Whether or not the objectives have been met depends on what our measures of success are. Our mission is to first collect and house current and reliable data. To the extent that we can under the legislation, which is very restrictive as to what administrative data elements we can enter on the database, we have done so. We have about a 94% compliance rate nationally.
However, it imposes some very significant challenges for us administratively. We're not allowed to put in some of the fields we need to monitor compliance, basically, so our centres across the country have devised some secondary systems, including Rolodex, spreadsheets, or whatever. Compared to a database, they may be unsophisticated systems to try to make sure we have current reliable data.
So the short answer, if it's not too late to say that, is that we do have current reliable data, but it's very difficult for our centres to do that. As the registry goes, it's going to be increasingly more challenging.
The second aspect of the question is whether it has helped solve crime. I want to say that when you use the database as an investigative tool, you need to have that database populated, and it takes time before you see the results. We saw that with the violent crime linkage analysis system, ViCLAS, or SALVAC, which was created in the early nineties. It took time before there was a sufficient amount of data in there and it took time before we saw the results. You would see the same with the DNA data bank.
So from the RCMP's perspective, we think the results will come, but we need some important modifications, and it just takes more time. We have 19,000 offenders on this database. However, about 10,000 come from Ontario and the Ontario sex offender registry.
Quite frankly, most law enforcement in Ontario doesn't use the NSOR because they have a much better system with the OSOR. So now you have 9,000 offenders in nine other provinces and three territories. It's not very many, really, so it's not surprising to me that we haven't seen those results.