From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V5 #716 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Errors-To: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Cdn-Firearms Digest Monday, February 3 2003 Volume 05 : Number 716 In this issue: COLUMN: 'Private' Radwanski is prickly, pompous, but he could be right COLUMN: Taxpayer dollars disappearing in Ottawa bloat Justice Dept - New Information Concerning Firearms Program (2003/01/30) PARLIAMENT STILL IN THE DARK ABOUT COST OF GUN REGISTRY STATEMENT BY GARRY BREITKREUZ ON FIREARM REGISTRY REPORTS Toronto: smug arrogance Clifford Olson for Paul Martin nincompoops for cretin R v. Lovatt NEWS: Two reports confirm gun registry was off-target ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 14:22:05 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: COLUMN: 'Private' Radwanski is prickly, pompous, but he could be right http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/columnists/story.asp?id=278DFBD1-2C92-45FC-965C-3C299F00F6B6 'Private' Radwanski is prickly, pompous, but he could be right Don Martin Calgary Herald Saturday, February 01, 2003 To the parliamentary press pack, he's considered the most prickly and pompous dude on the Hill. To the federal government, he's politically rash, unduly paranoid and an oft-regretted patronage appointment. But to anyone who cares about protecting their privacy, George Radwanski is the scariest talker in town. The federal privacy commissioner has unleashed a furious crusade to ensure privacy for the one is not trampled needlessly in the rush to provide security, or the false sense of it, for the many. Part of Radwanski's problem is that his skills as a former Jean Chretien speechwriter can't be controlled. He turns worrisome precedents into five-alarm possibilities with such flourishing doom-and-gloom overkill, the message gets overwhelmed by the rhetoric. Random excerpts from his annual report released Wednesday: "Solemn and urgent warning . . . permanent loss of privacy rights . . . massive new intrusions . . . Big Brother database . . . dramatically enhanced state powers . . . unprecedented assault on the fundamental human rights of privacy by the government of Canada." You get my drift. All his fretting, as it turns out, is triggered by legislation allowing police to engage a flight of fancy in scanning foreign-bound airline passenger lists. No big deal, right? Where you went and when, what you ate, how you paid for the ticket . . . pretty benign stuff. But what started as a scheme to track only terrorist suspects using data with a 24-hour lifespan has been expanded to unrestricted access by RCMP for any law enforcement purpose with a data shelf life of six years. Little wonder, then, that Radwanski says the government cannot be trusted to limit the reach of its powers. The loss-of-privacy price for booking a ticket to Florida could be your arrest for harbouring an unregistered firearm back at the ranch. And all this data perusal power to identify terrorists who would invariably not use their real names or provide genuine documentation to book tickets on a plane they intend to destroy. For being such a privacy pain in the public butt, Radwanski has been dismissed, denounced and deceived by a Liberal government that thought they were appointing a friend to the position. And he's not getting the help he deserves from the official Opposition. The Canadian Alliance has done little to promote his concerns, keeping the report shut out of the question period lineup in favour of repeatedly seeking non-answers on the Iraq question. The Alliance faces a dilemma, though. While it's big on defending personal liberty, it's also huge on hard-nosed security in the 9/11 aftermath. It will find it hard to criticize programs as privacy infringements which it advocated as security improvements. Radwanski also raises legitimate concerns about video surveillance on streets where youth have a history of causing a ruckus. It sounds fine as a deterrent for mob monitoring, but (and this is my paranoia on the rise) mesh those cameras with biometric facial recognition technology and you've got the means to identify and track individuals as they walk down the road. A long way off into an Orwellian future? Nope. A government tender closed earlier this week seeking equipment that can scan 19,000 photos per day and find matches in a database that will hold up to 11 million mugshots. The alleged use of the equipment is for passport control. But candidates in the bidding promote the use of the cameras to scan lineups of people. And some 51 requests for detailed documentation on this tender were received. It's hard to say what's scarier -- that rapid-scanning face-recognition technology has advanced to this level of sophistication or that so many companies are chasing buyers for it. And where will they get the photos? Well, a Commons committee meets next week to discuss a national identification card. The mandatory card would require a photo that would be added to the government database. In one off-the-cuff answer, Radwanski summed up the threat of excessively vigilant surveillance beautifully. "If we have to go through our lives thinking twice about everywhere we go, everything we do, every contact and every purchase because we have to ask ourselves how it might look when it's monitored, recorded, noted, analyzed, interpreted, perhaps misinterpreted, and used against us by agents of the state, we are not truly free." Orwell would've understood him perfectly. Pompous? Yeah. Paranoid? Maybe. But is George