Public Safety committee  I'm going to ask Mr. Rochon to talk about what's being done right now and the issue you raised.

Public Safety committee  They're grouped into one.... I'll go through the numbers again, just to make sure. There were 273 files that we categorized under the IMVE. They looked at certain criteria that fall under IMVE. Of them, 165 were racially and ethnonationalist motivated violent extremists. Approximately one-fifth of the IMVE files were in the anti-authority category.

Public Safety committee  What we've seen in the last year is that there is some focus on this. I don't want to blame it on COVID-19, but the fact that people are more closeted at home and more present on computers or social media is having an influence. We have actually seen an increase in threats or derogatory comments towards elected officials.

Public Safety committee  I'll lead it off, Mr. Chair, but I think there's a little bit of Public Safety and also CSIS in this. What's important here is that the RCMP's mandate, when it comes to national security and IMVE, is that really our sandbox is when there's a criminal element. Tim mentioned how we work well together.

Public Safety committee  I'll talk about what the RCMP can do with respect to websites. The majority of the investigations we conduct into hateful comments spread on social networks are triggered when we receive reports from people who have observed this on a site and report it to us. In most cases, we trigger an investigation.

Public Safety committee  What we're seeing is that vulnerable groups, as I'll call them, are more targeted than the general population. It's important to note that we make a distinction between IMVE and hate-motivated crime. We're dealing with a lot of hate-motivated crime and with comments that are covered under the Criminal Code of Canada.

Public Safety committee  In response to your question about IMVE, I would just add that sometimes crimes do not at first appear to be ideologically driven violent extremism, but during the course of the investigation we discover that there is an IMVE aspect. In May 2020, an attack occurred in Toronto, and the investigation revealed that the individual was part of an unlisted involuntary celibates group.

Public Safety committee  No, you've covered it, Tim. Thank you.

Public Safety committee  Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Michael Duheme. I am the deputy commissioner for federal policing. With me, I have assistant commissioner Mark Flynn, who is the executive director for national security, as well as protective policing, for the RCMP.