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On Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine walked into the University of Montreal's
engineering school and fired a semi-automatic military rifle at every woman
he saw. Before turning the rifle on himself, Lepine shot 27 women. Fourteen
died.
Public outrage to the massacre, the worst in Canadian history, set off a
series of events, leading to the passage of a new firearms act in 1995. The
measure stiffened Canada's penalties for firearms offenses and called for
the creation of a national computerized firearm registry. Under the law,
every gun owner would be required to have a license and undergo a background
check, and every gun in the owner's possession, no matter how old, would
need to be registered. All of that information would be kept in a database
that could be accessed by police.
The country's gun lobby strongly opposed the registry, arguing that the cost
of developing and running the system would be better spent fighting crime.
The government, in turn, argued that the registry could be developed for
$119 million Canadian ($88 million U.S.), a cost that would be offset by
licensing and registration fees of $117 million. Projected net cost to
taxpayers: $2 million.
Instead, the firearm registry turned into a huge embarrassment. "They were
warned by their own people this thing wasn't doable. Now they're stuck with
a system that's riddled with errors and just doesn't work," says Garry
Breitkreuz, a Saskatchewan member of Parliament and a leading opponent of
the program.
What was supposed to be a relatively modest information technology project
ballooned into a massive undertaking. At last count, the program had amassed
more than $1 billion in costs, and the system had become so cumbersome that
an independent review board recommended that it be scrapped.
The Canadian gun registry project offers multiple lessons for government and
corporate project leaders alike on the difficulties involved in undertaking
a controversial project:
- Define what you want. From the start, the government failed to
develop a clear understanding of the project's scope and the level of
inter-government and inter-agency cooperation that would be required.
- Put someone experienced in charge. The Department of Justice
managed this project, but had never undertaken a technology initiative of
this size or scope.
- Freeze specifications. Constant changes were made to licensing
and gun registration forms and approval processes as the computer system
was being developed. By 2002 more than 2,000 orders for changes had been
made, each requiring additional programming.
- Don't expect users to comply on their own. The government
thought it would have five years, until Jan. 1, 2003, to gradually
register the country's estimated 7 million firearms. Instead, firearm
owners delayed filing their registrations, leading to a backlog that
overwhelmed the system.
The bottom line, says Raymond Hession, a former federal employee hired to
review the project and its future, is that the billion-dollar price tag was
likely inevitable. "This is a large, complex electronic database, with very
large networks and a lot of people accessing it. It costs money," he says.
"The problem is the original forecast was based on flawed assumptions."
Prior to 1995, Canada had a limited system of federal and provincial
agencies in place to handle the licensing of new guns. However, that system
only accounted for guns at the time of purchase—the government did not keep
track of the estimated 7 million guns already in circulation. Initially, the
federal government believed it could use the same agencies that issued
firearm acquisition certificates to handle the registration. However, that
plan had to be abandoned when several provinces, primarily those with strong
hunting lobbies, refused to cooperate.
The federal government was forced to assume responsibility for the project.
It created a new agency, the Canadian Firearms Centre, to act as a single
point to manage and control the program, operating under the federal Justice
Department.
One other factor dramatically altered the project's scope. A shooting spree
in 1996 in British Columbia highlighted an obvious flaw in the planned
licensing and registry system. In that instance, the killer applied for a
license to purchase a gun and was approved, even though his estranged wife
had complained to police several times that he had threatened to kill her.
Because the man had not been convicted, the incidents were not recorded in
the national police database, the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC).
The government then decided to include all violent incidents reported to
police, whether they resulted in a criminal conviction or not, as grounds
for further reviewing a license application. This involved tapping into the
computer records of every police agency in the country and having
information on any reported threats, domestic violence or related incidents
pushed out to a new central database, the Firearm Interest Police System (FIPS).
This database in turn would be integrated with CPIC and the new firearm
registry in Ottawa.
Instead of a simple database where citizens registered their firearms, the
scope of the initiative had been expanded to that of a large computer
networking project.
In June 1997, Electronic Data Systems of Plano, Texas, and U.K.-based SHL
Systemhouse were awarded a $30 million contract to build the system. EDS
headed up development of the main registry database and application. SHL
took on responsibility for the interfaces with other government and police
agency systems and databases. At the heart of the system: an Oracle 7
database to collect licensing and registration information, such as the
make, model, caliber, and serial number of firearms. An application to input
information from mailed-in registration forms, and perform the electronic
checks with other systems such as the national police computer database, was
created using Sybase's PowerBuilder software.
Dwayne King, the lead developer of the Oracle database, says even with the
project's expanded scope, the computerized registry was well within the
technical capabilities of the development team. He and others such as
Hession attributed ensuing problems to the circus-like atmosphere
surrounding the gun registry.
Political wrangling and pressure from the gun lobby and government officials
prompted numerous changes to license and registry forms, rules and
processes. By 1999, the development team had dealt with more than 1,000
orders for changes to the system, which created headaches for programmers.
Changes to the software required dealing with close to 50 different
department or agency computer systems, from the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police (RCMP) to each provincial ministry of transportation for driver's
license checks, says King. Sometimes requests were completed right away;
other times they took a week or longer.
