Cybercrime is increasingly posing a threat to Canadians, and the government appears to be taking notice. The 2018 federal budget proposed just over $1 billion in spending over five years for programs expressly concerned with fighting cyber security. Over $200 million is booked for each year following.
Among the largest proposed expenses is for a new National Cyber Security Strategy, as well as for the creation of a Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
In 2016 there were almost 24,000 instances of police-reported cybercrime in Canada, an increase of 58 per cent from 2014, according to an analysis of data retrieved from Statistics Canada.
The latest available data shows an increase of 34 per cent in police-reported cybercrime from 2015-16. Source: Statistics Canada, Table 252-0096.
A sizeable portion of the funds listed in the budget is earmarked for the RCMP to create a National Cybercrime Coordination Unit. In line with the RCMP’s 2015 strategy, the unit will act as a hub for all investigations.
The RCMP will be looking to crack down on fraud, the most common cybercrime offence in Canada by a wide margin. In 2016, it accounted for nearly half of all violations with more than 11,000 reported incidents. In 2012, when the total reported cybercrime was roughly one third of 2016 levels, fraud also topped the list with nearly 5,000 instances.
Brantford, Ont. had the highest cybercrime rate of any Canadian city in 2016, with 293 reported incidents per 100,000 people. Gatineau saw an increase of 84 per cent from 2015 to 2016, the largest cybercrime spike among the top 20 listed cities.
A map of the 20 Canadian cities with the highest cybercrime rates in 2016. Half of the cities that made the list are from Ontario. Source: Statistics Canada, Table 252-0096.
The signing of the TransCanada Pipeline Bill, June 7, 1956. Source: Duncan Cameron / Library and Archives Canada. No restrictions on use.
The embers of a fiery conflict between B.C. and Alberta over the Kinder-Morgan pipeline are still smouldering.
In early February, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley levied a province-wide boycott on B.C. wines after her counterpart, B.C. Premier John Horgan, proposed restrictions that would put the brakes on the pipeline project. Though the wine ban was lifted less than two weeks ago, the war wages on in court. On February 22, Horgan said his NDP government would seek an official ruling on the legality of halting diluted bitumen flows through the province.
The drama encircling Kinder-Morgan is far from unprecedented. In fact, Canada’s earliest major pipeline project started off with one of the biggest rows in Canadian parliamentary history.
In 1956, the smooth-sailing Liberal government hit the rocks for the first time in over two decades.
The government made plans in May of that year to allow the recently founded (and at that time American-owned) TransCanada Pipelines to move natural gas from Alberta to Quebec via what would then be the world’s longest pipeline.
But as Parks Canada recounts, the opposition parties were vehemently against the project, which in their view would subject Canada’s economy to the will of American capital. The Liberals needed a strong parliamentary showing through the spring months in order to stave off the oncoming windstorm of dissent in the house.
C.D. Howe at an official ceremony in Highwater, Quebec at the joining of the Portland-Montreal pipeline to a U.S. oil tanker, August 1, 1941. Source: Library and Archives Canada. No restrictions of use.
Enter Clarence Decatur Howe. The Liberal Party’s Minister of Trade and Commerce was well seasoned, hard-nosed and unabashedly resourceful. In a 2008 blog post, Calgary-based oil historian Peter McKenzie-Brown explained Howe’s unofficial title, “the Minister of Everything.” He was the right-hand man of then Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, and had sway over much of the Liberal government of his day.
Having introduced a bill to authorize the pipeline, Howe swiftly gained the support of his fellow Liberals. Parliamentary Hansards show that Progressive Conservative opposition leader George Alexander Drew took exception to what he perceived to be a hyper-partisan display. “The anvil chorus is following instructions. The trained seals have now learned to make a sound in unison,” he said in parliament on May 8.
On May 15, Liberal finance minister Walter Edward Harris addressed the ‘trained seals’ label that had become a steady refrain in parliament. Rather than deny the accusation, Harris evoked the classic ‘takes one to know one’ rebuttal.
