cuchulainn
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http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-02-25-0009.html
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Feds deny gun registry coverup
Grits want more bucks for billion-dollar boondoggle
By STEPHANIE RUBEC, SUN OTTAWA BUREAU
OTTAWA -- The federal government didn't do anything wrong by hiding the ballooning costs of the gun registry, says the program's top bureaucrat.
Morris Rosenberg, Justice Department deputy minister, said Canada's auditor general was wrong for criticizing the lack of transparency in the cost of the gun registry - as the Liberals prepare to ask for more money this week.
"We thought we were reporting according to government guidelines," Rosenberg told the Commons Public Accounts committee studying the gun registry's management.
AG Sheila Fraser told the all-party committee she stands by her report which found the gun registry's costs were soaring from the $2 million promised to more than $1 billion by 2005.
Fraser told committee members yesterday that bureaucrats broke Treasury Board guidelines requiring that costs be outlined instead of clumped in with other programs.
"We had great difficulty getting any kind of information," she said. "The information given to Parliament was inadequate."
Justice Minister Martin Cauchon defended the cost of the gun registry, blaming it on constant changes.
Cauchon said that, in hindsight, his government grossly underestimated the cost of setting up a gun registry. They had predicted a $2-million price tag.
"It seemed, quite obviously, that it was impossible to deliver the program for that amount," Cauchon said. "In retrospect, maybe we could have done things differently."
Cauchon is expected to ask Parliament for more money for the gun-registry program this week.
But Canadian Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz warned that he'll get a bumpy ride.
"I believe you're taking Parliament for granted," Breitkreuz said. "You assume we're going to approve money."
NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis said if Fraser hadn't uncovered the ballooning costs of the gun registry, MPs would still be in the dark.
"If it wasn't a coverup, it looks like a culture of deception around this issue."
"It seems to be a deliberate attempt to use an underhanded backroom method of funding a program," added Canadian Alliance MP Val Meredith.
Liberal MP Steve Mahoney accused Fraser's report of being biased, and hammered her in committee for having a known gun-control opponent as part of her audit advisory panel.
Fraser said she had both pro- and anti-gun-control advocates on her advisory committee.
Cauchon will hand over the controversial gun registry program to Solicitor General Wayne Easter on April 1.
Copyright © 2003, CANOE, a division of Netgraphe Inc.