EDMONTON JOURNAL
Liberal spin can't hide registry failure: With no credibility
left, statistics-peddling on public safety given a shot
Friday 13 December 2002
p. A16
The cost of the federal gun
registry was like one, gigantic snake -- hard to slay (it took seven years), but at least
it was a one-headed serpent. In the past week, the Liberals have unleashed the
multi-headed hydra of public safety to stave off shutting down the gun registry.
It's hard to know which hissing, specious head to cut off first. Then there is always
the risk that for each specious safety claim one cuts down, the Liberals will throw out
three additional claims.
Of course, Auditor General Sheila Fraser called the registry the worst cost overrun
ever seen by the Auditor Generals' department. She even pulled her auditors from the
Department of Justice because the registry's books were so poorly kept even her
professional number-crunchers and shenanigan-uncoverers couldn't make sense of them.
But of course, there is nothing more determined than a Liberal with a bad idea. A
wounded rhino in heat, suffering an excruciating horn-ache, is easier to reason with.
So rather than admit their registry is what it so obviously is to everyone else -- a
colossally expensive and entirely useless failure -- the Liberals' current spin is: Sure
there are problems. But we are working to fix them.
Besides, despite the cost overruns, the registry has already been a great benefit to
public safety.
First spin, first.
One would have to be suffering from delusions to believe the Liberals were capable of
rescuing this monstrosity.
I don't mean because it is impossible to rescue the registry. (Though it is
impossible.) I mean it would be the other side of Fairytale Land to believe the Liberals
could do it. The Liberals devised the registry scheme in the first place, so fundamentally
flawed by their ideological blindness, wishful thinking and smugness that its net cost
ballooned from $2-million to $1 billion, in just seven years.
For instance, the original computer system was so inadequate that $277 million has been
spent on upgrades to software and hardware -- a quarter of the cost overruns. Still,
outside experts have determined the system is now obsolete and needs to be scrapped.
Moreover, when it became obvious to the Liberals that the costs were skyrocketing, they
not only approved at least $200 million in spending without notifying Parliament: worse
yet they seem to have happily poured this good money after the bad.
And now their spin doctors would have Canadians believe the Liberals can be trusted to
correct this mess? I wouldn't even trust them to know, yet, that they have made a mess.
Now, as to the registry making Canadians safer, let's start with firearms murders. From
1991 through to the opening of the registry at the end of 1998, murders committed with
guns declined from 271 a year to 151, a drop of 44 per cent. Since the registry opened,
firearms murders have climbed up by 13 per cent, to 171.
Thankfully, Canada never has had many firearms murders (or any kind of murders for that
matter.) So while a 13-per-cent increase in firearms murders sounds significant, it is
not. An increase of only 20 murders in a year makes for a impressive difference in the
percentages.
But does anyone doubt that if the murder rate had dropped after their registry opened
that the Liberals would now be spending millions on television ads trumpeting their
genius?
So as long as the government is claiming its registry is worth the cost overruns, it is
worth pointing out the above stats on firearms murders, because the talking points issued
last week from Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's office on "myths and facts"
about the registry, somehow overlooked the murder numbers. Curious, hmm?
Allan Rock, who gave birth to the registry when he was Justice Minister in the
mid-1990s (and is thus the minister most compromised by its train-wreck performance) last
week asked Canadians to overlook the registry's cost because it has saved 300 lives a year
through reducing the number of firearms murders, suicides and accidents.
But Philip Stenning, a University of Toronto criminologist who has followed Canadian
gun control policy for years (and who is not hostile to regulating gun ownership), doubts
the registry has saved any lives at all, or even prevented any gun crimes. He told
reporters last week that Rock's 300-lives claim was "totally outrageous. It's
completely unjustified. Insupportable."
It's true that the number of combined firearms deaths -- murders, suicides and
accidents -- has declined from about 1,400 in 1991 to around 1,000 today.
But most of this decline happened before the registry opened. Firearms suicides fell
from approximately 1,100 in 1991 to 800 in 1999. Accidental deaths went from 66 to 37, and
murders from 271 to 151. Since then, murders have risen, while accidents and suicides have
largely levelled off.
Whatever the cause of these positive trends, it is clearly NOT the Liberals' registry.
Watch, though. When these newest Liberal gun "facts" are discredited, their
next desperate rationalization will be to claim the registry is too new to have had a
chance to prove itself.
But that's no more credible than their bookkeeping or their statistics-peddling.
_______________________
Lorne Gunter
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Editorial Board Member, National Post
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