44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 9, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to say that I cannot believe the Liberal government's stance on this bill and how weak the arguments are. I find it unacceptable. What a joke.
I am pleased to speak this afternoon to Bill C‑289, introduced by my friend and colleague on the Standing Committee on Finance, the member for Simcoe North. As my colleague from Rivière‑du‑Nord said last October, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of this important bill.
This bill will amend the Criminal Code to make it an offence to give false or misleading information to a financial institution requesting that information in accordance with the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. As we know, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act currently asks financial institutions to verify their clients' true identity and the source of funds under certain circumstances. Financial institutions must also report transactions they deem suspicious to the government, so the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, can carry out the necessary verifications, prevent laundering of the proceeds of illegal activities and prevent such funds from being used to finance illegal activities, such as terrorism.
The problem with the current situation, which the Liberals do not seem to understand, is simply a lack of vigilance. I see this bill as a step in the right direction to increase everyone's vigilance. The government's lax attitude and lack of vigilance are a problem right now, even though the tracking of dirty money is one of the most important areas of action.
The problem with the current situation is that if a client makes a false statement to their bank, they may get away with it because there is minimal verification. It is important to do more to combat money laundering.
The problem with the current situation is that if a client makes an intentionally misleading or incomplete statement, the consequences are not serious enough. There are virtually no consequences for these criminals, so there is every chance that they will fall through the cracks. As a result, the information that FINTRAC obtains is incomplete and its work becomes less effective. This explains the poor results in this area in Canada, contrary to what has been argued on the other side of the House.
This is how this chain of negligence results in dirty money being laundered in the real economy. Bill C-289 addresses this flaw. The bill does not fix everything, but it is one more step in the right direction to better uncover money laundering activities.
I want to provide an example connected to the sanctions against Russia. It is not a direct example of tracking dirty money, but it does illustrate the lack of vigilance at present. Early this week, two Montreal companies were sanctioned by the United States for circumventing economic sanctions against Russia. These companies are distributors of electronic components. In tracking the money, the Americans discovered that these two Montreal companies were circumventing the sanctions.
Why were Canadian authorities not able to uncover this scheme? Why were our southern neighbours doing our own institutions' job for them?
The reason may be the lack of vigilance and the lax attitude. That has to change. We must change the existing culture. We have been speaking a great deal about the Chinese government's interference. We have to figure out a better way to track illicit money in order to guarantee our independence. We must change attitudes. That is what this bill helps accomplish.
Members will recall that last May, the Italian consulate in Montreal organized an event to mark the 30th anniverary of “operation clean hands”, a vast anti-mafia and anti-money laundering operation during which two Italian judges were murdered. Retired Italian judge Roberto Scarpinato came to Montreal to give us a warning. He told us that Canada had become a haven for mafia activity and money laundering. Society needs to do something. He encouraged us to develop “antibodies” to money laundering. He said we needed to stop being naive, to be more vigilant and to not be afraid to enforce our laws to the fullest extent, because money laundering is a scourge in Canada and in Quebec.
According to Transparency International, the amount of money laundered annually in Canada could be between $43 billion and $113 billion.
This means that up to $113 billion a year in proceeds of crime, from both here and abroad, is being reintroduced into our economy, allowing criminals to reap the benefits of their crime with impunity and causing economic distortions, such as skyrocketing real estate prices. It is an appalling situation and the complacency we are seeing is pitiful. Something needs to change.
British Columbia launched a commission of inquiry into money laundering, the Cullen commission. The Cullen commission may be the most comprehensive effort ever made to understand the phenomenon of money laundering in Canada, its effects, its causes and the best ways to prevent it in future. It submitted its report in June after more than two years of work and hundreds of witness testimonies. The report points the finger at the RCMP and FINTRAC for not taking money laundering seriously enough. It excoriates the banks for looking the other way. In fact, it accuses pretty much everyone of negligence. It also provides examples of what money laundering looks like.
There is the case of Runkai Chen, a Chinese immigrant who came to Vancouver in 2006. Despite reporting about $40,000 in annual income, he built a real estate empire worth tens of millions of dollars. Mr. Chen was a straw man who laundered dirty money from China. He regularly received large transfers from foreign numbered accounts and reinvested the money in real estate. He made false statements to financial institutions here, and they did not ask questions. None of the big Canadian banks raised any red flags. Not RBC, not CIBC, not BMO.
It was actually a foreign financial institution that alerted FINTRAC, and that is how the scheme was uncovered. Foreigners are more vigilant than our institutions when it comes to finding dirty money laundered here. It is this kind of negligence every step of the way that Justice Scarpinato was talking about when he said we need to develop antibodies.
We actually already have a lot of the legal arsenal needed to deal with this problem. The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act is a powerful tool. Banks are required to verify the identity of their clients and where the money is coming from. They have the power to freeze funds they deem to be suspicious. They are required to report suspicious transactions, large amounts of cash, and international transfers if they have difficulty determining where the money actually came from.
