Michael Chong

[Canada Business Corporations Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the member's question allows me to highlight that there is a distinction between tax havens, like the Cayman Islands, which was mentioned, and money laundering. The whole purpose of money laundering is separate and distinct from that of tax havens. The purpose of money laundering is to hide the provenance of the money, and, in particular, to hide the fact that the money was produced illicitly through criminal activity, terrorism or sanctions evasion.

With the plethora of sanctions that have been announced by the government and other governments in the last year because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it becomes even more important to enforce sanctions, and it starts with having a proper beneficial ownership registry, which this one is not. I am pointing out the holes in this registry so that when we come back in another Parliament, the holes can be fixed and plugged so we can start cracking down on money laundering in this country.

[Canada Business Corporations Act, June 19th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-42, which is the government's proposal for a beneficial ownership registry.

I would like to critique this registry, because this is an incredibly important issue. The fact of the matter is that Canada has become a haven for global money laundering. In fact, do not take it from me. Here is just some international reporting on Canada. In the New York Times, just a few months ago, on March 25, an article written by Ian Austen, the Times journalist who covers Canada, begins with the sentence, “Canada is such an attractive place for money laundering that there’s even a special name to describe the activity here: ‘snow washing’.”

The U.S. State Department, in 2019, designated Canada as a “major money laundering country”. In fact, I pulled up the State Department's report from March 2022, titled “International Narcotics Control Strategy Report”, volume 2. The report says, under “Canada”, that it is estimated that between “$36 billion [and] $91 billion is laundered annually in Canada”. Assuming those are U.S. dollars, that represents, roughly, between $50 billion and $120 billion a year that is laundered through this country. One hundred and twenty billion dollars a year is roughly 5% of our GDP. Five per cent of our GDP consists of money laundering.

That March 2022 report says, “Noted deficiencies include limited oversight of the domestic non-profit sector, gaps in [customer due diligence] responsibilities for [designated non-financial businesses and professions], and a lack of beneficial ownership transparency for trusts and similar legal mechanisms.” Therefore, not only has our status as a money-laundering haven and, by consequence, a sanctions-avoiding haven and a proceeds-of-international-crime haven become documented in The New York Times; it has also been noticed by the State Department.

It is not just internationally that it has been documented. In the province of British Columbia, there was a huge commission of inquiry into money laundering. Its final report was published in June 2022 by the Honourable Austin Cullen, who was the commissioner. The commission found that billions of dollars were being laundered through British Columbia companies, British Columbia real estate and British Columbia trusts, and that this was having a deleterious impact on people living in British Columbia. This report came out just last year, highlighting the problems with money laundering in just one province, which represents roughly 10% of Canada's population. It is clear that we have a problem with money laundering and that, by consequence, we also have a problem with becoming a destination for the proceeds of sanctions evasion and a destination for the proceeds of international criminal activity. The government introduced this legislation, in part, to try to respond to these very real concerns, but the problem with the legislation in front of us is that it is deeply flawed.

I asked the Library of Parliament to do some research on the number of federally incorporated entities in Canada. The information it provided for me was that, for the year 2020, the most recent year for which data have been provided, the number of CBCA corporations, federally incorporated entities, is 421,301. The problem is that there are some 4.3 million businesses in Canada, of which only roughly 10% are CBCA corporations.

Ninety per cent of businesses in Canada are incorporated under 10 different provincial statutes, of the ten different provinces, and these corporations and trusts would not be included in Bill C-42's beneficial ownership registry. The Liberal government would say that it is working with the provinces to encourage them to create a beneficial ownership registry. The problem is that one province, Alberta, has not made any moves to create one. The problem with the other provinces is that their beneficial ownership registries have major loopholes in them. The only beneficial ownership registry in the country that is worth the paper it is written on is that of the province of British Columbia. That proposed registry includes provincially incorporated entities, trusts and real estate; it is capturing all of that in its registry. As a result, that provincial registry, combined with the federal one, would include all companies in the province of British Columbia. The problem for the other nine provinces is that they are not including real estate, which the Cullen commission in British Columbia identified as a major asset through which money, international money in particular, is being laundered.

The registry in front of us would only be as good as the weakest link in the entire system, and at least eight of the 10 provinces are not including real estate in their beneficial ownership registry. As a result, people overseas trying to avoid sanctions enforcement and trying to launder the illicit proceeds of crime and terrorism would be able to use Canadian real estate in eight out of 10 provinces to continue to launder their money, just like the Cullen commission identified in the province of British Columbia. Those individuals overseas and outside of Canada who want to avoid sanctions or want to launder the illicit proceeds of their crimes or terrorism could do so through provinces where a beneficial ownership registry for provincially incorporated entities has yet to be proposed. It is clear that the proposed beneficial ownership registry that the government has put in front of us today would not solve the problem of Canada's status as a destination for snow washing, a destination for international money laundering.

