Bill C-21 (Historical)

Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to
(a) provide a mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment for a term of two years for fraud with a value that exceeds one million dollars;
(b) provide additional aggravating factors for sentencing;
(c) create a discretionary prohibition order for offenders convicted of fraud to prevent them from having authority over the money or real property of others;
(d) require consideration of restitution for victims of fraud; and
(e) clarify that the sentencing court may consider community impact statements from a community that has been harmed by the fraud.

Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-21. While it has been a bit of time since we talked about the bill, perhaps I will give an overview.

Bill C-21 has been put together to address the issues of white-collar crime. It behooves us to reflect a little on how white-collar crime has changed since generations of our constituents and, in fact, generations in Parliament.

The nature of white-collar crimes then were equated with the proverbial jokes associated with the door-to-door vacuum salesmen or whatever. I say that in a manner of juxtaposing, not in levity. The nature of Ponzi schemes are quite different. They involve the manipulation of shares and pyramid type sales. They victimize citizens of all ages, in particular those citizens who are not familiar with up-to-date technologies.

I am reminded of this. In my constituency, even as late as yesterday, calls were coming into my office with respect to seniors being met at the door by people who wanted to look at their water heaters. Then they tried to get them to enter into agreements to replace the heaters. Some people signed on the dotted line only to find the scheme dramatically raised their charges. There are legal implications involved and very serious things happen.

We need to look at our constituencies and ensure we have a legislated regime in place that is understandable. They need to know the kinds of technology and the victimization used. Only a few months ago the government brought forward legislation aimed at looking at the kind of technology used and the type and extent of victimization, where seniors, in particular, were robbed of the ownership to their homes. They had been tracked for months through the interception of their mail. Their accounts were skewed and the banks were unfortunately transferring ownership of their properties. They were duped and victimized in a manner that we could never really understand perhaps 20 or 30 years ago. However, with the kind of technology and the criminal insights used, victims of all age categories are subjected to these kinds of things.

With that background, I am pleased to respond to Bill C-21. I will give an overview of the bill and then I will look at perhaps some of the shortcomings where the bill could have been firmed up even a little more. Perhaps in the future it will be.

The bill includes a mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment for two years for fraud valued at more than $1 million. It provides additional aggravating factors for sentencing. It requires consideration of restitution for victims, allows sentencing courts to consider community impact statements, to issue prohibition orders, preventing convicted persons from transacting property and money of others.

We are in favour of the bill, but it does not go far enough and I will try to elaborate a little on that.

We believe the amendments put forward by our party, which were not accepted by the combined opposition, the government and the other two parties, would have strengthened the legislation. As illustrations of that, the Liberals proposed that mandatory minimum sentences of two years should apply to practices such as market manipulation of shares and Ponzi schemes.

The bill does not do enough to eliminate accelerated parole review for white-collar criminals. Canadians investors, especially seniors, do not deserve to be victimized by white-collar criminals. They deserve better than what the government has presented through this bill.

The principles behind the stricter sentencing rules are important, but they are not enough to prevent frauds from happening. Sentencing is important, but prevention, as has been said many times with respect to the criminal justice system, is equally as important in white-collar crime. We would like the government to consider why it has not used this opportunity, as it has in the past, to do more with respect to prevention.

Finally, although we are glad to see the legislation, we also call on the government to act on white-collar crime, as it has been overdue for years.

I will go through a few of the shortcomings of the bill.

While we support the bill on stricter sentencing guidelines, we are concerned it is too narrow in scope to truly be effective in the full spectrum of fraud with which it attempts to deal. The bill does not limit early parole for those crimes and it does not address the lack of police resources currently allocated for white-collar fraud. As I said before, we put forward amendments that were aimed at strengthening the bill by extending the two-year minimum sentence provisions to practices such as market manipulation of shares and Ponzi schemes. The amendments were rejected by the other parties.

The legislation was introduced in response to high profile white-collar crimes, including Norbourg Financial Group and the Earl Jones issue in Quebec. In the wake of the Madoff Ponzi scheme's revelations in the United States, many Canadian investors have grown increasingly concerned about this type of white-collar fraud.

Other than the title, the bill is the same as Bill C-52, which was introduced during the previous session, but died at prorogation.

What are the major components of the bill?