These requirements exist, but most of them rely heavily on the client acting in good faith and the financial institution being vigilant. By forcing clients to make true and complete statements to the banks or face criminal penalties, Bill C‑289 addresses the first step, which is to verify the identity of the client and the source of the funds. This could start off a virtuous cycle where the financial institutions themselves would be more diligent about checking and government organizations would be better informed and more likely to co-operate with their counterparts abroad. In short, we could begin to develop the antibodies needed to seriously address the scourge of money laundering. That is why we will support this important bill.
Once again, I denounce what I believe to be the spurious arguments of the Liberal Party in opposing this bill. At present, there is a lack of vigilance and rigour in the tracking of dirty money. We must take action. Bill C‑289 sets the bar. As I was saying, that is why we will support it.
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Madam Speaker, Canada has a significant money-laundering problem, and corrupted money comes flooding into our economy on account of that. Nowhere is that more evident than in Vancouver. Professional money launderers have a term for it. It is called the “Vancouver model”. It usually involves a lot of foreign, corrupt money, and it is distorting our economy.
We learned a lot about money laundering in British Columbia recently, with the release of the report from retired judge Austin Cullen. He had been appointed by the provincial government to head up the commission of inquiry into money laundering in B.C.
He heard from 199 witnesses, produced a report of 1,800 pages and summed up his work succinctly with this statement: “This Inquiry explored the myriad ways in which the greedy and the devious seek to make their crime-stained money appear legitimate.”
The Cullen commission found that, between 2008 and 2014, which were the years of his focus, billions of dollars were laundered through B.C. casinos. The report stated: “In 2014 alone, British Columbia casinos accepted nearly $1.2 billion in cash transactions of $10,000 or more, including [almost 2,000] individual cash buy-ins of $100,000 or more”. The report noted that this is an average of five per day.
At least in British Columbia, we are all familiar with the scenes that we saw on television. There were clips taken from the security cameras in casinos of people walking in with hockey bags full of money and $20 bills all neatly stacked up for easy counting and managing. Those are used to buy casino chips.
The commission found that these transactions usually happened late at night or early in the morning, when law enforcement people were not paying attention. Judge Cullen put it this way: “It should have been apparent to anyone with an awareness of the size and character of these transactions that Lower Mainland casinos were accepting vast quantities of proceeds of crime during this time period.”
This is just to state the obvious. One does not need to be a law enforcement specialist to know that this did not pass the smell test. As a matter of fact, in the words of a senior investigator with B.C.'s gambling regulator to the commission, the cash “smells like drug money”. He went on to note that it was simply not the practice of casino operators to make any inquiries of their patrons about their sources of cash. Operators would not ask, and patrons would not tell.
I do not want to be too hard on the BC Lottery Corporation. It has done a lot of things right. People have the right to go to casinos and lose money. I want to make just a couple of important points about things that they did correctly.
In February 2015, the BC Lottery Corporation called on the RCMP to investigate a number of people that it suspected of organized crime. Following that investigation, the BC Lottery Corporation put certain persons, about 600, on a watch-list, requiring them to prove source of funds.
A couple of years later, it expanded its source-of-funds procedures based on recommendations from Dr. Peter German, who had been appointed by the provincial government to investigate this. It is not that the BC Lottery Corporation did nothing, but it just did not do enough.
One of its representatives, giving evidence at the Cullen commission, put it this way: “Viewed from the lens of what we now know, everyone could and should have responded more quickly to those large cash transactions”.
I am happy to say that the B.C. government has taken this seriously. It has attempted to prosecute at least one bad actor for whom it felt that it had enough evidence about significant amounts of money-laundering activity.
The Joint Illegal Gaming Investigations Team conducted the investigation, and they recommended charges to the BC Prosecution Service. However, looking at all the evidence, the Crown counsel said that they did not have enough evidence and that there was not a substantial likelihood of conviction. That is their standard test.
The current premier, David Eby, was the attorney general at the time. This was his file, and he was not going to take that lying down. Therefore, he tried again.
He told his assistant deputy attorney general to retain the services of a special prosecutor to look at it once again and this time to, if necessary, use the exceptional evidentiary test of a reasonable prospect of conviction, so a much lower standard. Here is a political lesson. If one does not succeed the first time, try it again but lower the bar. This was a political decision and I think it was the right one. There was a very real concern in British Columbia that something had to be done in order to stop the erosion of public confidence in our justice system.
The result of the independent, special prosecutor investigation with a lower bar now, unfortunately, was still no. In his words, the critical question was whether the Crown would be able to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that this cash was itself the proceeds of crime. He concluded that they would not be able to do that. There was lots of smoke but he could not put his fingers on the fire. Just very recently, he told the provincial government not to waste its time or its human resources trying to change this, that it would be unsuccessful and that it should change the law instead. He said in his conclusions that if Canada had laws, anti-money laundering laws similar to what the U.K. and Australia have, his opinion might well have been different.
