Thank you, Mr. Harris. I'm going to try to do my best to answer with as much clarity as possible.
You've touched on a couple of topics. First of all, if I may, I'll premise it by saying that the collection process—how we arrive at the last number on a yearly basis—is done from the law enforcement agency basis up to provincial bureaus and into central bureau. So it is in fact a national collection process.
The collection process, from a theoretical perspective, should happen through the ACIIS database. The database itself presents so many challenges that not everybody uses it and hence provincial bureaus and even central bureau have to use separate collection plans to try to get the full number.
This process is called the integrated spread assessment process and it was put in place in 2003. In fact, I'd say it came about that we had all 10 provinces participating around 2007. It took a number of years to get everybody on board and working on it. Since 2005, across Canada everybody has been working with the same definition of organized crime. It's the definition that's provided in the Criminal Code.
What we're seeing through the variance, the fluctuations, is that in fact it is due to a number of factors. On one hand it is the use of ACIIS itself, but it's the agencies being able to respect the timelines at the provincial level and national level. If a province is late in submissions, it may affect the number.
As well, as an example, last year with the G-8 and the G-20 in Ontario, it seriously affected the provincial bureau of Ontario being able to provide a full collection process and provide the full numbers or the full situation of organized crime in their province.
This past year, Alberta has been looking at their whole process. This year, and going into 2012, we're anticipating having submissions from all provinces.
The fluctuations can also be due to.... You're correct, some organizations such as the Hells Angels are there constantly. But other organizations may be brought to our attention and we might go a couple of years without getting some intelligence on them. Sometimes what happens is that some of the bureaus will drop those organizations from their listing, or they'll cap their listing of organizations in the province.