The bill introduces mandatory minimum sentences of two years for fraud involving over $1 million, regardless of the number of victims. It specifies aggravating factors to be considered at sentencing, including the psychological and financial impacts of victims, the age and health of victims, as well as the magnitude and duration of the fraud. It requires the court to indicate what mitigating and aggravating factors were considered relating to the sentence.

It allows the court to prohibit an offender from assuming any other position, volunteer or paid, that involves handling other people's money. It goes without saying that is highly desirable. It requires the judge to consider the whole manner of restitution, which is the repayment to victims where possible, and it requires judges to consider community impact statements.

Generally speaking, it is interesting to juxtapose a cross-section of stakeholder reaction with respect to this bill. It has been mixed. Victim groups have been lobbying the government to strengthen white collar criminal provisions. Some have expressed the view that the bill falls short because it fails to address the accelerated parole review rule.

The Canadian Bar Association has expressed its opposition to the bill, citing that it would increase pressures on an already taxed criminal justice system and does not improve on what is already available in the Criminal Code. It also opposes the mandatory minimum sentences in favour of judicial discretion at sentencing.

From a policing perspective, however, the RCMP has expressed its support for the bill, indicating a mandatory sentence for such crimes has the potential to be used as a deterrent. In spite of what I said earlier, the RCMP takes that position.

In terms of amendments, as I mentioned rather obliquely before, the Liberal justice critic introduced an amendment in committee that would add market manipulation of stock prices, shares, merchandise, or anything that is offered for sale to the public to the definition of what could be punishable by a two-year minimum sentence. The amendment failed in committee as the government, Bloc and NDP voted against it.

The Liberal justice critic also recommended that an amendment be introduced to modify the Corrections and Conditional Release Act in order to eliminate the one-sixth accelerated parole review rule for white collar criminals. This amendment was ruled out of order by the committee chair and was subsequently upheld on a challenge with the support of the Bloc.

A technical amendment, however, was adopted with support by all the parties. The amendment would require the court to issue an explanation of a restitution order only when a victim seeks restitution and the court decides not to make such an order. The amendment addresses concerns by the Canadian Bar Association to relieve some pressures on an already taxed system.

In my overview of the legislation, I indicated the type of victimization that occurs. I also talked about enforcement and what the government has in place in response to the issue that was raised. In terms of integrated market enforcement teams, these IMETs under the program have been put in place, funded through the RCMP. They are operational in four of Canada's major financial centres and their mandate is to investigate and lay charges for serious Criminal Code offences involving capital markets.

While the legislation does not, in the Liberal Party's view, go far enough with respect to that kind of victimization that takes place under the Criminal Code with respect to shares and Ponzi schemes, there actually is an enforcement regime in place called the IMET program. According to the 2007-08 IMET annual report, the program's total budget increased from $13 million in fiscal 2005 to $18 million in fiscal 2008 and is approximately $30 million today.

The investigations indicate how important it is that we deal with this particular issue.

In 2008-09, 17 individuals were charged with almost 1,000 counts and 5 individuals were convicted. Their sentences ranged from 39 months to 13 years.

According to the RCMP's 2009-10 Report on Plans and Priorities, it is anticipated that annual funding of $30 million will be allocated in the fiscal year to support the investigation and prosecution of fraud offences.

I posit that the investigative processes and the teams are in place.

According to the statistics, a compelling case could be made for focusing additional attention, which the bill does not, on this kind of crime involving shares and Ponzi schemes and so on.

An adult criminal court survey, which collects information on appearances, charges laid and so on with respect to this kind of fraud, found that a prison sentence was imposed in almost 4,000 cases in 2008. In the same year a conditional sentence was imposed in nearly 1,000 cases. Probation was given in 6,000 cases. Fines were levied in 1,200 cases. Restitution was granted in nearly 2,000 cases. Other sentences were imposed.

These statistics do not provide details on the monetary value of the fraud or the type of fraud, which can include securities-related fraud, such as Ponzi schemes, insider trading, accounting frauds that overstate the value of securities, as well as mass marketing fraud, mortgage and real estate fraud and many other deceptive practices.

I only include these statistics to indicate that as the bill was going through committee, the statistics were available and the issue with respect to share manipulation was not addressed and is not addressed in the bill. The bill could have been improved had the opposition's amendments been accepted.