That brings me to the debate of the day, the private member's bill from my colleague, the member for Simcoe North. I want to thank him for introducing Bill C-289, which would amend the Criminal Code to make it an offence to knowingly make a false or misleading statement or to knowingly provide false or misleading information, to a person or entity listed in section 5 of the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist and Financing Act; false information with respect to the verification of individuals. In other words, do not lie to banks, credit unions, other financial services businesses and, importantly, do not lie to casinos about whose money you are dealing with. We want to know. There needs to be transparency. It would make a difference, if we had that law, as to whether we would be prosecuting some of these cases of obvious money laundering.
It is a very serious crime. If this legislation passes, it would make it an indictable offence with a fine of up to a $1 million or jail time of 10 years, or the Crown counsel could decide to go by way of summary conviction with a possible fine of $10,000 and two years less a day in jail.
I am pleased and people in British Columbia are pleased with this type of legislation because that is exactly what needs to be done. It is a small step, but it is an important step in the right direction.
More needs to be done. I am happy to hear that the Liberal government is again saying that it is going to bring forward legislation for transparency in corporate registries. In Justice Cullen's words, we do not want “the greedy and the devious” to hide behind numbered companies as they “seek to make their crime-stained money appear legitimate.” Mr. Justice Cullen had 101 recommendations. Not all of them were for the federal jurisdiction. There are a couple that I think this Parliament needs to be paying attention to in the near future, not today but soon: fighting trade-based money laundering, closer scrutiny of money service businesses, better regulation of the mortgage industry and procedures for unexplained wealth orders. This is legislation that other countries and jurisdictions around the world have adopted against money laundering. We should be doing the same. Today, I am happy to say, we are taking a small, important step in the right direction.
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Madam Speaker, like my colleagues, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-289. I think my colleagues beat me to the punch, but I will say again that the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C‑289 at second reading. For one thing, we want to be able to suggest amendments and improvements when it goes to committee and perhaps cast the net a little wider, so to speak, in terms of the bill's scope. I will come back to this a little later.
What is the context surrounding Bill C‑289?
The reality is that money laundering is unfortunately reaching alarming levels in Canada. Several institutions have conducted analyses and reached that conclusion. It is estimated that approximately $100 billion is being laundered, and it is often the proceeds of drug trafficking and human trafficking. That is $100 billion that comes into Canada every year to be laundered, to enter the legitimate economy and to disappear. That is the principle of money laundering.
This has repercussions on the local population, on everyday people who, for example, live in places with a very low vacancy rate and where people are trying to become property owners. As we know, real estate is used as a way of laundering money by buying different buildings through nominees, which puts upward pressure on the price of housing. This has an adverse effect on everyone.
We also know that, unfortunately, Canada does not have a particularly good record when it comes to anti-money laundering legislation. Canada is at the back of the pack internationally. Our laws are relatively limited and rather lenient, and they do not make it easy to go after offenders and money launderers. That is basically what Bill C‑289 tries to do. It is not going to fix the whole problem in one fell swoop, but at least it is a step in the right direction. It may help stimulate the debate on what more could be done beyond what Bill C‑289 proposes.
It is always fun to read what is in the bill. This one is relatively short. I will just read the main clause, which is actually the only clause. It would add subsection 462.311(1) to the Criminal Code. As an aside, so many new sections have been added to the Criminal Code over the years that it might be time for consolidation. That is for my criminal law colleagues to say.
The addition reads as follows:
Everyone commits an offense who knowingly makes a false or misleading statement or knowingly provides false or misleading information, including by omission, whether directly or indirectly—
This casts a pretty wide net for what constitutes a lie. It goes on to say:
—to a person or entity referred to in section 5 of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act respecting the identity of a person or entity to be verified under section 6.1 of that Act, including with respect to the ownership, control or structure of the entity.
Who are we referring to when we talk about section 5? Who are these people who have an obligation to verify identity? We are referring to pretty much every existing entity that deals with money transfers. We are talking about banks, both local and foreign. The list set out in section 5 is very long, so I will not go through the whole thing. I will just do a quick overview. We are talking about banks, cooperative credit societies, savings and credit unions, caisses populaires, life insurance companies, trust companies regulated by a provincial act, loan companies, companies that provide portfolio management services, companies dealing with foreign exchange, and even those dealing in virtual currencies. If money is being transferred somewhere, the entity that takes care of it has an obligation to verify the sender's identity. The problem is that there are absolutely no sanctions for providing false information.
Bill C-289 remedies that. It adds an obligation to provide truthful information or face one of two fines, depending on whether the person is found guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction or an indictable offence. The penalty for an indictable offence is a fine of up to $1 million and up to 10 years in prison. The penalty for an offence punishable by summary conviction is a fine of up to $10,000 and a maximum prison sentence of two years less a day.