What the government should have done is to have used the broad and deep criminal powers accorded to it in the Constitution, which courts in this country, through various rulings, have long upheld as being broad and deep, to create a national beneficial ownership registry that would have included all companies in Canada, whether they are incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act or whether they are incorporated under one of 10 provincial statutes. It should have included all trusts in Canada, whether they were incorporated federally or provincially, and it should have included the beneficial owners of all real estate, real property in Canada, in order to ensure that we start cracking down on those who would use our country as a haven for money laundering for the proceeds of terrorism or for the proceeds of crime. The Liberal government did not proceed down that path, so, once again, we would have implementation of a good idea from the government in a very flawed manner, as it has been with so many things that the government has made announcements about.

I will finish here. The beneficial ownership registry in front of the House today would not plug the hole that has allowed this country to become such a haven and such a destination country for sanctions evasion for the proceeds of crime, for the proceeds of terrorism and for money laundering in general that landed us, in March, on the front page of the New York Times, and in the State Department's assessment of global havens for money laundering.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, June 16th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I have just two points to add to this debate.

The first point is that the government has used time allocation and closure at the same rate as the previous government did. CBC did an analysis of the two-year period of this government and found that the government managed to get 23 bills passed through the House of Commons and used time allocation and closure 23 times.

The previous government used time allocation double the number of times that the current government has done, but the previous government had double the number of bills that the current government has introduced into the House and adopted in the House. Therefore, if the government has used time allocation to a lesser extent in terms of absolute numbers than did the previous government, it is only because it has had a much lighter legislative agenda.

The second point I would make is that back in 2015, the Prime Minister and his party promised to do politics differently and promised to limit the use of closure and time allocation. Clearly, that has not happened.

[Committees of the House, June 16th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present our supplementary report.

[Financial Institutions, June 16th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, just a couple of years ago, Global Affairs Canada advised the government that the bank is an example of how Beijing “promotes perspectives on governance, economic security, and human rights that diverge in fundamental ways from Canada’s.”

Just two years ago, the finance committee recommended that the government withdraw from the bank. Moreover, former solicitor general and Liberal finance chair Wayne Easter said that the recommendation should “serve as a ‘wake up and smell the roses’ moment” for the government.

When will the Prime Minister heed the advice of Global Affairs Canada, heed the advice of senior Liberals and withdraw Canada from the bank?

[Financial Institutions, June 16th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the resignation of a Canadian executive from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank confirms what we have long been saying. The bank is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party to spread its authoritarian model of governance throughout the Indo-Pacific region. The bank has said that it is willing to lend to Myanmar's military junta, which has been targeting the Rohingya minority, and there are suggestions that it is willing to resume lending to Russia.

What more proof does the government need to conclude that this bank runs contrary to Canada's interests and values?

[Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders, June 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, as a lifelong Conservative, I supported Speaker Milliken's rulings regarding the right of this place to order the production of documents, with respect to the Afghan detainee issue, as well as a committee of the House demanding information about the cost of the justice reforms that have been proposed by the government and the cost of the new F-35 jets. I supported them then and I support them now.

Today, as a Conservative, I support the continuation of this House in a way that does not diminish its efficacy, in a way that ends hybrid Parliament at some point, as all other western democracies have already done.

[Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders, June 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question and for sharing his perspective with us. This is a very important point.

To this point, generally speaking, permanent changes to the Standing Orders of this chamber have been done on a consensual basis, involving support among all the parties of the House. There have been exceptions to that rule, but they were rare.

I think the government is setting a dangerous precedent here in proposing this change without the consent of the second-largest party in this place, the official opposition. I think it is a very dangerous precedent that does not bode well for future changes to this place.

For that reason, I do not think the change should be made permanent. I think that there would be a consensus among all recognized parties in the House to have hybrid Parliament go on but to have a sunset clause, where it would expire at the end of this Parliament.

[Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders, June 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the voting app is actually driving people out of this place.

If there are two votes to take place in this chamber, they take at least 20 to 24 minutes. If one is using the voting app, one can literally take about 30 seconds of those 24 minutes to vote. If one sits in the chamber, one actually cannot do certain things while the voting takes place, across those two votes. One cannot, for example, be on a phone call with somebody else. One cannot be doing something other than what one is permitted to do in the House.

The voting app, perversely, is actually driving members out of the chamber. This is why these sorts of measures need to be ended and sunsetted, as has been done in other western democracies.

[Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders, June 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Barrie—Innisfil.

This House is struggling to fulfill its constitutional role. It is struggling to hold the government accountable. Over the last several years, the House has tried to hold the government accountable on various matters where it has clearly failed in the discharge of its responsibilities. I would like to give a couple of examples to illustrate my point.

Four years ago, on July 5, 2019, two government scientists were escorted out of the government's microbiology lab in Winnipeg by the RCMP. They were reportedly walked out of the lab because of national security breaches, but what exact breaches occurred were not known. When that story broke, this House tried to do its job and find out exactly what happened.

A committee of this House began to investigate, asked for documents from the government and put in place measures to ensure that those documents would be held under lock and key to prevent anything injurious to national security from being released. However, instead of giving documents to this House, the government thumbed its nose at the committee. It refused to hand over the documents, so the committee escalated its request and issued an order to the government for the documents. The government defied the order of the committee for the documents.