Despite the lack of statistics, in the bill, sentences are imposed on fraud over $1 million. Before and after Parliament's introduction of conditional sentences, a case of large scale fraud by persons in a position of trust have typically resulted in substantial jail sentences. The range has been estimated at between 4 to 15 years for large scale fraud although a sentence of less than two years and conditional sentences have been imposed where there have been important mitigating factors.

Clause 3 of the bill adds four aggravating circumstances which we believe improve the situation that I have referred to. Those circumstances are: the magnitude, complexity, duration and degree of the fraud; the offence had a significant impact on the victims; the offender did not comply with licensing requirements or professional standards; and, the offender concealed or destroyed records related to the fraud or the disbursement of the proceeds of the fraud. That will substantially improve the legislation that presently exists.

For that reason we are in favour of the legislation. We do however rest our case on the fact that an expansion of the bill could have dealt better with share and stock manipulation and the kind of Ponzi schemes that have victimized thousands of people.

The House resumed from December 14 consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), be read the third time and passed.

Standing Up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and always a pleasure to speak to any bill that come before Parliament, particularly this bill, which has been a long time in the period of gestation. It began as Bill C-52. One would have hoped it would have had time to morph into a bill that was somewhat more acceptable, but Bill C-21 is still very much the same bill that was brought to us some time ago.

There has been criticism that the opposition parties have delayed the passing of the bill, but, as we all know, it was the government's own action of having introduced the bill and then, last December 30, taking the tremendous liberty of proroguing the House and causing all the legislation that had previously introduced to simply fall off the order paper. The government brought back a new bill. Even though it had supposedly been recalibrated during that time, the bill was virtually identical to the bill it had originally presented.

As part of its overall supposed tough on crime agenda, the government has attempted to tackle this crime but with only a very limited effectiveness.

As most members know, we will support the bill, but it is with some difficulty that we take those steps. We know the bill, while it will probably not cause a great deal of damage, as many of the government's other bills do, it will not be effective in tackling the problem it purports to tackle.

This problem we are talking about is not simply an issue. It is about real people who have trusted their life savings and their very lives into the hands of people who have abused that trust. These people have taken their money and have invested it in schemes that have been fraudulent in nature. This has often resulted in them being left in the care of their families, or friends or on public welfare rolls. This is a serious problem that requires serious attention, not simply window dressing.

Bill C-21 will probably cause no more harm than is already in the system, but it will not be effective. It will not reduce the incidence of this type of crime. Nor will it provide more resources to the prosecution of this kind of crime. Unless we stop the crime before it happens or, failing that, prosecute those who are criminally involved in fraudulent activities, it does not matter whether we have mandatory minimums or various other aspects of this that the bill purports to add to our Criminal Code. It will not help the people who the government says it will help.

The government is fond of saying that it has a bias toward victims and is against the criminals. Everyone in the House has a bias against those who commit crimes and a bias for those who are victims of crime. Whether those a crimes against their person, against their property or against their life savings, every member of the House cares about it. As the government presents its so-called tough on crime agenda, no one can take seriously any longer that it is truly trying to address crime.

This summer I had the opportunity of doing a fair amount of canvassing through the different neighbourhoods of my riding of Don Valley West. About this time, the President of the Treasury Board announced that the government was planning to spend $9 billion on new jails. He baffled most of us who care about reducing crime when he referred to a dated survey about so-called unreported crime. While all statistics continue to point to a slow but steady reduction in crime rates in the country, the President of the Treasury Board pointed to this survey to justify building more and bigger jails.

This is the obvious question. In the event of an unreported crime who exactly will go to jail? If that cannot be answered, then his rhetoric is another example of ideology over reason, fiction over fact and policy based evidence rather than evidence based policy.

It is certain that Canadians care about all kinds of crime, including white-collar crime. While canvassing in Leaside, York Mills and Don Mills, a number of residents raised issues of vandalism, property crime, auto theft, personal violence and fraudulent white-collar crime as well.

Flemingdon Park residents expressed concerns about separate violent incidents that left people feeling personally threatened. Residents in Thorncliffe Park noted an increase in graffiti and vandalism in the community garden. Northlea residents expressed concerns about traffic safety and the high accident rate.

However, statistics show that crime prevention strategies and especially community policing, good education, programs that strengthen family life and a stronger social safety net do more to stop crime, all sorts of crime, than the building of megajails or than bills that have cute, trendy titles as though the government is actually doing something serious about crime.

