend they meant to do so all along.

 

Management Fee Estimates

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair claims paying gun owners for their legally-owned but confiscated firearms will cost between $400 million and $600 million.

A previous Liberal government claimed registering guns could only cost $2 million while the final tally was well over $2 billion.

But, just a moment, let’s take the Bill Blair at his word to figure this out.

First, we need a baseline percentage to calculate management fees.

The Trudeau government agreed to pay WE Charity $43.5 million to manage a $912 million program so, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll use this same percentage – 4.77% of the total program cost – to calculate management fees.

Using Bill Blair’s low-ball numbers, the company that manages this program stands to earn between 19 and 28.6 million dollars, yet Bill Blair can’t buy a scapegoat with all that money.

Now let’s use some more realistic numbers to figure out how much money these companies refuse to take to manage Bill Blair’s Firearm Confiscation Compensation scheme.

Based on New Zealand’s failed gun confiscation scheme, The Fraser Institute estimates Canada’s proposed scheme will cost between 1.64 and 4.92 billion taxpayer dollars.[iv]

The company that takes on Bill Blair’s Firearm Confiscation Compensation scheme (and all blame for its ultimate and inevitable failure) stands to earn between 78.2 and 234.7 million dollars.

What kind of world do we live in where $78 million can’t buy Bill Blair a scapegoat?

 

No Takers

The following project management companies who specialize in delivering these types of programs all refused the Liberal government’s offer to become its whipping boy when its Firearm Confiscation Compensation scheme inevitably fails:

1. ACF Associates Inc.
2. Adirondack Information Management Inc., The AIM Group Inc. in Joint Venture
3. AECOM Canada Ltd.
4. Babcock Canada Inc.
5. BMT CANADA LTD.
6. CGI Information Systems and Management Consultants Inc.
7. Colliers Project Leaders Inc.
8. Ernst & Young LLP
9. IBM Canada Limited/IBM Canada Limitée
10. Lansdowne Technologies Inc.
11. NIVA Inc
12. Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP
13. Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Consulting Inc.
14. Sierra Systems Group Inc.
15. Tiree Facility Solutions Inc.

 

 

Sources:

[i] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scapegoat

[ii] https://buyandsell.gc.ca/procurement-data/tender-notice/PW-20-00930144/list-of-interested-suppliers

[iii] https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-torontos-unacceptable-gang-problem

[iv] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/trudeau-governments-buy-back-gun-program-likely-a-multi-billion-boondoggle