Canadian Conservatives Fall Short (This Time) In Effort to Cut Registry

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The New GUN WEEK, January 1, 2005
Page 5

Canadian Conservatives Fall Short In Effort to Cut Registry

A Conservative Party-supported move to cut funding to
Canada?s federal gun registration program has missed the
mark, according to Canadian news sources.

The standing committee of Parliament, chaired by Vegreville
Lloydminster Conservative MP Leon Benoit, was aiming to cut
$97 million from the gun registration program?s budget, but
that move was defeated in a mid-December vote in Parliament.

Benoit said such a substantial cut would have essentially
killed the gun registry program, which has jumped to more
than $1.4 billion from its originally estimated
implementation cost of $2 million.

The Bloc Quebecois and the NDP voted with the Liberal
government on the program funding, essentially leaving the
Conservatives on their own to try and vote in the budget
cuts. But Benoit said even without a funding cut, the gun
registry program looks to be in serious financial trouble
yet again.

?I don?t know how they are going to keep it going because
(the federal government) were saying clearly, just a year
ago, that they were going to spend $35 million a year on
this program,? Benoit said. ?We know that they are spending
about $110 million to $120 million.?

Benoit said the program needs to be killed and federal
dollars should instead be invested in front-line law
enforcement. He remains confident the Conservatives will
abolish the program in the future, and said a cost-benefit
study has proven that the gun registry has not done what it
was intended to do.

?(The government?s) arguments are getting more difficult to
make. We did a cost benefit analysis of the gun registry
and we know through access to information that this
cost-benefit analysis is being kept hidden, protected by
cabinet secrecy,? said Benoit. ?Obviously this analysis
shows that this gun registry isn?t going to help make
society safer. Otherwise they would be splashing that all
over the place saying ?Hey, look our cost-benefit analysis
shows us that it?s going to do the job.? We know it isn?t,
almost everybody knows it isn?t.?

Benoit said if the Conservatives do manage to kill the gun
registry, they would carefully destroy all of the firearms
registration information already collected by the
government.

?The hardest thing for people to learn to do is cut your
losses,? Benoit said. ?It?s already been leaked in many
cases. It?s been found in garbage dumps, and it?s so
inaccurate that it?s dangerous to have out there.?