Radwanski's message scary? You bet. Don Martin is the Herald's Ottawa Bureau Chief dmartin@sns.southam.ca © Copyright 2003 Calgary Herald ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 14:27:54 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: COLUMN: Taxpayer dollars disappearing in Ottawa bloat http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/columnists/story.asp?id=B68B6C0B-1193-4B12-9EA8-A0C7504A5AB4 Taxpayer dollars disappearing in Ottawa bloat Don Martin Calgary Herald Wednesday, January 29, 2003 The typical Ottawa bureaucrat is 44 years young, books off a few extra mental health days per year, tends to file hefty prescription drug claims and regularly fantasizes about quitting for a better job which, given the capital's bone-chilling winter, probably involves running a scuba school in Belize. Their other defining trait: turn 'em loose in a free-spending government and they breed like rabbits. Federal workers are the driving force behind the latest Ottawa paradox -- and I'm not talking about the Senators becoming the hottest squad in the NHL the same month its owners place the team in bankruptcy. Barely a year after Ottawa's booming high-tech industry collapsed into a heartbreak Nortel covered by pink slips, the capital is posting record-high job creation, the hottest housing market in the country, commuters screeching for relief from stop-and-slow freeways and a population of the most giddy spendthrifts in the nation. All this prosperity is courtesy of you, the Canadian taxpayer. The federation empire, you see, is striking back. The most recent paint-by-statistics picture puts the total federal bureaucracy at 248,000 employees. The Ottawa region has added 20,000 new listings to its 585-page government directory in the last five years, creating a local employment base of 110,911 federal workers or 45 per cent of the national total. By comparison, there are 6,350 federal workers in Calgary, 8,609 in Edmonton, 2,590 in Saskatoon, 10,885 in Winnipeg and 19,869 in Metropolitan Toronto. This bloated picture could get even uglier because the areas of greatest bureaucratic bulge are the same departments up for a massive budget boost this spring. Clearly, the feds are set to binge on career ads. The alarming trend caught Finance Minister John Manley's eye last month as he began budget consultations. He found it unsettling that the lean bureaucracy created by slashing 60,000 paycheques in 1994 was adding on the pounds so quickly. The bloat can be found in dozens of departments. It's a no-brainer that having a billion-dollar gun registry loaded with desk-bound duds partially explains why the Justice Department has doubled its 1994 staff count to 4,717 workers. Less obvious is why giving away money through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency required a 60 per cent jump to 583 workers. And I'm not sure why the Canadian Space Agency, already flagged by the auditor general as a prime candidate to defy fiscal gravity, has seen its workforce skyrocket 56 per cent to 475 positions in eight years. But perhaps the most worrisome growth curve has been in the Health Department, which stands to be the prime beneficiary of Manley's bid to divest himself of a projected $9-billion surplus in next month's budget. Health employed 5,863 federal staff in 1994 to supervise an area of provincial jurisdiction. If you really want to agitate Premier Ralph Klein on the eve of a first ministers' meeting on health, where even tighter federal control (i.e. more bureaucratic meddling) is up for discussion, tell him Ottawa now employs 8,674 Health Canada bureaucrats. Sticking with Klein for a moment, it should also be noted the premier was probably dead wrong to declare the Kyoto protocol a job-killer. While the feds plead ignorance on future staffing requirements, it took about 1,000 federal-provincial staff just to create various climate change models on paper. Thus, with talk of handing out $1 billion to actually implement the accord, federal staffing is set to explode to negotiate Kyoto greenhouse gas reduction targets with individual companies and monitor compliance by the entire nation. Now, so many new public servants obviously require a lot of executives to provide adult supervision. That explains why the Privy Council Office has ballooned 40 per cent to 706 staff in five years and why the keepers of the keys, the Treasury Board, has boosted staffing by a third to 1,077 positions. Of course, all those new bodies require desks, which explains why a wild government-driven building boom is set to hit downtown Ottawa in the next three years, even while high-tech space sits empty in outer suburbia. A new $200-million tower will rise on the western edge of Parliament Hill. Tenders have been let for $90 million worth of government space across the Ottawa River in Gatineau. Another $255 million worth of downtown office towers are being considered for federal purchase or lease. And we haven't even begun to debate the $60-million CBC building, a new war museum, renovations for a Canadian history museum and a revamped national portrait gallery just down the street from a new federal court building. So if you want to see where your tax dollars go to die, come to Ottawa. Fat City is back -- and getting bigger every day. Don Martin is the Herald's Ottawa bureau chief. dmartin@sns.southam.ca © Copyright 2003 Calgary Herald ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 14:46:01 -0600 (CST) From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: Justice Dept - New Information Concerning Firearms