Thank you, Mr. Speaker and Members. As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, I fear that a change of the chairperson at this crucial time -- the chair who had listened to us and many other persons with serious concerns about this bill -- is a setback for those persons who placed their faith in the committee and especially in its chairperson. It will, I fear, cause further instability in a process which has already been criticized for not allowing enough time for thoughtful discussion and serious consideration of how the bill might be amended and might be made workable.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, there is increasing concern about the costs of the administration of the new compulsory registration regime. It's well known we do not have the computer and satellite technology available in many of our communities to allow the Northwest Territories to become part of a national firearms registration network electronically, as contemplated by the bill. Installing the necessary computer and satellite facilities would represent a staggering cost in the north. Who will pay for these increased costs?
While communities like Chesterfield Inlet, addressed by my new colleague in the Legislature, a neighbour, are without local policemen due to funding shortfalls for policing in the NWT, will additional precious financial resources have to be spent on hardware and software for an electronic registration system no one wants or needs in the Northwest Territories?
There is also great concern over whether general hunting licence holders will have to pay for registration of their firearms. The policy now on whether GHL holders will have to pay for firearms acquisition certificates required by the present law, seems to vary widely in the Northwest Territories. Some local policemen are saying to people who apply for FACs that they will be exempted from paying a fee only if they can establish that they are on welfare; only then. Other people have found out and have been told that they will only be exempted from paying a fee for the FAC if they can prove that they are full-time hunters with incomes under $30,000. Our MP is providing assurances that gun registration will not cost anything. But the federal Minister of Justice is saying that beyond the $85 million that his government has committed to paying for the national registration system, users will pay the additional costs of registration.
Mr. Speaker, if aboriginal people and GHL holders in the NWT end up being exempted from fees for registration -- and I hope they will -- then who will pay the costs of implementing the system in the Northwest Territories? Will it have to come from our government?
Mr. Speaker, at every turn, this new legislation looks more and more like the most invasive piece of legislation ever proposed by the Government of Canada to apply to the north. I fear that it will be widely ignored or challenged by our constituents, and that the overall respect for law and order which has improved over the years in the north will suffer enormously in the process.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, someone somewhere in Ottawa must understand that this new regime is not only unacceptable, but also unworkable in the north. Thank you.
---Applause