Ultimately, this House and its committee issued four orders ordering the government to hand over the documents concerning the national security breaches at the Winnipeg lab. Not only did the government defy those four orders, it took the Speaker to court. The Speaker stood up to defend the rights of members in this House and indicated that the Speaker was going to fight the government in court, but before any of that could take place, the Prime Minister advised the dissolution of this place and, along with that, the four orders of this House were dissolved.

Now we have an extra-parliamentary committee, a committee that sits outside of this place, which is reviewing these documents. Members like me have no access to that process or those documents. Having initiated an inquiry in this House, this House has been unable to get to the bottom of what happened at the Winnipeg lab and, therefore, has been unable to hold the government accountable.

More recently, a similar situation occurred. When the story broke last November 7 that the government knew for years that Beijing was conducting foreign interference operations targeting our elections and involving this democratic institution, this House and its committees began to uphold their constitutional role. They began to ask questions in this House and to conduct studies in committees to find out exactly what happened.

Despite the passage of eight months, we have found out little. All we have received are heavily redacted documents, scraps of information here and there and nothing that will lead us to a definitive conclusion. Most of the information we have received has come from outside Parliament, from media reports. Most of what we have gotten from the government is a mountain of process outside Parliament; NSICOP, NSIRA and the special rapporteur, all of which are appointed by and accountable to the Prime Minister.

We have gotten so desperate that we are willing to support the establishment of an independent public inquiry outside of Parliament so that we can get answers as to what happened. While this inquiry would stand outside of Parliament, at least it would be independent and would have all the powers that this House supposedly has to call for witnesses, to order the production of documents and to get to the bottom of who knew what and when. At least a public inquiry would hold the government accountable. We should aspire to a Parliament that can do the work we are punting to a public inquiry, and that leads me to the motion in front of the House today.

The House of Commons is the only national democratic institution there is in Canada. The introduction of this motion will diminish a place that is already struggling to fulfill its constitutional role: to hold the government accountable. Hybrid Parliament has made this House and its committees less efficient. Our output has declined. Here is one example. Votes in this place before hybrid Parliament used to take eight minutes. They now take at least 10 minutes and, in many cases, 12 minutes. At 12 minutes, votes take fully 50% more time than they did before hybrid Parliament.

I have counted and last year we had 227 votes. If we multiply that by four minutes per vote, it is 15 hours of lost time, almost two days of sittings. In 2019, the first full day before the pandemic, we had 403 votes. If we multiply that by four minutes lost per vote, it is 26 hours of lost time. That is three or four sitting days of this House.

This is but one example of the inefficiencies a hybrid Parliament is creating. Others are time lost because of microphone checks, technology failures and the cancellation of committee meetings due to a lack of technology resources.

All of these things have led to a less efficient Parliament and a reduction in the work we do here.

The Canada-China committee has been cancelled three times in the past four weeks because of the technology limitations of a hybrid Parliament. It is one of the most important committees of this House, which is doing work on the relationship between Canada and the People's Republic of China.

More important than all of that is the loss of the magnificence of this place and its committees when we meet in person, when all eyes are on the other, watching the cut and thrust of debate, watching government officials testifying in person at committee and watching how Canadians' representatives are standing up for the things they believe in. That is why we are investing $5 billion in the buildings of this place. That is why the fathers of Confederation spent vast sums of money they did not have building Parliament Hill; they understood the importance of meeting in person. They could have built much more modest buildings than they did, out of wood or fieldstone, but they did not. They understood the importance of interacting with others in person.

The tyranny of technology is to turn us all virtual. We must resist. We are the only major western democracy that still has a hybrid Parliament and now the government is proposing to make it permanent. The U.K. House of Commons ended hybrid sittings on July 22, 2021, two years ago. The U.S. House of Representatives ended hybrid sittings on January 9 of this year. The Australian Parliament ended hybrid sittings on July 25 of last year. Only the current government is proposing to make hybrid sittings permanent.

The French National Assembly never had hybrid sittings. In fact, in April of 2021, the French Constitutional Council declared a proposal from the assembly unconstitutional because the measures were not precise enough. That proposal would have modified the assembly's rules of procedure in order to allow for remote participation in plenary and committee meetings under exceptional circumstances.

In our Constitution, the Constitution Act, 1867, section 48 requires the presence of a certain number of members in this place for this House to meet. The framers of our Constitution thought it so important that a certain number of members be present in person for this House to meet that they put it into the Constitution. They did not allow members to “mail it in”, as one could do in those days, to allow this House to meet.

I will finish by saying this. We already sit far less than national legislatures in other western democracies. The U.S. House of Representatives typically sits between 164 and 192 days a year. The U.K. House of Commons typically sits between 146 and 162 days a year. We only sit 129 days a year.

We also sit far less than we used to. We used to sit 160 to 170 days a year during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. During the Pearson era, when Parliament was so effective in dealing with framework legislation on major initiatives like the Canada pension plan, our public health care system and the national flag, the House sat 160 to 170 days a year, eight weeks longer than the 26 weeks we sit today.

The motion in front of us today will further weaken and diminish this place. Therefore, I urge all members to vote against this motion.