There are some good things in this legislation. One aim of the bill is to discourage the use of nominees. Currently, there is absolutely no penalty for a person who is used as a nominee for the purpose of money laundering. The new obligation would provide authorities with additional tools so they can secure convictions for money laundering activities. The bill does not limit itself to the obligations of financial institutions. It seeks to ensure that there are penalties for false statements.
We also want to give authorities a little more flexibility to use the threat of conviction. That is the deterrent effect. This would allow authorities to gather information on large-scale money laundering cases and perhaps catch criminals with a lot more money than the small-time money launderer at the local pizza parlour, for example.
It also sets the stage for other steps that could be taken in the future, such as introducing a beneficial ownership registry that would require corporations governed by the Canada Business Corporations Act to disclose the identity of their actual owner. We hope legislation to that effect will be introduced in the House sooner rather than later.
I want to go back to the responsibilities of the financial entities that I mentioned, which are named in section 6.1 of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act.
Pursuant to section 7, these entities are responsible for the following:
Subject to section 10.1, every person or entity referred to in section 5 shall, in accordance with the regulations, report to the Centre every financial transaction that occurs or that is attempted in the course of their activities and in respect of which there are reasonable grounds to suspect that
(a) the transaction is related to the commission or the attempted commission of a money laundering offence; or
(b) the transaction is related to the commission or the attempted commission of a terrorist activity financing offence.
There has been a lot of talk lately about Chinese interference. In this context, it seems to me that there is one thing that could, at the very least, be discussed by the committee that will be studying the bill, and that is the use of money that is not necessarily the proceeds of criminal or terrorist activities, but that is earmarked for an election campaign, for example.
I am wondering if certain witnesses would suggest that we add, not to the current bill but to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, a paragraph (c) to section 7 to cover the conveyance of money with a view to making an illegal donation under the Canada Elections Act. That could be one approach.
There may also be a way, through Bill C‑289, to make changes in order to make it an offence to lie about a donation to a political entity and the origin of the money that was used. This may be an idea to consider, given what is currently happening in the news. We are always a bit behind the news when we are in the House of Commons, but in this case, it may be a good idea not to lag too far behind. We might need to jump at the opportunity, at the fact that a bill is being studied, to invite witnesses who could outline a more forward-thinking vision of what could be done in terms of sanctions for making false statements about campaign donations.
In closing, I want to reiterate that we will support Bill C‑289 and there is still a long road ahead, but at least this is a step in the right direction.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and support Bill C-289 from my colleague, the member for Simcoe North. I want to congratulate him for taking on this important issue. This is a bill aimed at combatting money laundering. As we move towards the second reading vote on this bill, I wanted to share a few thoughts that reflect conversations I have had. In particular, I have had conversations with people in Canada's cultural communities about their concern over the issue of money laundering. They are especially concerned when it involves money from foreign hostile regimes, sometimes even ones that are using those resources to threaten and hurt people from cultural communities here in Canada.
I want to say parenthetically, as it is Thursday, that I have had my son Judah with me all week. He is seven years old, and it has been wonderful to have him here. I want to thank him. He has been to committee meetings and to the House. He has watched question period, and he knows the rules and procedures better than some members do.
On the subject of Bill C-289, this excellent bill that I will certainly be supporting on money laundering, I want to reflect a bit on some of the conversations I have had. When I first got elected in 2015, I had a role involving human rights and religious freedom. In that context, I spent a lot of time getting to know leaders in various cultural communities in Canada.
Right away, the issue of money laundering came up in this context: We have people who flee authoritarian hostile regimes, who face persecution. Forms of that persecution also involve having their property confiscated and taken from them in various ways. Then they have fled to Canada and sought a new life; they are working hard to prosper and succeed here. At the same time, they see or perceive agents of that same hostile regime that are bringing stolen money to Canada and trying to launder that money and to create a safe haven for agents of that regime here.
Probably most prominent in my mind in terms of these conversations are those with the folks from the Iranian community whom I have spoken to. Regularly and repeatedly, they raise the issue of how the Iranian community here in Canada is concerned about how the Iranian regime is, in their perception, laundering money in Canada. In addition, while Canada is rightly perceived as a place where those fleeing that regime and other hostile regimes can come, they see how members of that regime have been able to try to use Canada as well.
We have put forward various measures to try to respond to this. For instance, approaching five years ago, I put forward a motion to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization in Canada and effectively shut down its operations here. Unfortunately, while the government voted for that motion, it never implemented it.
