These comments are direct quotations from the Hansard
documents.
Free Firearms Licenses
Mr.
Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the Liberal
brain trust over there is giving away free firearms licences to 770,000
randomly selected gun owners and is charging the other unlucky licence
holders $60 each to renew their licences.
Does this Liberal lottery not violate their charter rights to be treated
equally under the law? And for the 25th time in two years I ask, how much
is the firearms program going to cost to fully implement and how much is
it going to cost to maintain?
Hon. Anne McLellan (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety
and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I find it slightly
passing strange that the party that ridiculed the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms in the last election would now invoke it in this context, but I
guess that is a party that is quite happy to have it both ways.
Let me reassure the hon. member that on this side of the House we remain
committed to an effective and efficient gun control program. In fact we
are working closely with firearms owners, users and other stakeholders to
make--
The Speaker: The hon. member for Yorkton—Melville.
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I
think everyone in this country already knows that the last part is not
true. This is just the latest example of poor program planning and nine
years of Liberal mismanagement.
When will the minister admit there are better places to put $100 million a
year than on a firearms program? How about clearing the backlog of more
than 1,700 DNA cases in the RCMP forensic laboratories? How about clearing
that away?
Hon. Anne McLellan (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety
and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, this government's
commitment to public safety is clear. That is why we are working on a
number of fronts, including DNA. I guess the hon. member missed the press
release from the RCMP recently indicating how successful our DNA
identification program has been.
We are committed to public safety, whether it is DNA, whether it is the
sex offender registry, whether it is gun control and dealing with smuggled
guns and gun crime in our major cities. This government takes a back seat
to--
The Speaker: The hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell.
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