One Don Valley West resident was eloquent when he said to me, “A bigger prison won't stop my car from being stolen and the higher insurance rates that come along with that. We have to find ways to stop the crime before it's even contemplated”. This means taking a look at the whole of the fabric of our social safety net, about the fabric of society, about the way we fund education and health care, the way we deal with people who are poor, or people who have committed one crime and how we help them get back into society to make meaningful lives and contribute to our communities.

Ironically the work that was called upon by the President of the Treasury Board was done by Statistics Canada just as the government was planning changes to the census, which has been decried by experts around the world. To govern this complex, constantly changing country, more information about crime, not less, is essential. Reason and intelligence should never be replaced by fear and ignorance when it comes to any sort of policy making.

Equally essential, when dealing with crime, is listening to the experts. The government is loathe to bring in experts to talk about what it is we need to do to fight all kinds of crime, including white-collar crime. The government does not want to listen to the chiefs of police across the country when it comes to talking about a long gun registry. I do not know who Conservatives consulted when they came up with this bill, but I know that when I talk to police officers and regulators who deal with these kinds of crimes, they tell me they do not have the resources to have effective, constant prosecution of the kinds of crime.

It does not matter whether minimum mandatory sentences are instituted if we do not prosecute the criminals. If we do not have the resources to go out and get the bad guys, then we cannot impose mandatory minimum sentences. It is like building megaprisons for unreported crime. These crimes may in fact be reported, but they are not prosecuted. Whether it is unreported crime or unprosecuted crime, the government is not taking crime seriously. It is window dressing, it is slogan making and it is simple electioneering, which constantly goes on.

When it gets to actually dealing with crime, I think what Canadians want is a smart, strong response from our government, from our police forces and from the judiciary. This year I was part of a party that supported many of the projects of law that the government offered us because parts of our system had grown lax. However, the overwhelming mandate of our judicial and corrections systems still must be the rehabilitation and reintegration into community of those who have committed crimes. We are not going to change crime rates in our country and further reduce them without a sense of stopping the crimes before they happen. If they have happened, we rehabilitate the criminals so they do not offend again. This is common sense. This is about making a stronger society. This is about actually doing something positive and about making our world a better place.

As a member last year of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I toured federal prisons across the country. I was appalled at the poor mental health capacity at all facilities, the lack of programming for inmates and the fact that more inmates left with drug and alcohol addictions than came in with them. Think about the fact that when people enter jails, they are healthier than when they get out. When they enter jails, they come with certain problems, but they are exacerbated by their life in prison. The mental health capacity, the alcohol and drug treatment capacity is simply too limited to actual criminals who will, even if we have mandatory minimum sentences, get out of jail one day. They will be back on the streets in our communities. If we do not take the time to help them, they will be in trouble.

We have a government that talks about a thicker border with the United States. The government cannot keep drugs and alcohol out of our jails, out of maximum security prisons with thick walls already, yet we expect it to actually stop the drug trade from coming across the border from the United States.

The reality is that we have problems in our prisons, we have problems in our communities, and this kind of law-making does not further our goal of making a better Canada, better families and better communities. It takes a reasoned approach. It actually looks at evidence and bases policy in real facts and real evidence and has a sense that we work with human nature and we actually believe that we can be a better human race.

We obviously have to have incentives in those systems. We actually have to have a way to make our world a better place, and I think we tried to do some of that in committee as a party when we were offering some amendments to this bill.

Building superjails for unconvicted criminals of unreported crimes, adding mandatory minimums without providing resources for prosecution, attempting to solve a problem that is complex and involves several levels of government with a simple bill with a cute title is not good governance. We need to support stopping crime at a community level, in our school systems, with a sense that what we are doing is about making a better society.

Smart on crime is truly tough on crime, and this bill is simply not smart enough on crime. Yes, we will be supporting it. Yes, we will add our vote to it to get it off the table so that we can actually get on to some more important work, but the government needs to hear the lack of enthusiasm we have in this. It needs to hear that we think it could have been a better bill.

We think a mandatory minimum without truly a system of restitution is actually going to be a problem. We have to find better ways of saying to the elderly or to the young in our society who lose their life savings to a fraudster that we are going to find a way, through a banking system that is more effective, through checks and balances all through our regulatory bodies, to get some of that money back.

