Justice committee  First, as I said earlier, the two-year minimum mandatory sentence probably will be, in some cases, a very strong deterrent for some individuals. Others, who are definitely committed to doing large-scale fraud, may commit to that fraud anyway, regardless of whatever minimums are o

Justice committee  Yes, it's not clear; I think it would require a clarification of whether it is only section 380 or whether it is... Right now I'm assuming it is only section 380--

Justice committee  --the general fraud provision. But I would assume for any major fraud that's over $1 million, for consistency in application, I think there would be value in considering that.

Justice committee  Yes, that is correct. Almost in all cases there would be a section 380 charge of fraud that would accompany it. So it would be covered in that regard.

Justice committee  The mandate is primarily any type of investigation related to capital market fraud, so it could be directly related to the stock exchanges located in those cities. A lot of that type of activity would occur primarily in those cities, and that's why those units were set up in thos

Justice committee  The short answer is, yes, we can follow the money. Obviously the number of cases we can do are limited by the resources we have. However, you hit on a key component of money laundering, and that is establishing a legitimate business and integrating your illegal proceeds from crim

Justice committee  Certainly. I look forward to that opportunity. I'll give you just a 30-second history. They were created in 2003. As with any new unit being created, there were a lot of challenges. You have to do everything from going out to identify individual staff, to getting locations, to b

Justice committee  I would assume they would react positively. Minimum mandatory sentencing has the potential to be a good deterrent for those committing the crimes. But at the same time, victims would expect at least a minimum consistent consequence for anyone carrying out fraudulent activity of t

Justice committee  A short answer is that we'll be able to do a better job of identifying and forfeiting proceeds generated from the criminal activity. In the current regime, this is forfeited to the government. In respect of its restitution potential, I'm not sure how the mechanics would work. But

Justice committee  I can't say definitively. I guess what I would be able to say, though, with any degree of accuracy, in answer to whether organized crime is involved in some of these activities, is definitely. We haven't gone out to study exactly to what extent. I guess it comes back to what I m

Justice committee  I don't think there's any definitive evidence of what that amount should be. I think it would be safe to say that there is a lot of fraudulent activity happening that collectively would be in excess of $1 million. As Superintendent Foster just said on mass marketing fraud, for

Justice committee  I would say a bit of both, but definitely a rise in the level of occurrences. Especially with the increase in technology, committing a lot of fraudulent activity today is so easy, and it's very lucrative. When we talk about the mass marketing frauds, for example, what before woul

Justice committee  In terms of tools for that, I think we have largely what we need. Where we're trying to put a lot of emphasis right now is in the area of education and prevention. I say enforcement is very costly; the better we can do at educating and awareness to prevent these crimes, the great

Justice committee  If we have evidence of their participation, certainly we... That's the key part of our investigation now, whether or not an individual may have knowledge that something is going on. They may have knowledge. They may have no role at all, in terms of participating in criminal activ

Justice committee  Again, it depends on their potential or actual involvement in the particular fraud or criminal activity. It would come down to a very specific case. We'd look at that case and the evidence, together with the prosecutor, as well. Obviously, they would have some determination in lo