If we are going to shut down the activities of hostile foreign regimes in Canada, we need to take a series of measures. Those include listing the IRGC as a terrorist organization and expelling foreign diplomats involved in foreign interference, which we have been calling for in the context of the regime in Beijing. The current government has actually failed to expel any diplomats from any country for foreign interference. It has not expelled any diplomats associated with the Chinese Communist Party, nor has it expelled any Russian diplomats or diplomats from any country.
In addition, in the suite of measures that we need to prevent hostile regimes and maligned foreign actors from operating in Canada, as part of our response, we need to combat this issue of money laundering and the financing of these regimes. This could perhaps include financing of their operations in Canada, as well as their efforts to launder money for various other purposes here.
We as Conservatives have tried to reflect these concerns that we are hearing from people in cultural communities about how they have been victims of foreign interference and about money laundering in particular as part of that victimization, as well as other areas. However, it has been striking to me that one of the government's tactics for dismissing this is to suggest that it is somehow racist to talk about the very real and obvious problem of foreign interference.
I would submit that the opposite is true. It is actually a form of racism to not respond to the serious problem of foreign interference, because the primary victims of foreign interference have often been cultural communities, where there may be family members back home, and people are threatened by the fact that their family members would be hurt if they do not cease speaking up about certain issues.
I know people personally whose family members have been negatively affected abroad because of political activities they have been involved in here in Canada. I know that those threats can be frequent and can be put forward by hostile regimes. It is generally Canadians who have those family members in potentially vulnerable situations who are most likely to be victims. They are people who are recent immigrants to Canada, who faced persecution, who faced confiscation of their property, and then they see that money laundered in Canada and they see a government that is perversely claiming it is racist to talk about this problem.
I would say it is actually a form of racism to fail to address this problem that may not be directly impacting the lives of people whose families have been in Canada for a long time, but it is much more likely to impact the lives, security and well-being of people who are relative newcomers to Canada, of course depending on the countries they come from.
There are many reasons to support this bill. This is a common-sense measure to make it easier for law enforcement to target those who are involved in criminal offences and to hold them accountable for those offences. However, particularly in a context where we are seeing this pressing issue of foreign interference taking various forms and where we need stronger measures here in Canada to combat the scourge of foreign state-backed interference, one thing we could do is support this bill. Members could at least support it through to committee for further studies if they have doubts about some of the provisions. I think it is great the way it is. In any event, it should be supported through to committee so that it could be further studied and perhaps strengthened at the committee stage.
Unfortunately, while the government wants to now talk about being concerned about foreign interference, it seems intent on missing this golden opportunity to support a good piece of legislation, which would take a constructive step towards, among other things, combatting the problem of foreign interference. It underlines, again, that while the government is happy to talk tough, ultimately its talk is cheap and it is not prepared to take the measures that are required.
The government has refused to call a public inquiry into what happened in the last two elections. It is instead trying to bury this issue with fake new positions and by sending the issue to a committee that has, in fact, already studied the issue of foreign interference, but which is severely limited by secrecy rules and cannot report publicly. It must report first to the Prime Minister, and then it can only publish the information that the Prime Minister allows it to publish.
Incredibly, today on Bill C-289, the government and its coalition partners in the NDP seem intent on opposing a common-sense piece of legislation to combat money laundering.
I appeal to individual members of the Liberal and New Democratic Parties to think about what they are hearing from their constituents, to think about how many Canadians of Iranian origin, Canadians of Chinese origin, and Canadians of Russian or Ukrainian origin have seen the impact on their lives, of threats from hostile foreign powers. If we listen to those concerns, we should do all we can to combat the scourge of foreign state-backed interference. One critical way of doing that would be to support Bill C-289.
I hope we see individual members of the governing party and the NDP searching their consciences, thinking about what their constituents would actually want them to do and not blindly deferring their judgment on such critical issues to a front bench that has, frankly, been totally obtuse when it comes to crime, foreign interference and national security.
I do hope that, notwithstanding the positions of those two parties officially, we will see members have the courage to help us pass this bill, send it to committee and continue to do the work required to stand with all Canadians, Canadians of all backgrounds, in defending justice and human rights, and in opposing foreign interference via money laundering and other means.
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- Mar/9/23 6:18:38 p.m.
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The hon. member for Simcoe North has five minutes for his right of reply.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here again with you today to talk about a very important issue.
I want to thank all members who participated in this debate, whether they agree with this piece of legislation or not, but in particular my friends from the Bloc, who spoke in favour of this piece of legislation, which I think is very important.
I would like to touch on a few things for members to reflect on.
The NDP position is that the bill is somehow not worthy of being supported because it was not a specific recommendation of the Cullen commission. The Cullen commission went to great lengths to make sure everybody knew that it did not have the resources or the ability to make recommendations with respect to federal jurisdiction.
