Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and good morning to members of this committee.
I'd like to begin by thanking all of you for the invitation to join you this morning for this very important and very timely study on a very significant issue.
As I think as everyone recognizes, the sexual abuse and exploitation of a child—any child—in any context, in any platform and in any place is intolerable and unacceptable. It is the most heinous of crimes and deserves society's strongest condemnation and our effective response.
Recording the sexual abuse of a child can have significant lifelong impacts on both the victims and the survivors of this crime. Sadly, as some of these victims grow older, many come to realize that their images continue to be circulated on the Internet, and they are revictimized over and over again as this material is shared.
I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize the remarkable courage and resilience of survivors in coming forward and speaking out. I've had an opportunity to meet with [Technical difficulty—Editor], and I think I share this committee's appall at reports that abhorrent material of this kind has been found on platforms. It is unacceptable that the victims have encountered difficulties in getting companies to remove this illegal content.
Their stories and experiences remind all of us of the important work that we must do and are doing to protect children and youth. The Government of Canada plays a leading role in these efforts to combat online child sexual exploitation and, Mr. Chair, we are taking action to increase awareness and to reduce the stigma of reporting. This is important, because we know that the number of reported cases is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the true scale of this most heinous of crimes.
Internet companies must also do more to protect children, and we are taking steps to hold them to account for their role in this. We are also taking action to bring more perpetrators to justice by supporting efforts to detect, investigate and prosecute these cases. I have asked the RCMP commissioner to continue to work with her provincial and territorial counterparts to address this crime and to ensure that prosecutions are done when deemed appropriate by evidence and by law enforcement.
Canada's national strategy on this issue is led by Public Safety Canada, which works in partnership with the RCMP, the Department of Justice and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection or, as it's very often known, C3P. We are backing this national strategy with ongoing annual funding of more than $18 million. That includes support for Cybertip.ca, a national tip line operated by C3P. It also includes $5.8 million in ongoing funding announced in 2018 to increase the investigative capacity of the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Crime Centre.
On top of this, in budget 2019, we invested $22.2 million over three years in additional funding to better protect children from this horrendous crime. Of that amount, $15 million is specifically aimed at enhancing the capacity of Internet child exploitation units in municipal and provincial police services right across Canada. These specialized units are dedicated to investigating cases of online child sexual exploitation. Investments in budget 2019 are also helping to increase public awareness of this crime, reduce the stigma associated with reporting and work with the digital industry to find new ways to combat sexual exploitation of children online.
At the same time, it's important to acknowledge the complexities and jurisdictional challenges involved in what is often a borderless crime. Perpetrators and victims can be located anywhere in the world, and images of child sexual abuse and exploitation can be shared on platforms that may be headquartered in one country but legally registered in another, with servers in yet a third and different country.
This affects the authority and challenges the ability of Canadian law enforcement agencies to investigate, and the application of Canadian laws, but I am confident that law enforcement continues to do everything possible to investigate these horrendous crimes and prosecute those responsible. International co-operation is key in this regard. I want to assure you that the RCMP and the Department of Justice work very closely with international partners on investigations and prosecutions.
We also work closely with our international allies and partners to find solutions to better protect children and youth. Last year, for example, Canada and its Five Eyes partners launched the “Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”. These principles are a guide for industry on how to counter this scourge on their platforms.
We recognize also that there is much more work to do, and that's why we will introduce legislation to create a new regulator that will ensure online platforms remove harmful content, including depictions of child sexual exploitation and intimate images that are shared without consent. Public Safety Canada and other departments are working on this proposed legislation with Canadian Heritage, which leads this effort.
We will continue to do everything we can to protect Canadian children and support Canadian survivors of this terrible crime, and we will continue to work with domestic and international partners to investigate cases in which evidence exists and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.