Program (2003/01/30) JUSTICE DEPARTMENT - New Information Concerning Firearms Program (2003/01/30) http://www.cfc.gc.ca/en/general_public/news_features/default.asp ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 17:31:23 -0600 (CST) From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: PARLIAMENT STILL IN THE DARK ABOUT COST OF GUN REGISTRY House of Commons Debates Monday, February 3, 2003 ORAL QUESTION PERIOD Unedited copy - not official until printed in Hansard * * * Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr.Speaker, on January 8 the justice minister said "KPMG were contacted to verify the adequacy of the gun registry's financial systems and confirm the validity of the programs' financial statements". The minister's comments seemed to leave little room for KPMG to find any mistakes with his billion dollar boondoggle. Will he please explain to Parliament how the consultants were able to find financial records that the Auditor General could not, or is that just an elaborate spin job? Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, since the tabling of the Auditor General's report, we have been seeing on this side of the House that first, we believe in our policy, in gun control and in public safety. We have been talking as well about cost and efficiency and transparency as well. We have had those two reports and I am pleased to tell the House that after question period this afternoon, I will table the two reports, the one from KPMG and the one from Mr. Erskine on the management of the program. Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, this is not a gun control issue, this is a government out of control issue. The justice minister has been banking his future and the future of the billion dollar gun registry on two consultants reports to help him answer questions he has not been able to answer for the last two months. The Auditor General said the gun registry will not be fully implemented for three or four years. Is the minister prepared to tell us today, how long will it take to fully implement the gun registry and how much will it really cost? Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, actually the program is up and running, and of course it is running low cost, at the present time. I know as well that the hon. member does not like it, but we said that we liked our policy. We liked at policy because it is about public safety. We would fix the problems. It is a policy which is highly supportive of Canadians. This afternoon we said we wanted to be transparent and we wanted to fix the problem. This afternoon, at some other stage, we will table the two reports and after that I will come forward with a good plan of action for Canadians. * * * =B8 (1450)20 Mr. Darrel Stinson (Okanagan-Shuswap, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, the gun registry is a billion dollar garbage collection system. Two years ago documents from the minister's own department predicted it was going to take 8.8 years to register all the firearms accurately. Last August, documents from the ministers own department showed that three-quarters of the firearms registration certificates had blanks and unknown entries. More than 800,000 had been issued without any serial numbers. How long is it going to take to go back and correct all these mistakes and how much is that going to cost the Canadian taxpayer? Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member is talking about is the question of the quality of the data. We are aware of that and the RCMP as well are aware of that. They have invested in technology and training as well in order to make sure that we will keep having very good data which is important for our gun control system. When the member said that the gun control policy is not good, I would like to say that it is a valid and important tool for our Canadian society. Just bear in mind as well again that we are talking about public safety. Look at what stakeholders have said over the past few weeks. People are asking the government to keep proceeding with the policy and this is exactly what we are going to do. We will fix the problems that we have seen in the Auditor General's report. Mr. Darrel Stinson (Okanagan-Shuswap, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, the gun registry simply does not work. It has already cost Canadian taxpayers well in excess of $1 billion. Another eight years to register all firearms. Another billion dollars to fix this registry mess. When will the government finally admit that the system is a failure and just scrap it? Hon. Martin Cauchon (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, there is a question of good faith here. The hon. member should recognize that the policy of gun control is a good and valid policy that works here in this country and it works elsewhere as well. Gun control exists in other countries in the world. In terms of licences, there are about 2 million people who have a licence. In terms of registered firearms there are close to 6 million now. Of course there are problems with the management. We will table two reports from KPMG and the administration this afternoon. We will move quickly and we will make sure that we have a good tool for public safety. * * * ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 17:32:45 -0600 (CST) From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: STATEMENT BY GARRY BREITKREUZ ON FIREARM REGISTRY REPORTS http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/breitkreuzgpress/guns74.htm NEWS RELEASE February 3, 2003 For Immediate