If there is a fraud that is $27 million in nature and there are several hundred people who have actually lost their savings in that scheme, that money, I am quite convinced, did not disappear. We have to figure out where that money is. If that money has gone into the international banking system, we have to find a way to build a system that Canada is part of, that can actually take this issue seriously and find where that money has gone, so that it can go back to the people who were originally the losers in the fraud scheme.

That, of course, would take an international stature. That would actually take a prime minister and a minister of finance who knew their way around the international tables of this country, of this world. We would have to have the kind of status and stature in the world where the other nations at the United Nations would give us a seat on the Security Council, where they would respect us because of our standing on climate change, on border security, on our role in peacekeeping missions around the world, or on our diplomatic ability to actually solve the problems that need to be solved.

It is that kind of government that can actually effect a change, find the money and get it back to Canadians who need to have true restitution of what they lost. They need to have a recovery.

What this bill lacks is a true sense of where the victim is. If the crime is of a personal nature or a physical nature, or if someone has been killed or hurt, it is impossible to restore that person to where he was or she was before the crime happened. This is not an impossibility. This bill, frankly, is only about money, which is not hard to restore to the person who has lost it. The government needs to know where it is, though, and it needs to find ways to do it.

What is lacking in this is not only the international scope but even within the federalism of Canada. What this bill also requires to be effective is a system where Canada works more effectively with the provinces to understand where the jurisdictional interplay is in the various regulatory systems that affect Canada.

Obviously, if I am in a regulated profession that is part of a provincial jurisdiction and I am going to be disciplined, the federal government needs to find a way to co-operate with the provinces and territories. That means sitting around a table with them.

When is the last time there was a first ministers' conference? When is the last time we had the premiers and the Prime Minister of this country gather together and deal with some of these important issues: financial issues, economic issues, building a country, safety issues, public security issues and how it is that we gather together our federal resources with a federal vision, which my party believes in if there is a place for the federal government to be involved in the aspects that we are given responsibility for, and to work with provinces and territories in the areas where they are given responsibility?

This takes a certain style of government that is co-operative, that likes to listen, that likes to add value and knows that others will add value at the same time. That is what is sadly lacking in this bill.

Liberals proposed several amendments to this bill that I think we need to be sure are on the record, that we were not able to accomplish. We wanted to strengthen the bill. We may be the official opposition, but we are also a party of constructive criticism. We will take a bill and try to strengthen it, try to make it better, try to actually help it accomplish what it was supposed to accomplish.

The Liberal justice critic introduced an amendment at committee that would add market manipulation of stock prices, shares, merchandise or anything else that is offered for sale to the public, through the definition of what could be punished by the mandatory minimum sentence. The amendment failed at committee, with the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP all voting against it. It would have expanded the scope of this legislation to make it possible to go into other areas of economic activity that absolutely needed to be considered.

The Liberal justice critic also recommended that an amendment be introduced to modify the Corrections and Conditional Release Act in order to eliminate the one-sixth accelerated parole review rule for white collar criminals. This amendment was ruled out of order by the chair and that was subsequently upheld on a challenge, due to support from the Bloc Québécois.

One would have to ask why. The reality is that Liberals were attempting to make an important amendment that we felt was within the broad scope of this bill, that was not out of character with it and could actually make it more effective. Unfortunately, the Bloc Québécois did not support that.

Yes, indeed, a technical amendment by the Liberal Party was adopted. This amendment, supported by the opposition parties, requires that the court would issue an explanation of a restitution order only when a victim seeks restitution and the court decides not to make such an order. This amendment addresses concerns that were raised by the Canadian Bar Association to relieve some pressures on an already taxed criminal justice system.

Liberals want to find a way to make legislation work. Legislation needs to be more than advertisements. It needs to be more than signs that are placed in front of projects as though the government is actually doing something. We will come back to this legislation when we are in power. We will have an omnibus return-to-sanity bill that will look at the kinds of things that were done. We are going to try to find a way to fix the things that were inappropriate and take the things that we hope would be effective but will probably be proven to have not made the kinds of differences that the government promised.

We will come back to these issues. It was the last Liberal government that brought in the first changes to make sure that white collar crime was taken seriously. We are a party that cares about crime. We are a party that actually wants to reduce crime. We are a party that wants to rehabilitate criminals. We are a party that is aware that no matter how long people are sentenced for, they will one day get out, and if they get out in worse condition than when they went in, our streets, homes, villages and cities are not safer. They are simply not better.

