Sunday, May 14, 2006

Nothing New Here

Liberals hid gun registry costs

report: Auditor general to reveal huge expenses were buried in routine reports for several years

Ms. Fraser is expected to lay the blame at the feet of top public servants and their former Liberal masters when her report is released on Tuesday.

The report will say that the registry's costs continued to grow after 2002 because the federal government was under contract to two competing computer firms for years before deciding to switch to a more advanced information technology system that could be adapted to the needs of the gun registry.

The decision to switch from the original IT firm, run by EDS Canada, to Team Centra, a consortium of computer firms led by CGI Business Solutions, was held up for almost four years thanks to long-delayed legislative changes to the firearms program, several ministerial reviews and the seemingly ever-changing requirements of the registry's computer system.

The myriad amendments to the computer contracts over that four-year period, made to adapt to the program's changing mandate, steadily drove up the cost of doing business, at huge expense to taxpayers.


Well that was already reported by Fraser in her earlier audits as it was by the KPMG auditor hired by the Justice department as I have documented. So what's new here? Unless she is going to name names of the Liberals and bureaucrats that screwed up. But this is less about an ADSCAM type scandal than the failure of the neo-conservative ideology of Public Private Partnerships (P3's) and privatization of the State.

But Joe Comartin, the NDP justice critic, noted The Tory case against the registry is not, at bottom, an economic one, said Comartin. "It's an ideological, philosophical argument.'

As it is the release of her report is a serious breach of government confidentiality which leads right back to the PMO. And that in itself is a scandal.

The conservatives are hell bent on linking the Firearms Registry to the Liberal ADSCAM that they have violated parliamentary secrecy and confidentiality which will backfire on them. And they will NOT do anything to reform the Firearms Registry because the money has already been well wasted.


OTTAWA -- Opposition MPs are calling for an RCMP investigation into the leak of an Auditor-General's report on the beleaguered gun registry that was to be released next Tuesday.

And Auditor-General Sheila Fraser, said to be furious that details of the report appeared in newspapers this week, has been asked to appear before the Commons Public Accounts Committee on Monday to tell what she knows about the unprecedented breach of secrecy.

Jason Kenney, parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told the House of Commons yesterday that the government is taking the matter very seriously.

He rejected accusations from Liberal MP Marlene Jennings that the leak had come from Ian Brodie, Mr. Harper's chief of staff, as being "absolutely scurrilous" and completely baseless.

Methinks he doth protest too much.


More on the Firearms Registry Scandal:

Smoking Gun

More Firearms Registry Scandal


How Many Audits Does It Take?


The Neo Liberal Canadian State




Also see Privatization


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