I did my homework. I spoke to members of the Cullen commission and asked them if a bill like this would make it easier for law enforcement. The answer was yes. Therefore, I would ask the members of the NDP not to take my word for it, but to spend next week, especially those from British Columbia, asking NDP MLAs in British Columbia if they support this piece of legislation. All I ask for is a fair hearing on that point, because the Premier of British Columbia said that it is a “shocking” example of the shortfalls of federal financial crime law that money launderers cannot be prosecuted and convicted in British Columbia. That is the issue.
These cases are incredibly complex. In the United States, people are convicted for lying to the authorities or committing perjury more often than they are for the actual offence for which they are being investigated.
With respect to the position of the government, and I understand the government should meet any changes to the Criminal Code with high scrutiny, it refers to the offences of uttering and fraud, which do not carry a very significant penalty. The provision I am putting forward is one with up to 10 years in prison and up to a million dollars in fines. It is a hybrid offence. Members do not need to worry because there are no mandatory minimums in this Criminal Code provision.
The government also mentioned the laundering of proceeds of crime. I would say this. The example we just had in B.C. is the reason why we need simpler Criminal Code provisions to catch, prosecute and convict money launderers. These cases take multiple years and often yield absolutely no results.
I would like to quote Kevin Comeau of the C.D. Howe Institute, who stated:
That lack of legal accountability in our anti-money-laundering system weakens the quality of information received from clients, places our financial, commercial, and real estate markets at greater risk of money laundering, and undermines the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate money laundering and terrorist financing.
The federal government can reduce these risks by enacting legislation attaching sanctions to false reports of beneficial ownership made to persons who are legally required to collect that information.
The government is going to release beneficial ownership legislation, and this is what is going to be in it: There is going to be an administrative penalty that money launderers will view as the cost of doing business and a tax. It will not be a serious penalty, and money launderers are going to continue to view Canada as a safe haven to do their dirty business.
Therefore, I would ask and implore all members in this House to reflect on some of these comments, and I would ask NDP members in particular to go to British Columbia and ask their provincial counterparts if they support this legislation.
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- Mar/9/23 6:23:30 p.m.
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The question is on the motion.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Mar/9/23 6:24:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would just as soon see the bill pass right now, but I would request a recorded division if there is no agreement to pass the bill at all stages.
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Pursuant to an order made Thursday, June 23, 2022, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, March 22, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
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I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:
Rideau Hall
Mr. Speaker,
I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 9th day of March, 2023, at 5:10 p.m.
Yours sincerely,
Ian McCowan
Secretary to the Governor General and Herald Chancellor
The bill assented to, Thursday, March 9, 2023, is Bill C-39, An Act to amend An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying).
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- Mar/9/23 6:26:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister is under immense pressure on the issue of foreign interference, and it is no wonder, when he cannot answer very simple, basic questions and instead resorts to feigning outrage on every possible pretext. How dare the opposition ask these questions. How dare we insinuate that the people involved are failing to put the national interest first. How dare we suggest that ministers have not been sufficiently strong or definitive on this important issue.
My question is, how dare the government persist in trying to hide the truth. If it persists in obfuscating and hiding what happened, Canadians are going to legitimately wonder why. Why can the Liberals not come clean on the issue of election interference? Why will they not work with us to find out what happened and help root out foreign interference instead of flailing around and trying to blame everyone else? In all likelihood, it is because they already know things, and if the public found out, they would be very disappointed in the government's failure to stand up for national security.
It has been widely reported, based on information shared with the media by CSIS, that the communist regime in Beijing sought to interfere in Canadian elections. In many ways, this is not surprising to those who have been following the operations of the communist regime, but the details are particularly troubling. This regime wanted, as reports indicate, to re-elect Liberals and defeat Conservatives, especially to defeat certain Conservatives.
It is not surprising this would be the case, since former Liberal minister John McCallum directly invited this kind of interference right before it happened. He told the South China Morning Post, “Anything that is more negative against Canada will help the Conservatives, [who] are much less friendly to China than the Liberals. I hope and I don’t see any reason why things will get worse; it would be nice if things will get better between now and [the] election.”
The Liberals directly and publicly invited foreign interference, and they knew about that foreign interference. They were in fact briefed that one of their candidates was believed to have been complicit with the communist regime in getting illegal foreign support in a nomination race. The Liberals were briefed on this and they did nothing. The sad reality is that the Liberals are increasingly behaving as if foreign governments are stakeholders to woo for support in domestic elections. That is dead wrong, and it is a grave threat to our national security.
Clearly, many who are responsible for protecting our security have become frustrated with the approach of the government. They have increasingly spoken to the media directly. According to media reports, CSIS has begun an outreach program directly to MPs, and now we are seeing leaks from CSIS to multiple media outlets. The government should be listening to our security agencies and addressing their pressing concerns about foreign interference, rather than dismissing them and trying to distract from them with all manner of baseless excuses.
