Lobbyists opposed to the gun registry are descending on Ottawa in anticipation of Tuesday's report from federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser, a gun-control group says.
Coalition for Gun Control president Wendy Cukier, seen here in January, is urging the government to leave the gun registry alone. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)
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The Coalition for Gun Control said Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives may try to use recent leaks about the report to bolster their case for dismantling parts of the registry, which was brought in under previous Liberal governments.
The coalition said information leaked to the media over the past week suggest there are more examples of mismanagement than previously disclosed.
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But the organization added that it "is confident there are no major criticisms of the current system operations."
In the campaign before the Jan. 23 election, the Conservatives promised to kill the long-gun registry.
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The party said it would maintain the handgun registry and work with the provinces to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, including by imposing mandatory minimum sentences for the criminal use of firearms.
The CanWest News Service reported on Thursday that Fraser would say the former Liberal governments did not disclose the true cost overruns of the program.
The government and auditor general are investigating the leak.
With the NDP, Bloc Québécois and many Liberals in favour of maintaining the registry, the Conservatives may not be able to win a vote in Parliament.
So they may look at a way to render the system ineffective without a vote in the House.
The coalition said the government may be considering waiving and refunding $120 million in licence fees. But doing that in the past had driven up the costs, it said, citing the last report from the auditor general.
Coalition president Wendy Cukier said the shotgun and rifle registry currently costs about $10 million a year, while the high costs in the past were incurred to initially screen and licence gun owners.
"The ongoing costs are modest. Dismantling the system now, after all the money has been spent, makes no sense," she said in a release.
"It is not about safety. It is not even about money. It is just payback to the gun lobby."
Shawn Murphy, the chair of the parliamentary public accounts committee, has said the cost of the gun registry will likely be the first issue it examines.
The committee reviews reports from the auditor general.
Fraser's report will also look at spending on First Nations, the armed forces' recruiting programs and about $5 billion in taxes owed to the Canada Revenue Agency that it doesn't believe it can collect.