BETWEEN 600 AND 800 BUREAUCRATS WORKING ON GUN REGISTRATION PROJECT

Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.
Yorkton-Melville

News Release

For Immediate Delivery

May 20, 1999

BETWEEN 600 AND 800 BUREAUCRATS WORKING ON GUN REGISTRATION PROJECT

"These federal workers are using valuable resources that could be better spent doing real police work."

Yorkton – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, fired his latest salvo and scored a direct hit against the Liberal make-work project for bureaucrats, namely, the Canadian Firearms Registration Project. "For months now the Liberal lackeys have been have been claiming they only have a couple of hundred civil servants working on the gun registration project," said Breitkreuz. "Now we have documents proving there are more than 600 federal positions with approvals in place to increase the number of staff to 800. And this is only for 9 provinces because all the legally owned guns in Quebec are being processed and registered in Montreal (paid for with federal tax dollars of course). What will the people in those communities suffering from increasing crime and police budget cuts say when they see this waste?"

Breitkreuz released a copy of paper prepared for him by the Library of Parliament Research Branch called, Structure of Organizations in Charge of Implementing the Firearms Legislation. "The document is quite revealing. It will help everyone who has come in contact with the Canadian Firearms Centre understand why the service is so appallingly bad and the production so terribly behind schedule," commented Breitkreuz.

"The government must have used the ‘chaos’ theory of organizational management to arrive at this monstrosity." See if this makes any sense:

221 bureaucrats work for the RCMP in the Canadian Firearms Registry (CFR) in Ottawa

96 bureaucrats work for the Dept. of Justice at the Canadian Firearms Centre (CFC) in Ottawa

198 bureaucrats (minimum) 382 (maximum) work for the Dept. of Human Resources Development at the Central Processing Site (CPS) in Miramichi, New Brunswick (26 Dept. of Justice bureaucrats also work in Miramichi).

77 bureaucrats work for the Federal Chief Firearms Officer (CFO) Services in the provinces and territories that have opted-out of administration of firearms registration. These bureaucrats are appointed by the Minister of Justice but work for the RCMP. (12 Dept. of Justice bureaucrats work in CFOs in Newfoundland and the Yukon)

20 bureaucrats work for Revenue Canada Customs in the Firearms Initiative Group in Ottawa.

Plus all the federally-subsidized bureaucrats in Quebec processing firearms licences and registrations

"That’s a total of more than 600 bureaucrats and they are doing less to improve public safety in a whole year than 6 front-line police officers could accomplish in a single shift," declared Breitkreuz. "Even at an average cost to the taxpayer of $40,000 a year for each bureaucrat, that works out to $24 million just in employee costs. The government admitted they spent $134 million in the last fiscal year and plan to spend $50 to $60 million every year to operate the registry. Compare this to the original estimate of $85 million over five years tabled in the House of Commons in 1995 by Justice Minister Allen Rock. Our sources in Revenue Canada, the RCMP and the Canadian Police Association say the implementation price tag is already at a billion dollars," No wonder the Department of Justice is taking so long to answer my questions and motions that ask them for details and how much the Liberals have wasted on this politically-motivated, mandarin-made-mess."

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For more information, please call:

Yorkton Office: (306) 782-3309
Ottawa Office: (613) 992-4394
e-mail: breitg0@parl.gc.ca

NUMBER OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES WORKING ON THE

FIREARMS REGISTRATION PROJECT

By Garry Breitkreuz, MP (Yorkton-Melville) March 19, 1999

The following is a summary of the number of federal employees working on the implementation of the government’s firearms legislation. The information was obtained from a paper prepared by the Research Branch of the Library of Parliament at the request of Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville. The paper is titled, "Structure of Organizations in Charge of Implementing the Firearms Legislation" and dated May 17, 1999.

Canadian Firearms Registry (Ottawa)

The Canadian Firearms Registry is administered by the RCMP and is a distinct entity from the Canadian Firearms Centre.

Number of Employees at CFR (as of March 31, 1999) – 221 positions

Number may increase or decrease depending on intake of firearms registrations
211 full-time equivalents and 10 part-time
200 located in Ottawa, approx. 20 in provincial locations
3 in Registrar’s Office
5 in Administrative Support
80 in Verification Section
26 in Legislation and Regulations
26 in Firearms Registration
26 in Identification Section
26 in Verifier’s Network
17 in Laboratory
11 in Firearms Act Project Office

Canadian Firearms Centre (Ottawa)

The Canadian Firearms Centre is administered by the Dept. of Justice and is a distinct entity from the Canadian Firearms Registry.

Number of Employees at CFC – 96 positions (6 vacant)

majority of positions are located at CFC headquarters in Ottawa
26 Dept. of Justice positions at the Central Processing Site in Miramichi, NB
12 Dept. of Justice positions in Newfoundland and Yukon working in the Chief Firearms Offices.

Central Processing Site (Miramichi)

The Central Processing Site (CPS) is administered by Human Resources Development Canada.

Number of Employees at CPS – 198 positions minimum – 382 positions maximum

all employees are located in Miramichi, New Brunswick

Note #1: The applications for licences and registration certificates made in Quebec are not sent to the CPS in Miramichi but go to a processing site in Montreal.

Note # 2: On May 17, 1999, a supervisor at the Central Processing Site in Miramichi told a licenced firearms dealer that they had "287 workers waiting patiently to take your calls."

Revenue Canada Customs (Ottawa)

Revenue Canada Customs has established a Firearms Initiative Group. All are Revenue Canada Customs employees.

Number of Employees in Firearms Initiative Group – 20 positions (between 1996 – 2001)

- all employees are located in Ottawa

Federal Chief Firearms Officer Services (In Opting-Out Provinces & Territories)

Chief Firearms Officers (CFOs) are appointed by the Minister responsible in their respective provinces. The federal Minister of Justice appoints the CFOs in the territories and provinces that have opted out (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, NWT and Nunavut) but these employees work for the RCMP.

Number of Employees in Federal CFO Services – 77 positions (16 vacant positions)

74 positions are full-time equivalent
Number of positions may fluctuate to improve services