“Everyone in this house knows that all parties practically invariably follow a single party line,” he said.
In the end, partisan politics would win the day. On June 7, 1956, the bill was signed. While the ink dried, the house mourned the death of Liberal MP Lorne MacDougall, whose death the day before marked the end of the final debate before the deadline.
The pipeline was extended – all the way to Montreal by 1958 – but the Liberals’ term in office was not. Howe’s hardball tactics were topped off by the rarely used closure provision that served to cut short the debate. The move proved to be too forceful, if not undemocratic in the eyes of many Canadians, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. St. Laurent suffered a surprise defeat to John Diefenbaker’s Conservatives in the 1957 election, ending 22 years of Liberal leadership.
A lesson can by drawn by today’s Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who has stood steadfast behind the Kinder-Morgan project. With the national public split in half on the current pipeline debate according to the latest poll by Ipsos Global Public Affairs, too much force either way could mean falling off the tightrope in between.
If nothing else, the events in 1956 proved that Canadian pipelines are about more than the flow of bitumen or natural gas from one province to the next – they also tend to transport votes from one party to another.
The Ottawa Police Service will bolster its front lines with 25 new officers in 2018, but it won’t be enough to keep pace with the demands of climbing gang violence and population rates, according to the president of the Police Association.
This year’s projected budget features a $12 million increase in frontline police operations, a 14 per cent rise from last year’s total, according to an analysis of city budget posted online. costs account for 82 percent of the force’s overall operating budget, and the hiring of the officers alone will amount to an estimated $2 million in additional frontline spending.
The new hires come at the end of a three-year staffing plan that will have seen a total of 75 new officers sworn in by the end of the year.
But according to Matt Skof, president of the Ottawa Police Association, these staff increases should be taken with a grain of salt.
“When [the city] says they’re adding 75 new officers … that’s misleading,” said Skof. “They’re really returning 75 new officers into the fold that they had already shrunk from the service.”
Between 2012 and 2015, the city tightened its belt on police deployment. Now, with demands on the force mounting, Skof claims the city is having to play catch-up. “By the end of 2018, we’ll be back to 2012 levels of staffing,” he said.
But things have changed since 2012. According to the latest census, the population in Ottawa has grown by nearly six per cent between 2011 to 2016. The 13 shootings in a vicious January have heightened concerns over gang-related gun violence.
To make matters more difficult, new policies have made the daily tasks of police officers more complicated. According to Skof, the time needed to complete calls has gone up exponentially since 2010. “What would have taken one or two hours is now taking four to eight hours,” said Skof. “So now we’re stretched even further.
Councillor Eli El-Chantiry, who chairs the police services board, was unavailable for an interview. In an emailed response, he pointed to programs included in the budget that were designed to take pressure off the front lines. One such program provides new Tasers for frontline officers (along with all-important training updates for their use). Another is the Direct Response Action Team (DART), which works to control Ottawa’s guns and gangs. The small unit will gain two of the 25 new officers this year.
Guns and gangs were the biggest issues on the table at Monday’s Police Services Board at City Hall. “The gun violence we have seen since the start of the year is our top priority,” said Chief Charles Bordeleau. On the weekend prior to the board meeting, frontline officers conducted more than 40 compliance checks and made 30 patrols of “problem addresses” linked to gang members, said Bordeleau.
Skof wants to see more of this preventative action, but is worried that resources are too thin to get ahead of gun violence on a regular basis. “To be proactive is one thing, but we’re not even being proactive. We’re reacting to gun crimes.”
Skof thinks a fundamental problem needs solving: budget limits need to be set with public safety in mind, instead of politics. Because fewer police calls were made, and crime rates decreased in recent years, the city could justify cutbacks, he said.
“That’s a myth, and again, it’s very misleading.
The violent Crime Severity Index went up by 15 per cent in Ottawa from 2015 to 2016. Nationwide, gang-related and shooting homicides have trended up in recent years.
