MP Caputo, thank you very much for the question. You've absolutely hit the nail on the head.
We've talked about the calibration between privacy interests and law enforcement, as well as the nature of the tool and when the tool is going to be used. Absolutely, both of these tools, the confirmation of service especially, are used at the very beginning of the investigation, when they have very little information. They can get over the “reasonable grounds to suspect”—they have enough information to get there—but what you've heard them say is that right now they're using a general production order to get that kind of information and the subscriber information, and “reasonable and probable grounds” is just too hard to meet at the very beginning of an investigation.
As you were deliberating it, I was looking at the March 10, 2026, Juristat statistics on crime. The report notes that in 2024, 16,905 incidents of online child sexual exploitation were reported by police, and that was 110% higher than in 2018. Of those, 94% of online child sexual exploitation cases were “not cleared by police”, meaning that an accused had not been identified in connection to the incidents or there was insufficient evidence to get a tool.
That's exactly what you've highlighted, MP Caputo: What we've been calling one of the least-intrusive tools out there is calibrated for the very beginning of an investigation.