Madam Speaker, first I would like to thank the member for Richmond Hill for sharing his time with me. It is always wonderful to work with him as part of a team.
I rise to speak to Bill C-21. This legislation, after dying on the order paper when the Prime Minister decided to prorogue Parliament last year, is finally being revived by the government. This bill is so important and has such an urgency because of the trail of victims that white collar crime has scattered across North America in recent years.
In the United States the infamous Bernie Madoff, while serving as a stockbroker, an investment adviser and a non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Market, operated the largest Ponzi scheme in history, ripping off thousands of investors for more than $65 billion.
Canada has also had its share of fraud. The highest profile case came to light last year in Montreal. Earl Jones took more than $50 million from dozens of victims in a 20-year long Ponzi scheme. The victims included his own brother to the tune of $1 million.
For too long white collar criminals have received only slaps on the wrist for their crimes. In 2007 there were 88,286 incidents of fraud in Canada. Of those cases, approximately 11% of those responsible were found guilty for their actions. Of that 11%, only 35% received jail sentences and over 60% received probation or a lesser penalty.
The rate of conviction and record of punishment is unacceptable. Because these individuals do not use a gun or a knife, in the past they have been treated with kid gloves. This is absolutely ridiculous because the impact of these crimes is often far more damaging than a simple assault. We are talking about people whose entire life savings, their long-term plans for retirement, their hopes and dreams for the rest of their lives have been taken away from them.
We are dealing with a class of criminals that have no regard for their victims. If a potential victim has to take a mortgage on his or her house to invest in a sure bet, get-rich quick scheme, no problem. How about a senior who has spent 50 years saving for retirement only to have his or her trust broken by someone who guarantees that the senior will never have to worry about his or her money again. Maybe it is a young couple who have saved for their children's education and who are taken advantage of because of their hope to build a better life for their son or daughter.
These are the kinds of stories that have been emerging from these massive frauds for years. They also represent the people who have watched their fraudsters walk over the justice system without any kind of adequate penalty or restitution.
Bill C-21 is a good start toward correcting these voids in our system. It proposes a minimum two-year jail term for fraud over $1 million, and it proposes additional aggravating factors for sentencing. It proposes consideration for victims' impact statements and requires consideration of imposing restitution for victims. It proposes to allow the court to prohibit an offender from assuming any position, volunteer or paid, that involves handling other people's money or property.
I would like to point out that many of these ideas emerged from this side of the House when a group of Liberal MPs from Quebec met with the Earl Jones victims committee and presented nine immediate action items. The spokesperson for the group stated that the Liberal MPs presented for the first time a concrete plan. From the very beginning the Liberal Party has pledged that we will co-operate with the government on the bill in terms of input and fast passage.
Once again, if the House had not been prorogued by the Prime Minister, we would already have a law in place to protect Canadians. Nonetheless, on this side of the House we are pleased to see that the government chose to reintroduce the legislation this past spring.
I would like to make some clarifications of my support for the bill. I would point out the necessity for the bill in its current form to go to the committee stage for scrutiny. There are some huge holes that must be addressed.
Sentencing is important, but so too are the investigations and preventive measures that can be taken before crimes even occur.
Investigators across the country are under-resourced badly and in spite of calls for more funding, the government has ignored this aspect of tightening things up.
Parole for white collar crimes has not been addressed in any way, leaving it unclear whether the fraudster deserves jail time or should go back into the community.
Finally, the one-sixth accelerated parole provisions are outrageous, as they allow these criminals to serve a fraction of their sentence before being eligible for parole. The government has done nothing to correct this glaring error.
Those are the deficiencies in the bill that demonstrate how much work it needs before it becomes the law of the land.
In closing, this is a bill that is a long time coming and one which the Liberal Party was instrumental in helping to craft. For that reason, we are working with the government to get the legislation passed. That being said, we need to ensure that the bill is correct and airtight when it comes to the methods it prescribes for dealing with white collar crime.
This is why I am supporting sending the bill to committee for fine-tuning and improvement.