The government needs to know that no matter how long people are locked up for, one day they will be once again living in our neighbourhoods and once again committing crimes if they have not had the kind of care, treatment and effective programming that will help them rehabilitate themselves. We in the Liberal Party actually believe in humans and the human ability to restore ourselves, to make our communities better, and that we can move from poor behaviour to better behaviour.

We actually think there is a chance for redemption, if I can use that word at this season, for individuals. There is possibly even redemption for political parties, and we would pray for that as well.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), be read the third time and passed.

Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I put a few words on the record with regard to Bill C-21.

I want to pick up on the point on which the previous speaker concluded his comments. He asked who is being affected when we pass this type of legislation. We need to put it into perspective for those individuals who are affected by Ponzi schemes or things of that nature.

Not that long ago we had an issue in Manitoba, and the member for Elmwood—Transcona would be very familiar with it, where a great number of Manitobans, 33,000 plus, invested in the Crocus share fund. I am not trying to say there were illegal activities, but I would suggest that more transparency through criminal laws such as this could save thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of dollars.

I want to reflect on the Crocus fund. Back in the 1990s the government of the day wanted to see more investment coming into the province, so it created this fund and promoted it among individuals living in the province of Manitoba. There were tax breaks and so forth. It went off quite well. When it kicked off, there were hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. There was a great level of interest from average Manitobans. It went along reasonably well until 2000 and 2001. At that point in time, we are not sure exactly what took place. There seemed to be a great deal of secrecy. Where was some of this money being spent? There were a great deal of questions. It became a fairly controversial issue by 2003-04 to the degree that the fund was actually frozen.

I raise this issue because of the number of people it affected. Hundreds of millions of dollars were lost. Over 33,000 Manitobans, many of whom invested retirement funds into that fund, suffered literally thousands and thousands of dollars in losses on an individual basis. I had the opportunity to meet with many of the individuals and heard about the problems those losses incurred. They had believed in good faith that what they were doing was for the right reason.

Indirectly the government was supporting this fund. It was helping in terms of creating jobs. Investment funds at the best of times can be a challenge in some jurisdictions. They felt they were doing the right thing. The problem was there was a need for more transparency.

To what degree legislation of this nature could have had an impact, I am not too sure. I do not really understand the finer details of it, but what I do know is at the end of the day we are talking about trying to protect average Canadians who want to use investments as a way to ensure they will have a better retirement, as one of the possible venues in terms of getting money out.

Whether it is an investment fund like Crocus or these Ponzi schemes, I find it very difficult to understand how some individuals could try to con or fleece, or whatever word one might want to use, money from people. They exploit individuals, many of whom are seniors who have accrued money over the years in order to have a relatively decent lifestyle in their retirement. It is hard to comprehend how some individuals think they have the right to take actions of this nature.

It is one of the reasons it is important that we have legislation such as this to look at ways in which we can minimize the amount of white collar crime. One member mentioned the goal was to eliminate it. I do not believe we will ever be able to eliminate white collar crime but there are things we can do to make a difference.

A member mentioned that we should strive to have the best possible legislation. It interested me because it came from a member of the New Democratic Party. I was not in the committee at the time, but I believe the Liberal Party proposed an amendment which would have made this legislation that much better in terms of its strength. My understanding is it would have added into the legislation market manipulation of stock prices, shares, merchandise or anything that is offered for sale to the public. This would have made the legislation that much better. I do not understand why the government did not see the merit of that amendment.

Quite often governments want it to look as if they are the ones who are taking the action and do not want to act on good ideas that come from the opposition benches. I do not necessarily agree with that, but I can understand why there may be some resistance on the part of governments. They do not want to develop good ideas if they come from the opposition benches. It is unfortunate, but it is the reality.

I am told that the Bloc and the New Democratic Party did not see the merit and did not want to support the Liberal Party's amendment. That surprised me. I do not understand why those parties would oppose something of this nature. Had that amendment passed, it would be here today and the bill would be that much stronger in protecting the interests of victims. It is very important.

I have had the opportunity to have discussions with constituents who have experienced first-hand the loss of considerable sums of money because they had a certain element of faith and confidence in what they were being told. I have had that opportunity on many occasions. People do not take pride in the fact that they made a mistake and as a result lost thousands of dollars. People do not come forward to admit it when issues of this nature occur, but it does happen.

