Obviously, I come from a different perspective at this table. I'm responsible for a civil legislative regime. There's not much I can do about true fraud, true crime or true criminal behaviour. Where I've taken my approach within my sector and the compliance enforcement sector at the CRTC is that compliance is number one, which is ensuring legitimate companies comply with the telemarketing rules, the anti-spam rules, etc.
In that same vein, if I can't deal with it through a compliance measure, I do have the tools at my disposal sitting in the communications regulator, where I can ask the TSPs to do certain things. That is where we get to the policy measures I spoke to you about. One of the examples I gave was billions of calls being stopped using AI technology to identify fraud calls. Being able to do that means that phone never rang, so Canadians have never picked that up and they've never fallen victim to that scam, which is fantastic.
One of the things I mentioned earlier was education. I wouldn't dismiss the power of education, especially when it comes to our seniors and our vulnerable communities, whether that's new immigrants who don't speak English or French as a first language or low-income individuals. Education is about helping them understand the scams, which is all I can do in a civil regime. I can let them know that these scams exist and tell them what to look for and how to protect themselves. Pause, and consider whether this is legitimate: Is this too good to be true? Is this too bad to be true? Verify before you click on that link and before you claim your $4 million. It is about that verification piece.
For me, as the regulator of a civil regime, education is critical, because the more Canadians are aware of scams, the less likely they are to become victims.