The Conservatives believe that Canada needs a public inquiry into what happened, an inquiry with the capacity to hold powerful people and, in particular, powerful members of the government accountable. The Liberals have tried to obfuscate by creating a new made-up position, a special rapporteur they would appoint and set the terms of, and they have said NSICOP should look further into this. We know NSICOP has been working on issues to do with foreign interference for a very long time, but this is a secret committee with no mandate to report anything publicly unless it has the permission of the Prime Minister to report it first.
Foreign state-backed interference has been the greatest threat to our national security for a long time. The Liberals like to say that the purpose of such interference is to cause chaos and confusion. That is sometimes but not always the case. Sometimes the purpose of foreign interference is simply for another country to advance its interests, steal information, elect more pliant politicians and punish critics. These are the kinds of things the Beijing regime is doing. It must stop, and we need a government that is actually prepared to put a stop to it.
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- Mar/9/23 6:30:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to share a few thoughts on the issue. It has been interesting that Conservatives have been beating a drum on this particular issue as if it were something completely new. International foreign issues of this nature have actually taken place in the past. In fact, they predate this government.
When Stephen Harper was prime minister and the current leader of the Conservative Party was responsible for democratic reform, they were aware of foreign interference. Today's leader of the Conservative Party, when he was in the position to take some action, chose to do nothing. He chose to completely ignore the issue.
It was not until the federal election of 2015 that we actually had a government that recognized there was a need for us to do something on the issue. In fact, shortly after that, the member will recall, we had the establishment of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. It has parliamentarians from all sides of the House.
It has the incredible power to investigate. These members of Parliament, including Conservative members of Parliament, have all been cleared. They have top-secret clearance so they can meet with different security agencies that Canada has and get the information that is necessary.
In 2009, we also established a panel of independent civil servants to ultimately protect against any potential threats to our national elections. We had professionals indicate, in 2019 and 2021, that there was not any form of international interference that affected the outcome of the elections.
It seems to me that, for the first time, we have a Prime Minister and a government that have actually acted on the issue of foreign interference. That is why I think it is important we contrast that to the lack of action from the previous administration.
Yesterday, in question period, I do not know how many questions the leader of the Conservative Party stood up and asked. It was 15 or 20 times in question period. He was challenging the Prime Minister, when he was, in fact, the minister of democracy and did absolutely nothing even though he was aware there was foreign interference taking place.
The Conservative Party will continue to beat its drum. We have now indicated, because we can understand and appreciate the apprehension Canadians have in regard to the issue, that establishing an independent special rapporteur is a responsible way of dealing with it. It may not be quite as political as the members of the Conservative Party would like, given that it is an independent—
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- Mar/9/23 6:34:29 p.m.
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The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
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- Mar/9/23 6:34:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wonder if the Liberals plan to make Gerry Butts the rapporteur. Their sense of independence seems to be off the charts.
In all seriousness, the member's response is absurd. He says his government has been in power for eight years, and he asks why the Conservatives did not see this problem coming and fix it beforehand. He said we are the ones responsible. He is saying the Liberals have been in power for eight years but that they cannot be blamed for what has happened since.
Clearly, foreign interference has existed in various forms for all of human history. However, we have CSIS telling multiple media outlets that the government was directly briefed on interference that was aimed at helping it politically, and the government, when it received that information and realized it was benefiting from foreign interference, did nothing to stop it. That is quite incredible. The level of frustration from our intelligence agencies is quite incredible.
NSICOP is not able to release information without the Prime Minister's prior approval. The government is doing nothing.
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- Mar/9/23 6:35:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, even the question the member puts forward is silly. He gives the impression that seven or eight years ago, the Conservatives would never have seen this coming. Former prime minister Stephen Harper and their current leader were aware of it because it was happening when they were in government.
The security agency advised the Conservative government of foreign interference. What did the current leader of the Conservative Party do? He did zippo, nothing. The only change he made was to make it harder for Canadians to participate in elections. I sat on the PROC committee when they were trying to stuff through the anti-democratic legislation.
What we are seeing is not only happening in Canada. It is happening in France and the U.S.A. It is not just one country; it is many countries. The Conservatives need to—
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- Mar/9/23 6:36:39 p.m.
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The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes has the floor.
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- Mar/9/23 6:36:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are in a cost of living crisis in Canada, and we have heard one of the driving factors for that crisis is the contribution to inflation of things like the carbon tax. It is a tax on everything.
That is not the only area where the government is ignoring the serious situation Canadians find themselves in. One can take a look at the lack of prudence the government is approaching the taxpayer dollar with. Canadians work extremely hard, and when they have to remit that hard-earned money to the federal government, they expect that it is for the purpose of furthering the national interest and for basic services only the federal government can provide.
When one looks a little closer and scratches just beneath the surface, one will see an absence of care or concern for where that tax dollar comes from. It comes from the pocket of a Canadian who, like the average Canadian family, is paying more than $1,000 in increases in their grocery bill this year. That price would be higher for Canadian families if many Canadians were not skipping meals to help drive down their grocery costs.
