First, I want to reiterate that, as I believe you are the second member to make this point, this isn't just about nuisance, and you're absolutely right that this is very serious. The numbers the member quoted, in terms of potential amounts associated with fraud, are huge, and the societal impact is huge. That's why we are seized of this issue, so you have no disagreement from us.
What we try to do, as I said earlier, with international organizations is to share best practices, leverage our knowledge and co-operate. I'll give you a quick example. We recently signed a new memorandum of understanding with the Australian regulator, and in part that's because the frequency of these calls is now increasing in Australia. They are sometimes different in tactics, but the overall sort of patterns are similar. To the extent that we're allowed, we'll share with them information on investigative techniques, enforcement techniques and the intelligence we gather as to how to most proactively deal with it.
I'll give you a second example. The new recently named chair at the FCC and I have met twice now. One of her main areas of focus, as it was for her predecessor, is robocalls, as they tend to refer to them in the U.S. We're working together. For example, we're going to try to enhance our call tracing activities so we can identify and trace calls and say, “Okay, they're coming into Canada from the United States or from another country.” Likewise, we can work with the United States and say, “If it's coming in from the United States, where did it start?” Then we can get to the next door, so to speak. Then they are working to close those doors with their providers. So it's a combination of sharing intelligence and tactics that are working as well as identifying patterns.
The last point I'll make is that when we talk about criminal activity—and there is criminal activity in certain of these situations—then it's a question of finding the ability to pursue those matters whether in the United States or in an Asian country or wherever, because at the source, it may be in another country, and we have to get enforcement actions taken there, and that's a challenge.