Mr. Speaker, the reply is as follows:
a) The RCMP National Firearms Tracing Unit has processed the following number of tracing requests: (Does not include traces performed by the Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit managed by the OPP in Ontario)
The RCMP does not keep statistics on the outcome of a trace—it is up to the client if they wish to do so. The Firearms Tracing Unit is responsible only for tracing a firearm for clients (both RCMP and non-RCMP) within Canada, the United States and, where possible, internationally. Once the trace results are provided to the client, it is the client’s responsibility to pursue the investigation and lay charges if applicable. Each individual client would have to search their own records management system to identify the success of investigations where a firearms trace had been provided by the Firearms Tracing Unit.
b) and c) The National Tracing Center is a support unit and is not directly involved in investigations. The Tracing Center does not track the success of ongoing investigations by the agency of jurisdiction. As indicated above, the National Firearms Tracing Unit does not have information related to these two questions