An image of a child being carried by an RCMP officer greets you as you walk into the Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit at New Brunswick’s RCMP headquarters in Fredericton. Underneath, a warning, that the room you’re about to enter contains images of abuse. Child exploitation on the internet has grown significantly over the last decade, with N.B.’s ICE team experiencing a 151 per cent increase in files between 2019 and 2024. In the last three months of 2025, the unit identified 26 victims, who are now safe. The demand has increased the unit’s membership to 15 – making it the largest RCMP ICE unit in Atlantic Canada, and the second largest in the country. “The predators of today are not hiding in the park at your local playground. Predators today are lurking from the comfort of their own home online,” said Cpl. Matthew Leblanc-Smith, a supervisor within the unit. The work wasn’t on Leblanc-Smith’s radar when he initially became an RCMP officer. It’s extremely challenging. It’s the only RCMP unit where you can express a need to be transferred, and that request is approved immediately – no questions asked – he said. “What makes it difficult is being exposed to it but also, I’m a father of two kids myself and when I see the evil that’s in the world and what people are willing to do to children, it motivates me even more to try and stop it,” he said. The significant increase stems from the growth of social media in the lives of children. Leblanc-Smith cites online gaming and social platforms where predators are “hiding in plain sight,” and then migrate the victim to another platform where it’s harder for police to monitor. That’s where the abuse is happening, he said. “It’s kind of bittersweet. Because technology helps us find these predators better, but the predators are also using the technology to their advantage, either through anonymization through VPNs, through dark web activities, or any kind of AI generated imagery, those kinds of things complicate our efforts to find legitimate victims,” he said. But artificial intelligence also helps officers “pre-categorize” much of the material – identifying new versus old images for example – so that members are not as exposed. “We have an unwritten rule in the unit that we don’t categorize images on Friday afternoons, because we don’t want the last thing of our week to bring home to our families is images and videos of child rape or abuse. Obviously, that’s not good for our mental wellbeing. But we do have lots of help and support in terms of what we do,” he said. Public safety analyst Chris Lewis isn’t surprised by the increase the unit is seeing. The former Ontario Provincial Police commissioner warns it’s the type of work that’s critical in today’s digital age, but has an enormous impact on the people who do the work. His wife, OPP Supt. Angie Howe, ran Ontario’s version of the ICE unit years ago as an inspector. “It changed her as a person overall and had the biggest impact on her, mentally, than any other job she did in 30 years in policing,” he said. Social media companies can play a big role While much of the abuse can be traced to social media, Leblanc-Smith said many of those companies have been trying to help. But, sometimes, they’re not flagging an image to police soon enough – four or five months after the image was first detected, he said. CTV News contacted Snapchat, Google and Meta to request more information on their process when they receive a request regarding an image from law enforcement. Snapchat stated the company responds to ‘most’ legal requests within two to three weeks, and fulfill 98 per cent of requests within the timeframe an authority has requested. “We prioritize identifying and removing harmful content, enforcing against accounts that violate our guidelines or the law, and working with law enforcement in their efforts to bring criminals to justice,” a Snapchat representative wrote in an email. If it’s an emergent request, that could result in imminent danger of a user, Snapchat said it’s team ‘usually responds within 30 minutes.” Leblanc-Smith said he has seen that quick response in action. “A few months ago, we had an image that was shared on a social media website, it was reported to us that afternoon, and by 2 a.m. the suspect was in custody and a child was safe-guarded. So that’s how fast we can act in an emergency. But we have to be able to view the material to determine whether or not it was first generation or not,” he said. Facebook’s parent company Meta said it tries to proactively identify and report images of child exploitation. Between April and June 2025, it removed nearly seven million pieces of child abuse content from both Facebook and Instagram, stating over 98 per cent of the images were found and reported by the company itself. All three, Google included, said they work with and report images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), who in turn works with Canadian law enforcement. Reactive and proactive The unit attempts to be both reactive – like in that case – and proactive, which includes going undercover online and trying to find predators before they find their next victim. Lewis said the Tumbler Ridge, B.C., school shooting tragedy also shone a spotlight on how online platforms can play a role. “They need to have dialog with the police, and the police need to have dialog with them, in terms of what’s really happening and what they need to look for, and then come together in a way that best protects people, particularly our children,” he said. The N.B. RCMP placed a youth on a terrorism peace bond in February, connected to the individual’s involvement in the 764 Network. The youth allegedly used social media to promote the network’s ideology, which was recently added to Ottawa’s terrorist entity list. It’s been known to spread violence and extort victims into self-harm or make threats within public schools. While the ICE team wasn’t heavily involved in that investigation, Leblanc-Smith did note he’s seeing more and more of these extremist groups online. It’s critical parents know what their children are doing online, and to ensure they have a safe space to reveal if something doesn’t seem right, he said. “Have the conversation with your children to ensure that if they do get into trouble, that they can talk to people. … Make sure that they know that even going on a simple platform such as Roblox could potentially be dangerous,” he said.