"A project of this size is like turning around the Titanic," King says. "Up
until a week before we were due to go live, they were still changing the
forms that were going to be filled out."
The changes were not part of the original contract, requiring the government
to pay for additional work at contractor's rates.
Other unexpected labor costs emerged. When the project was conceived, it was
forecast that only 10% of applications would require follow-up by an
employee involved in the registry. Instead, nine out of 10 applications
required follow-up, either from a call center agent or a local police
department, to correct information on a form. Some errors were
deliberate—the gun lobby had encouraged people to fill out forms incorrectly
to protest the system—but the department admitted that many of the errors
were unintentional.
The system went live on schedule in late 1998. Gun owners had until Jan. 1,
2001, to obtain a valid license and until Jan. 1, 2003, to register all guns
in their possession.
But ongoing maintenance, development and support costs rocketed out of
control. Between 1996 and 2001, about $688 million was spent on the program.
Of that amount, $250 million went to the computer systems. Support, such as
call centers, accounted for $300 million. The remaining $138 million went to
advertising and public outreach programs to encourage compliance.
By 2001, annual maintenance costs had risen to about $75 million, or 55% of
the $135 million in operating costs for that year. This figure is
significantly higher than the industry norm of 10% to 20%, according to a
review by Strategic Relationships Sourcing. Project managers blamed the
system's complexities for that cost.
Meanwhile, anticipated revenue from the program nearly evaporated. The
government initially believed it could recoup $117 million of the
development costs through registration fees, but it decided to wave or
eliminate most of the fees to encourage gun owners to comply.
The Canadian government has capped annual spending on the registry at $25
million, down from operating costs of $48 million in 2002 and $33 million in
2003.
In all, Canada's auditor general Sheila Fraser estimates that at least $1
billion has been spent on the program to date—including an unanticipated
request from provinces and the mounted police for $135 million to reimburse
costs to upgrade their computer systems.
Is the program working? Debate on that topic is also highly charged.
As of May, the Canadian Firearms Centre said 2 million people had filed and
received licenses to own firearms. More than 12,000 license applications
were revoked due to public safety concerns. In addition, 7 million guns had
been registered out of the estimated 7.9 million firearms in circulation.
"It's not the be-all and end-all, but it was never designed to solve all of
our gun problems," says Edgar MacLeod, president of the Canadian Association
of Chiefs of Police. He says the cost of the registry has become an
embarrassment and a nuisance to all involved, but the program works and
provides a valuable service.
In a typical domestic violence situation, he says, investigating police
officers rely on the registry to determine if guns are present. Onboard
computers in police cruisers, or a call to central dispatch, alerts officers
to any firearms registered to occupants of the house. The Canadian Firearms
Centre says police make more than 13,000 queries to the system each week.
Since 1989, when Lepine committed the Montreal massacre, annual firearm
deaths (including accidents and suicides) in the country have fallen from
1,367 to 1,006 in 2002 (the latest figures available), a drop of 26%.
Murders committed with firearms have fallen 32%, from 218 in 1989 to 149 in
2002.
Still, critics like Breitkreuz call the registry a "billion-dollar
boondoggle" and are pushing hard to have it scrapped. Fellow opponents
contend that the $25 million in annual operating costs—if that level can be
achieved—would be better spent putting police on the streets.
Proponents of the registry like Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for
Gun Control and an information technology professor at Ryerson University in
Toronto, are digging in to protect a technology initiative they agree is
flawed but necessary. "It's not unusual for government computer projects to
go over budget, but all the attention this one has received has blown things
way out of proportion," she says. "'Billion-dollar boondoggle' is now part
of the lexicon."
Canadian Firearm Registry: A Shot in the Dark
High price for safety: When the Canadian government proposed building a
computerized database to track the estimated 7 million firearms in the
country, it said the project would cost about $119 million Canadian ($88
million U.S.) to implement. Those costs were to be offset by $117 million in
gun-owner registration fees, leaving taxpayers with a bill for $2 million.
Instead, costs have soared to more than $1 billion.
1998
- New Firearms Act requires all gun owners to be licensed and all guns
registered.
- Of estimated 7.9 million guns, 20,000 are registered.
1999
- Errors in processing raise cost of each registration to $16.28 from
original $4.60 estimate.
- Annual owner fees total $300,000, up from $100,000.
2000
- Every gun owner required to have valid license by Dec. 31.
- Fee for firearm license reduced to $10 from $45.
2001
- Government extends amnesty program to Dec. 31, 2002, to turn in newly
restricted weapons such as .25 and .32 caliber handguns.
- 1.5 million guns registered.
2002
- Canadian auditor general says registry costs will exceed $1 billion.
- Fees received from owners reach $4.3 million, up from $1.5 million.
2003
- Despite controversy, majority of Canadians meet registration deadline.
- 7 million guns registered, representing 88% of total firearms believed
to exist in Canada.
Sources: Office of the Auditor General of Canada, HLB Decision
Economics Review, Hession Report, Baseline Research
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