Media questions - 'A Price Worth Paying'

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day talked a lot about being cost-effective, efficient and making "better use of our resources" as he took steps to abolish the long-gun registry today.

So why, asked one reporter, did Day choose to rent a conference room and sound system at Ottawa's Chateau Laurier hotel instead of holding the event on Parliament Hill or even in the National Press Theatre, which seems to have become "no-go" territory for the Conservatives now that they are in power.

"They are any number of rooms . . . on Parliament Hill that are available to you to make the announcement at no cost to taxpayers," the reporter noted at a news conference yesterday.

Day stumbled a bit on the answer, claiming at first it was done for the reporters' convenience so they wouldn't be "crowded out" during scrums

Finally he said that whatever it cost to rent the room paled next to the $1 billion cost of the gun registry.

"The few dollars that it costs to rent a room for as long as you ask questions is a price worth paying," Day said.