Thank you.
Through you, Mr. Chair, it's a very difficult piece of data to capture. From a policing perspective, there's a delicate balance for recreational use in entertainment, for which law-abiding citizens use them.
One concern from a policing perspective is putting frontline police officers in a very difficult situation when they are responding to complaints. When they are responding to crimes of commission or different types of events where an airsoft or a replica is present, it's very difficult to actually recognize the difference or recognize that it may not be a real firearm, handgun or a long gun, so what we see is a series of interactions around use of force, which does create challenges for policing. Hence, we're trying to balance and mitigate that. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and in particular Chief Evan Bray from Regina, are currently co-leading a Canadian chiefs working group on firearms. It's a working group on to how we modernize and progress on firearms within our society.
You will see fatal interactions across the country involving replica and/or airsoft guns involving police intervention. Of course, we're currently working on a national revamp or new approach to intervention around policing, because it does pose a real-life problem and we're seeing it escalate, but it's very difficult.
One recommendation and a gap that's recognized is about uniform crime reporting so that we actually have the data as a profession.