| NOTE:
Versions of this Canadian Press story also appeared in the Globe
and Mail, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Sun, Halifax Chronicle Herald and the Fredricton
Daily Gleaner.
Publication: The Kingston
Whig-Standard -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRUE COST OF GUN REGISTRY UPSETTING, DAY SAYS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OTTAWA - Canadians will be shocked by the true cost of the federal government's ill-fated gun registry, says new Public Security Minister Stockwell Day. Day told The Canadian Press that figures bureaucrats have shown him during briefings for his new portfolio are much higher than previously thought. He would not divulge what the tab is, but said it's upsetting. "Some of these numbers, when we get out all the numbers and when the auditor general releases them all very soon, eyebrows are going to go up," he said yesterday. "People are going to be upset and they're going to have a right to be upset." When the Liberals added the registry to the federal gun control program in 1995, they said it would cost taxpayers no more than $2 million. But the most recent estimates put the figure in the hundreds of millions of dollars, bringing the total cost of the gun program to more than $1 billion. At last estimate, the gun program was said to be consuming $90 million a year to maintain. Day said an auditor general's report will show that a lot of money was needlessly lost. "I think what will grab people is the fact it didn't have to be this way, whatever the final number is, it could have been avoided." Day is part of a group, including Justice Minister Vic Toews and longtime gun registry critic Garry Breitkreuz, looking at how best to kill the registry as soon as possible. Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised voters during the election campaign that the registry would be scrapped and money redirected to public safety. Day said it may take more than just the $90 million from the registry to fulfil Tory promises of hiring 1,000 more Mounties. "The cost of providing the safety and security that Canadians want, there's going to be a cost to that, and there's a possibility that not all of it will be found within the savings of the long gun registry. Will it be enough to offset what we're talking about in terms of 1,000 officers? Maybe yes, maybe no." ------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT THE LIBERALS CAN’T OR WON’T TELL YOU ABOUT THEIR $2 BILLION FIREARMS PROGRAM By Garry Breitkreuz, MP, Conservative Firearms Critic – August 8, 2005 http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/issues/guncontrol.htm NEWS RELEASE - March
3, 2004 NEWS RELEASE - October
21, 2003 NEWS RELEASE - June
30, 2003 NEWS RELEASE - March
24, 2003 June 16, 2003 - COMPLIANCE COSTS OF FIREARMS LICENCES: PRELIMINARY ESTIMATES - Parliamentary Research Branch, Library of Parliament. http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/LofP-june16-2003.doc January 2, 2004 - EXCERPT
FROM AN OPEN LETTER TO PAUL MARTIN: Your government failed
to follow Cabinet approved Regulatory Policy and has never released the
cost-benefit analysis you prepared on the Canadian Firearms Program. The
Commissioner of Firearms told Senators and Members of Parliament that
it was a “Cabinet secret”. March 31, 2003 - GOVERNMENT
REFUSES TO RELEASE "MAJOR ADDITIONAL COSTS" IDENTIFIED BY THE
AUDITOR GENERAL NEWS RELEASE - May
11, 2001 |