"The 65-year-old handgun registry has done absolutely nothing to curtail the criminal use of firearms

and the new registration system for millions of legally-owned rifles and shotguns won’t either."

The RCMP reluctantly released the budget information to Breitkreuz after he filed a complaint with the Information Commissioner about the lack of financial data provided in response to the original Access to Information Request he filed on February 16, 1999. "After almost a year of stonewalling, the RCMP finally coughed up how much this bureaucratic boondoggle is costing the police. Why are they so paranoid about telling the taxpaying public how much they’re spending on this?" asked Breitkreuz. "Could it be the RCMP brass is more interested in playing Liberal politics than they are about law enforcement? Could it be the Commissioner is afraid he will be asked for evidence to prove the cost-effectiveness of the 65-year-old handgun registry? Could it be the Commissioner is embarrassed to admit publicly that he agreed to waste tens of millions of dollars on a useless gun registry rather than spend it on fighting street gangs, organized crime, drug smuggling and black-market gun sales?"

"What makes the RCMP Commissioner’s actions so questionable is that the vast majority of his front-line police officers are opposed to the Liberal’s gun registry. His own officers are calling my office to complain about the utter futility and waste of the registration scheme and to leak sensitive information," said Breitkreuz. "Two separate surveys taken in 1995 by RCMP Division Staff Relation Representatives showed 91% of serving members in Saskatchewan, and 85% in Alberta, opposed "registration of all firearms as proposed in Bill C-68." Secret documents, obtained through Access to Information Act, show the Commissioner had already stated publicly that he supported the Liberal gun registry without even asking his troops about the negative effects it would have on their law enforcement activities and undermining their community relations programs."

"Now look at the mess the RCMP Commissioner is in for ignoring the advice of his own front-line police officers. He has almost 400 employees working on gun registration while hundreds of vacancies for real police officers go unfilled. This year alone, the Commissioner has approved spending $22.7 million on a project that will do nothing to curtail the criminal use of firearms or improve public safety while pleas for more money to fight real crime from his front-line troops go unanswered." Breitkreuz concluded, "Taxpayers are now on the hook for more than $300 million that the Liberals have wasted on this firearms fiasco. Now the RCMP brass must share the blame for this miscarriage of justice."

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Yorkton Office: (306) 782-3309

Ottawa Office: (613) 992-4394

Estimated Expenditures *

September 1998 TB Submission

From 1999/00 onward, the salary dollars for the Firearms Registration and Administration Section (FRAS) are included. As re-registrations occur, the FRAS FTE levels decline to

a minimum level needed for registration under the new program.

File: Annex.wb2 (CFR 09-Sep-98)