Finance Committee on March 7th, 2022

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses. Thank you for sharing some of your time with us this afternoon. We just had some testimony from the Canadian Bankers Association, so some of our questions will relate to that. I don't know if you had a chance to hear some of that testimony, but we'll get started.

In circumstances where the Emergencies Act has not been used in the past—I'm thinking of the regular process, if you will—can you outline for the committee what process is used to have an individual's bank account frozen?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

I will let Superintendent Denis Beaudoin answer the question.

[Superintendent Denis Beaudoin, Director, Financial Crime, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Good afternoon.

Normally, you would have to bring an application to the court to have somebody's assets frozen or seized.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

This is with regard to the reason that the Emergencies Act was so necessary, in this case, with respect to clients of the financial institutions. Was it a timing issue that we weren't able to go to court? What was the necessity of the act for this circumstance?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

The necessity of the act in this case was to serve law enforcement to be able to discourage people from maintaining their involvement in the illegal protest, and also to give the power to the banks to freeze accounts. The RCMP didn't have the power to freeze the accounts; it was the banks that froze the accounts. It gave us more power to discourage people from being active in the illegal protest.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Right, but presumably you could have gone to court, as in a normal course, presented evidence and had individuals' accounts frozen through that means—correct?

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

The difference, as Assistant Commissioner Arcand mentioned, is that under the normal process, you would have the assets seized for a long period of time relating to an ongoing case. In this case, there was no provision for a long-term seizure of assets. It was during the time of the economic measures and the assets would be unfrozen afterwards So the processes were quite different.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay, but we are setting aside some of our regular procedural fairness in the sense that a court did not make the determination on whether assets should be frozen. We had private sector entities making adjudications and weighing evidence. Is that correct?

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

Yes. That's correct. The financial institutions had the onus to freeze or unfreeze assets.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

Can you describe at a high level what some of the information might have looked like, or might have been, from the RCMP to the banks? Was it a list of individuals for banks to review their own files with, or was it files on each individual in particular? What kind of information was exchanged from the RCMP to financial institutions?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

As mentioned earlier, we work closely with the Ontario Provincial Police and the Ottawa Police Service. Throughout that time, intelligence was gathered and the RCMP, when the measure was applied, did offer to be the centre point for contact and sharing of information with the financial institutions. Intelligence was gathered by law enforcement, including by us, and that is how we provided names of entities to the financial institutions, based on the information received from the Ontario Provincial Police and the Ottawa Police Service.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay. We know of at least one case in which the Ontario government, the attorney general, actually sought a court order for an injunction to freeze assets. Was that process considered at the federal level with the RCMP?

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

We were aware that some assets were frozen, but again, the assets were not frozen by the RCMP. It was up to the banks. We volunteered the information to the banks to make the determination. There were two orders under which assets could be frozen, and even more so as civil orders were obtained later on.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

Do you feel that there would have been less misinformation if there was more transparency at the front end in terms of thresholds and applications of the scope of the order? There was some considerable concern and/or misinformation circulating about scope.

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

The scope of law enforcement was really limited to the people, the entities, that influenced the protests and that were very active. We limited it where we could and asked the banks to freeze some accounts so we could discourage the people who were influencing the protest, and also truck drivers or companies that were not moving out of the downtown. It was not a large approach on this, and we really focused on individuals who were influencing.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much.

I believe that's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Chambers.

We're moving to the Liberals and MP Dzerowicz for six minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Assistant Commissioner Arcand and Superintendent Denis Beaudoin for being here today. This is a very important study for us.

If I understand correctly—just because I want to understand what the Emergencies Act would allow the RCMP to do that they weren't able to do before—while you could have gone for a court order before, the Emergencies Act actually allowed the RCMP to act much more quickly, and it was also more temporary or time-limited in terms of freezing the accounts. Do I understand that correctly?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

You're right.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

How important was removing the ability to access funds to ending the occupation in Ottawa and preventing future blockades?

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

We have to understand that when we started enforcing or sharing the information with the banks, it was unknown how the blockades would end, so it was beneficial to put this in place to ensure that the blockades would conclude as peacefully as possible. Then, if there was any violence, it would be limited so that people wouldn't have access to additional funds to facilitate the criminal offence.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Just to draw that out a little bit more, while there were a certain number of blockades that had ended, was there concern on behalf of the RCMP that there could be some additional blockades?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

There was concern and there was monitoring across the country. We looked at the Ambassador Bridge. We looked at Coutts in Alberta, and we looked at Emerson in Manitoba, as we had to monitor whether there was a risk of having more blockades eventually across the country.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you for that.

Commissioner Lucki has stated that the RCMP used the tools and the Emergencies Act not only to help disperse the blockades, but also as a preventative measure, which we're talking about now. Can you talk more specifically about how the financial powers under the act were used as a deterrent to help prevent future blockades?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

When we provided the entities to the financial institutions and the institutions started to freeze accounts, we did reach out to some entities to see if they had left the area—for example, Ottawa—and some comments we received were “We're not going to go back. We're back home. Please unfreeze our accounts.” Just to do this discouraged people from coming back, because they didn't want their accounts frozen. Actually, some people left, being afraid that their accounts were going to be frozen.