I will speak on behalf of my organization, the Ontario Provincial Police. We have had to rededicate and redirect resources into the national security counterterrorism area. That's to deal with the immediate threat of the foreign traveller, the high-risk traveller, the high-risk individual—all that live within Ontario. We have individuals returning from Syria and Iraq who come back to Ontario. We have individuals who are being radicalized in Ontario. We know from the charges that have been before the courts that we have people accused of terrorist acts or terrorist plots within Ontario.
We've redirected resources away from commercial crimes, large frauds. We've redirected resources away from our front-line crime units, our criminal investigation units, and other units that have a specialized service; in other words, investigators who understand the civil liberties law, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, who understand the authorization that's required in order to write warrants, who understand the surveillance techniques, both electronic and human, that we can do on individuals, and the lawful process in which we do those applications, but who are also able to write to those with regard to authorizations and crown briefs, and supply information to crown and prosecutors.
Those individuals are actually very few in our service. In a large organization of 9,100, my hands can probably touch 300 to 400 who actually have those skills. Being able to draw them in to deal with investigations or to deal with the prevention or suppression techniques we're using is difficult. It's expensive. It takes them away from the work they're doing in their home location or other location. That work has to be either filled in by another member who is less skilled, less trained to do it, or it goes undone in that there is no one doing those roles anymore.