Good afternoon, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to speak with you today.
As my colleague touched on, law enforcement is facing several challenges in addressing cybercrime. The traditional Canadian policing model is predicated on the assumption that the offender, the victim and the justice system are largely collocated jurisdictionally. However, as we know, most cybercrimes are multi-jurisdictional, if not multinational, impacting victims across traditional jurisdictions, and this brings into sharp focus the need for a coordinating mechanism.
Law enforcement requires a means to gather information and intelligence regardless of the jurisdiction, and a mechanism to coordinate investigative efforts. It is not efficient for multiple police services to be allocating scarce investigative resources on the same criminal activity in an isolated fashion.
Another key concern is that cybercrime is under-reported and there are varied reporting mechanisms in Canada, which is confusing for the public.
The 2017 Canadian survey of cybersecurity and cybercrime undertaken by Statistics Canada found that about 10% of businesses impacted by a cybersecurity incident reported the incident to a police service in 2017. Despite under-reporting, the number of cybercrimes reported to police in Canada has increased in recent years. In 2017, nearly 28,000 cybercrimes were reported to Canadian police, which is an 83% increase compared to 2014.
The under-reporting of cybercrime prevents law enforcement from connecting the dots and responding to cybercrime on a larger, coordinated and more targeted scale. It also hampers governments in understanding the magnitude and extent of the problem we are facing.
In response to challenges and to bolster Canada's ability to fight cybercrime, budget 2018 announced $116 million over five years and $23.2 million per year for the creation of the national cybercrime coordination unit.
The unit will be a national police service, stewarded by the RCMP, supporting and working with law enforcement across Canada. lt will act as a coordination hub for cybercrime investigations in Canada and will work with international partners on cybercrime.