The problem is that in this federation nobody counts a case the same way.
Prosecutors will say that a case is against one individual, no matter how many charges. The police, for their own reasons, are going to say there is a case for each charge. Court administrators are going to go somewhere in between, or one or the other. Prosecutors are pretty much united on that, but we regularly meet at the federal and provincial levels and we get along.
The police—municipal, provincial, or RCMP as municipal in contract provinces—have different perspectives on things and count things differently. Often it's just a matter of getting resources. It's better for them if they put it one way, rather than the other. The court administrators work the same way as well.
It's something that has bedevilled the federal organization that compiles court statistics. They use the numbers that are provided, but they are very unreliable because of that. The police can say there are 9,000 cases in Ottawa, but provincial and federal crown are going to say there are only 60 or 600 or whatever.