A former senior Liberal cabinet minister and her public servants were wrong to hide from Parliament details about costs for the controversial Canadian firearms program, the House of Commons public accounts committee has concluded.
“The committee was greatly concerned by the selective use of accounting rules to obscure the costs of the firearms program,” the committee said in a report to Parliament.
At issue were tens of millions of dollars in spending on the firearms registration program that were incurred in the last years of the Liberal government but not properly reported to Parliament because they would have exceeded approved spending.
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It is an implicit criticism of former public safety minister and deputy prime minister Anne McLellan,who oversaw the program before being defeated in the 2006 federal election.
Conservative, New Democratic Party and Bloc Québecois MPs on the committee joined in issuing the reprimand to the former Liberal minister.
Liberals on the committee issued a minority report rejecting the criticism as political.
“The dissenting members hold that the committee’s criticism of the former minister is groundless and insinuates inappropriate conduct where none took place,” said the Liberal minority report.
The committee majority, after a number of hearings, concluded that rules were broken and decisions taken to circumvent financial reporting rules for political reasons.
“The committee takes extremely seriously the fact that Parliament was misinformed, if not misled, about the program’s expenditures in 2002-03 at a time of considerable debate and controversy over the approval of additional funds for the firearms program.”
They said the minister knew or should have known that the firearms program was exceeding approved spending but chose not to report it to Parliament because it was controversial.
“Evidence suggests that the minister knew and she did nothing to ensure that Parliament was fully informed and for that she must accept responsibility,” said the public accounts committee report.
In rural Canada, the gun registry has been a huge political factor and the minority Conservative government has won rural praise for its decision to effectively end the long gun registry.
The decision is far more controversial in major Canadian cities where fear of gun violence is a potent political issue.
While all parties in the House of Commons have decried the costs of the registry, the public accounts committee chaired by a dissenting Liberal was making the point and reminding voters that Liberals were in power when the registry was strengthened and overseeing the program when costs escalated beyond expectations.
The committee concluded that civil servants actively tried to hide over-spending to save the Liberals from embarrassment.
“The committee firmly believes that it is not the role of public servants to make political decisions on behalf of ministers,” said the committee report.
“The decision to avoid seeking supplementary estimates through Parliament and thus political controversy by creating a unique accounting treatment should have been made by the relevant ministers.”
