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Reports offer fix for bloated gun registry
'Unnecessarily complex': $400-million spent on databases will never be recovered
Andrew McIntosh, with files from Anne Dawson
National Post
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
OTTAWA - An estimated $400- million in taxpayers' money spent since 1997 on developing databases for the federal firearms registry will never be recovered by future payment of gun registration fees, contrary to past government promises, a new report reveals.
The admission came in a consultant's report tabled in Parliament yesterday by Martin Cauchon, the Justice Minister. The report also called for the closing and restructuring of two of the four existing federal gun registry facilities.
In a scathing 27-page management review of the Canadian Firearms Program run by the Department of Justice, Ottawa consultant Raymond Hession depicts an embattled agency stuck inside the wrong department whose operations were "sub-optimized" by patronage decisions to spread its staff and facilities across Canada.
"The program administration remains unnecessarily complex and costly," he said.
He added that new, additional software troubles may cause even more problems.
The firearms program shelved customized software developed by computer firm EDS, and is now trying to replace it with commercial, off-the-shelf software.
"Current indications are that the complexities of the Canadian firearms program continue to put the potential economic advantages of the off-the-shelf solution in jeopardy," Mr. Hession wrote.
"Leadership, focus and execution [within the gun registry] are further sub-optimized currently because of the multiple headquarters deployments [Edmonton and Ottawa] and processing sites [Montreal and Miramichi]," he added.
Mr. Hession wants the Canadian Firearms Program headquarters in Edmonton and Ottawa integrated into one place and also wants gun registry licence processing facilities in Quebec and New Brunswick merged and streamlined.
Such moves would generate "significant savings and economies of scale," he added, and would mean the loss of 16 jobs.
Mr. Hession suggests the agency needs to quickly appoint its own financial comptroller.
A second report on gun-registry spending by accounting firm KPMG also recommends a series of measures to improve internal controls and financial reporting at the gun registry, but found that no public money was misused as costs skyrocketed.
After tabling the two reports in the Commons, Mr. Cauchon warned the government now faces "some tough choices" but reiterated elected officials must improve the efficiency of the firearms program "while further cutting its costs."
"These two reports will be useful in helping us achieve these objectives without in any way sacrificing our goal of increased public safety for all Canadians," he added.
Mr. Cauchon commissioned the reports in December, at a cost of $150,000, after Sheila Fraser, the Auditor-General, harshly criticized his department, saying Canadians and Parliament were "kept in the dark" as the costs of the gun registry soared.
Ms. Fraser noted that federal officials forecast in 1995 that the gun registry would cost taxpayers only $2-million, once the government finished collecting an anticipated $117-million in registration fees from Canadian gun owners. However, the tally will exceed $1-billion by 2004, with no end yet in sight, and even the government cannot tally all its various costs, Ms. Fraser said.
The reports tabled by Mr. Cauchon yesterday do not provide the overall costs of the program, and the Justice Minister told reporters that tally may not come until fall -- long after government and opposition MPs are asked to approve a new gun registry budget.
Opposition MPs immediately dismissed the reports as failing to answer key issues.
"All the Minister confirms today is that they really did waste $1-billion," said Gary Breitkreuz, the gun registry critic for the Canadian Alliance, the Official Opposition.
"These reports still don't indicate how long it's going to take to implement the gun registry or how much it's going to cost. They seem to indicate an attempt to whitewash a billion-dollar boondoggle," he added. "This isn't a gun-control issue. This is a government out of control issue."
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Paul Martin, the front-runner for the Liberal leadership, questioned why John Manley, the Finance Minister, criticized Mr. Martin about the gun-registry costs and accountability during a weekend speech.
Mr. Manley lashed out at Mr. Martin at a meeting of federal Alberta Liberals, saying he was running away from his own record on the federal gun registry.
Mr. Martin was vice-president of the Treasury Board when all the additional gun-registry spending was quietly approved. In December, when the cost overruns were revealed by the Auditor-General, Mr. Martin did accept partial blame.
"Definitely there were questions that should have been asked, follow-up that should have been done by all of us," the former finance minister said on Dec. 6.
"As far as I'm concerned, the responsibility is one that we all share and as I mention, I certainly bear my share of that responsibility. I don't think this is an issue in which people should be trying to defer blame."
Scott Reid, a campaign spokesman for Mr. Martin, said he was puzzled by Mr. Manley's comments.
"Mr. Martin, on Dec. 7, was actually the first prominent member of the government to publicly accept some measure of responsibility for the troubles of the gun registry," he said.
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