Release STATEMENT BY GARRY BREITKREUZ ON FIREARM REGISTRY REPORTS OTTAWA - Canadian Alliance Firearms Critic Garry Breitkreuz made the following statement today in the House of Commons in response to Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's tabling of the KPMG and Hession reports on the Firearm Registration boondoggle: "Mr. Speaker, while none of us have had a chance to read these two consultants' reports, they seem to indicate an attempt to whitewash a billion-dollar boondoggle and absolve the Minister and his senior bureaucrats for their incompetence. All the Minister confirms today is that they really did waste a billion dollars. "On January 8th, the Minister's news release stated the review by KPMG was: "... to verify the adequacy and appropriate application of the CFC's financial systems and controls. This will also assist in confirming the validity of the Program's financial statements." "Today, the Minister reports that KPMG found exactly what he told them to find. "With respect to Mr. Hession's report, the Minister says Parliament now has to wait another few weeks while the Minister prepares an "Action Plan". Why does Parliament have to wait a few more weeks? Have the Minister's bureaucrats been doing absolutely nothing for the last several months? "The Minister tabled Estimates in March last year saying everything in the gun registry was fine - give us $113.5 million? Why didn't he know the program was in trouble then? "The Minister tables Supplementary Estimates in October saying everything in the gun registry was fine - give us another $72 million. Why didn't he know the program was in trouble then? "The Minister had the Auditor General's report for weeks before it was released on December 3rd. Why did he wait for the media to make a big story out of it before he acted? Why did he wait for 8 provinces and 3 territories to demand a review of the program before he acted? "The Minister demands that Parliament pass Bill C-10A and that these two-year-old amendments are needed to fix the problem when even his own User Group on Firearms admit they fall far short of fixing the myriad of problems in the gun registry. If Parliament is going to amend the Firearms Act, let's do it all at once. "Finally, the two reports the Minister tabled today still keep Parliament in the dark. They don't say how long it's going to take to fully implement the registry or how much it's going to cost! Worst of all, Parliament and the public will have to wait years before the Auditor General confirms that the program is totally ineffective at controlling the criminal use of firearms. This is no longer a gun control issue - this is a government-out-of-control issue!" - - 30 - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 19:27:32 -0600 (CST) From: "jim davies" Subject: Toronto: smug arrogance > Subject: Re: Mayor Mel gets tough > > >Wasn't Mayor Mel at one time in favour of making Toronto a gun-free zone? You gotta wonder about hogtown, so self possessed and proud of itself yet they routinely elect freaks like Lastman and Cretin to be their political "face." Have they ever noticed that proper folks laugh at them? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 19:28:12 -0600 (CST) From: "jim davies" Subject: Clifford Olson for Paul Martin > Has anyone done a study to see how the inmates would vote? > > Do they vote for the constituency of their origin or of their incarceration? > > Do they vote in numbers which would actually sway a decision? According to mass murderer, buggerer and lifelong LIEberal Clifford Olson, the LIEberals are the party of choice. Olson lists himself as a "Martin" supporter. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 19:29:01 -0600 (CST) From: "jim davies" Subject: nincompoops for cretin > The reason that nations have all avoided implementing anything like the American > model of representative democracy is that the American system generates an > incredibly weak legislature. Thanks to the famous system of ''checks and > balances,'' combined with the absence of party discipline, politicians have > amazingly little power in the United States. The system compensates for this by > having a strong executive branch (the president), and an extraordinarily > powerful judiciary (the Supreme Court). > > What some on the right are proposing is that we introduce American-style > handicaps that would cripple the legislative branch, without introducing any > compensating changes in either the courts or the civil service. The result would > be a preposterous, unworkable hybrid... What the leftist nutters hate more than anything is democracy and the truth. Notice how our idiot friend decries the US system because "...politicians have amazingly little power in the United States." and it "...would cripple the legislative branch" yadda, yadda. Has this simplistic nincompoop been held in some jungle rathole for years without any knowlwdge of the Canadian model of Parliament where the politicians [except cretin] have NO power and no respect? What an idiot. I suppose such tripe would pass if regurgitated through the CBC but how can such simplistic agitprop pass in the real world? