Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a) to (c), the government believes in balanced, effective measures with respect to firearms, which prioritize public safety while ensuring that law-abiding gun-owners do not face unfair treatment under the law. It will work with Canadians to achieve the shared goal of reducing gun violence in Canada.
The Government has committed to putting technical decision-making about firearms classification back into the hands of police. The RCMP is responsible for the technical determination of the classification of firearms in accordance with the criteria stipulated in the Criminal Code.
With regard to (d), the Firearms Reference Table, FRT, is a computer database managed by the RCMP Canadian firearms program that is used by national and international law enforcement officers to improve accuracy in firearms identification and record keeping, import-export control cases, and information sharing. The RCMP is continually adding, revising, and updating records in the FRT to remain aware of changes in the firearms marketplace.
The FRT software is presently being rewritten to modernize the computer code and increase efficiency, but this has no impact on the classification of firearms. The RCMP is not planning any changes to the classifications of firearms already catalogued in the FRT database. The RCMP is presently adding new firearms to the FRT database that are being assigned a classification for the first time in accordance with the provisions of part III of the Criminal Code.
With regard to (e) and (f), the answer is no.