The government has not found a tax dollar it is not prepared to waste. Now, it is not using the increase in tax revenue it is getting from inflation to do things like reduce wait times for passports, although we have seen people camping outside for them. It is not doing it to improve services at our airports when we have seen people stranded and delayed in just unprecedented wait times and disruptions to our airline industry. We are not seeing it with improvements to the interdiction of firearms at our borders and to end gun smuggling from the United States, although we have seen the scourge of gun violence being perpetrated with smuggled firearms across Canada.
The government is also spending wild sums of money on projects with no care or concern for where that dollar comes from, like the $54 million it spent on arrive scam. That app was supposed to cost many orders of magnitude less than it did, and it did not even work right. It arbitrarily detained Canadians in the thousands. We recently learned that the Prime Minister was charging $6,000 per night for his hotel room in London, and he did not just stay a single night.
Meanwhile, Canadians are struggling to keep the heat on, feed themselves and put enough gas in the tank of their truck to get to work or their minivan to get to a doctor's appointment or an after-school activity for their children.
The government needs to approach the serious issue of the affordability crisis we are facing in Canada, and it needs to hold up the mirror and ask itself: What is it doing to make life more affordable for Canadians? Where is it going to find the savings? When is it going to stop raising taxes?
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- Mar/9/23 6:40:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not think I will be given enough time to properly respond to the member's statements.
When we think of inflation, the starting point is that we are concerned about inflation. However, when we put it in a world perspective, we see a war happening in Europe, and the pandemic had worldwide impacts. Canada's inflation rate, for the most part, is less than those of the U.S., Germany and other G20 countries, but that does not mean we will just sit back and ride it through.
This is a government that has, in fact, demonstrated its caring attitudes and concern. That is why we have brought in program after program to support Canadians. I could talk about the dental program for kids under the age of 12, which the Conservatives voted against. I could talk about the rental program to support low-income individuals who are finding it difficult. It was a $500 program, which the Conservatives did not support.
The member talks about these big expensive programs. Yes, we are a government that understands that the true value of what Canadians want and expect of the government. That is why we brought in $10-a-day child care. Just the other day, I was with the Prime Minister and the Premier of Manitoba announcing that we will hit the $10-a-day day care in April, well ahead of the national target. Yes, that did cost billions of dollars, but it will enable an expanded workforce. It will enable a better quality of life. We might be spending billions, but it is only the Conservative Party of Canada, here in the House of Commons, that says it is going to throw out the program. At the provincial level, we have Conservative, NDP and Liberal governments that are all buying into it and developing the $10-a-day child care program.
We can talk about the billions of dollars for health care. That is $198 billion over 10 years, which is a lot of money, but Canadians expect us to ensure that our core health care system, which we have grown to love and appreciate, will continue to be there, and the federal government will continue to play a strong role in that system.
The member talks about inflation, with which, compared to the world, Canada is doing relatively well, but we continue to work on it. There are expenses the government is incurring to try to alleviate some of those pressures. The Conservatives had to be shamed into supporting our initiative to double the GST rebate for a six-month period of time. Initially, the Conservatives were against it, but then they realized it is a bad thing to be against, so they came onside to support that.
Yes, the government is very much aware of the importance of the tax dollar. The government is also very much aware of the importance of our economy and the types of services we must support, and we will continue to do so. We have a Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance who is aggressively getting us into a position so we will be able to continue to lead, in many ways, the G20 over the next number of years.
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- Mar/9/23 6:44:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, no government has ever spent so much to achieve so little. What did the Liberals get for the piles of money they threw on the inflationary fire? What is the result for Canadians? The cost to rent an apartment has doubled. The cost of a mortgage payment has doubled. The dream of home ownership has evaporated. That is the legacy of the government.
It literally took the Prime Minister years to answer the request from provinces to meet to discuss health care funding. It took years for the Liberals to come up with support for the provinces. If this is what help looks like, Canadians are crying for them to stop.
Raising taxes when Canadians are struggling is the very last thing they need. They need help, not hurt.
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- Mar/9/23 6:45:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what the member just said is completely inaccurate. It is just not true.
Within a couple of years, we had a federal government that, unlike Stephen Harper's government, negotiated health care accords with the different provinces, providing secured funding. We just had a major announcement in regard to health care. Historic amounts of money are currently going to health care, with an additional $198 billion.
When the member says that we are not spending money where we should be spending money or implies that we are wasting money, he can tell that to the hundreds of thousands, going into the millions, of Canadians who received CERB payments during the pandemic. He can tell that to the business owners who received literally billions of dollars through the wage subsidy so that we could keep Canadians working during the pandemic. Canada was in a great position to be able to rebound out of the pandemic because the Government of Canada supported the economy and supported Canadians. That is why, in comparison to the rest of the world, we are doing relatively well.
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