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 21:57:38 -0600 (CST) From: Lee Jasper Subject: R v. Lovatt It was stated on the CFD: >>I recently was referred info about a R. v. Paul Lovatt case >>that was heard in the Ontario Court of Justice in Hamilton on >>June 4, 2002. The judgement (appeal of a Provincial Court >>decision) was delivered on Nov. 5, 2005. The judges stated: >>"In essence the legislation gives the state the power to take >>private property from an individual who is in lawful >>possession, on the basis that there is a safety issue in >>continued possession, that is, perhaps someone will do >>something at some time in the future." >This doesn't ring a bell with me, Lee. Do you have a link to >the transcript of the case? Chap scooped it off Quicklaw; I hear that it will be added to a site for public distribution. The part I can't figure is why it seems like only a skeleton of a transcript and does not contain any testimony, statements or arguments. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 22:45:56 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: NEWS: Two reports confirm gun registry was off-target http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1044308745035_39717945///?hub=TopStories Updated Mon. Feb. 3 2003 9:22 PM ET Two reports confirm gun registry was off-target By Rob Gilroy, CTV.ca News Staff Justice Minister Martin Cauchon tabled two independent financial reports on Canada's bloated gun registry. Cauchon said the reports will improve efficiency and ultimately reduce the cost of the controversial program. One report, from the auditing firm KPMG, said the department was maintaining proper financial records while a private consultant recommended 16 changes to improve management of the program. Cauchon ordered the reports after Auditor General Sheila Fraser slammed the Canadian Firearms Program last December in her annual report to Parliament. She told MPs the registry's cost would balloon to a total of $1 billion by 2005. When he tabled the legislation in December 1994, then-justice minister Allan Rock forecast the total cost would be $119 million over five years and that all but $2 million would be recovered through fees from gun owners. "What it is saying to us is the (financial) structures we have now are good, we can count on them and from there we can build on the report as asked by the Auditor General," Cauchon told reporters outside the House of Commons. "We will come forward with a plan of action very shortly." Under the program, Canadian gun owners were supposed to register their firearms by Jan. 1, 2003, but Cauchon has announced two amnesties for owners. Opponents of the gun registry, including several provinces, say there is no evidence it would reduce crime. Critics say the money would be better spent on front-line policing. The report by consultant Raymond Hession said Ottawa's assumption the registry would cost a net $2 million "was plainly based on flawed assumptions." "The technical requirements and business processes that were developed to implement the stipulated functions of Bill C-68 (Firearms Act) proved to be dauntingly complex," Hession said in his report. Hession blamed "limited operational experience" in the justice department to effectively manage the escalating cost of the program. "The procurement method employed by the government allocated little performance risk to the two contractors who were asked to detail the design and build the solution. They did what they were told to do and billed accordingly." Among Hession's recommendations are: better service to the public and a reintroduction of online registration; an annual audit plan; a program advisory council to oversee the program; consolidate the program at one headquarters; freeze the development of new software; and an examination of potential legislative changes to reduce program delivery costs and overhead. The opposition called the reports a waste of money that didn't answer key questions in the Auditor General's report. "The minister is just hiding behind his reports, he's still not being up front and keeping Parliament informed," said Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz. "That was what the auditor general complained about, that Parliament is kept in the dark." The KPMG audit did not, as Cauchon had indicated it would, tally costs borne by other government departments -- information Auditor General Sheila Fraser complained she was unable to get because the Justice Department failed to gather it. Canadians will have to wait until fall for that figure, Cauchon said. "We're working together to make sure we will have the consolidated report and I'm sure we will be able to table the consolidated report this fall," Cauchon said after he tabled the reports. "We will have the consolidated report passed by the auditor general." He said it has been "a lot of work, working with the other departments." But KPMG "gave us the certitude that the infrastructure we have in place as regard to the financial management, as regard to the expenditures, is a good infrastructure." With a report from Canadian Press ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V5 #716 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:akimoya@sprint.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca FAQ list: http://www.magma.ca/~asd/cfd-faq1.html and http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/homepage.html FTP Site: ftp://teapot.usask.ca/pub/cdn-firearms/ CFDigest Archives: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab133/ or put the next command in an e-mail message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca get cdn-firearms-digest v04.n192 end (192 is the digest issue number and 04 is the volume) To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next five lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-alert unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".) 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