The individuals who have touched me the most in regard to schemes of this nature are those who are on a fixed income, those who had confidence in a system they thought would be there ultimately to protect their interests. At times the system does fail, unfortunately. We need to look at ways in which we can protect those interests. When I talk to seniors I often find that a disproportionate amount of their savings go toward different schemes that come up and are ultimately sold to them. They come in many different forms. It is easy to say that consumers should beware and they should read the fine print and so forth. I appreciate that. When people talk to me about the potential of investments, I am very careful in terms of what I say.

I am not, have never been and will never be a financial adviser but I am able to balance my personal chequebook. However, I will leave it at that and leave it with the professionals. However, I do caution people to be very careful, especially if they are on fixed incomes and going into their retirement years because, the end of the day, we need to do what we can in terms of protecting the funds of those who are on fixed incomes and are not in a position to get involved.

It is very difficult when something is sold to them in such a fashion that it gives the impression it is a no-lose situation, that they cannot go wrong by investing x number of dollars, and they are being sold this by someone who is a fairly smooth talker or coming in from an agency of different sorts. I can appreciate why many of the victims make some of those bad decisions.

What does Bill C-21 actually do? The most significant thing is that it does is it makes mandatory minimum sentences for those who are found guilty of defrauding the system in excess of $1 million. I for one see the value in terms of that. I believe it can be a meaningful way to ensure there is a detriment to committing a crime of this nature. I know that minimum sentences have been somewhat of a controversial issue. It is controversial because of the issue of judicial independence. A lot of the judicial system and the stakeholders affiliated with that love to leave the discretion with our courts. I can appreciate that and I understand why they would say that.

From my perspective and with the dialogue and consultations that I have had with my constituents, I have found that in certain situations there is room for mandatory minimum sentences. In looking at Bill C-21, I believe that is a reasonable component to have in this situation. Hopefully it will be effective in terms discouraging some from entering into this whole area. We will need to wait to see what happens but I do believe there is some value to it.

The bill would also require consideration for restitution for victims. As has been pointed out quite often, all it takes is making some individuals, some of the different stakeholders or individual companies that might have been a recipient of some of the funds, aware that it is a crime to manipulate, extort or get money out of the hands of seniors and others. Quite often, a responsible business or a corporation will make resources available to minimize the impact on victims.

Requiring our courts or our legal system to look at where it is possible for restitution is a positive thing. We have had experience, and going into the future I suspect I will make reference to some of my involvement with youth justice committees, as I already have, that restitution can be an effective tool in all aspects of law. I suspect that it is one of the ways in which we can ensure that the victims themselves are receiving something in return for what they have had to endure.

However, if there are ways in which we can somehow compensate victims through restitution, we need to move in that direction. I would have thought that would have already been in place, and I suspect that it was to a certain degree, but this is a bit better definition to ensure that it occurs. This will make a difference.

The bill would also allow courts to consider the possibility of community impact statements or would encourage the legal system to take them into consideration. I have always been a very strong advocate for restorative justice and this goes even one step further. I believe restorative justice is the most effective way to get victims to the table with the perpetrators to ultimately come up with a resolution that brings all parties a higher sense of justice. Restorative justice would be very difficult to achieve in this situation, but at the very least requiring, where possible, that there be community impact statements is a positive thing and it is something we should be moving toward.

In going through the bill, I noticed that the government did not really address the need for enforcement. We can bring in whatever type of legislation we want but if we are not prepared to enforce it and provide the resources necessary in order to monitor and discourage, it will not be as effective.

If we want to minimize white collar crime, we need to have a stronger presence in that whole area. I am not convinced, given the very nature of this particular crime, that the government has been overwhelmingly supportive of allocating additional resources to combat white collar crime. We can talk about getting tough on white collar crime by passing legislation of this nature, but until we are prepared to acknowledge the need to adequately resource our police services, as an example, we will not achieve what is expected, which is that the government is serious about dealing with white collar crime.

It reminds me of a commitment that was raised during the byelection where the Conservatives had made a commitment to hire additional police officers. I believe it was in excess of 2,000. The additional staff could have been allocated to commercial or white collar crime. If I had a choice, I would suggest that if we have adequate resources at the grassroots level to ensure accountability with legislation or the laws currently in place, that could be just as effective as this particular bill.

I would also suggest that the bill itself will no doubt draw some media attention. The government can issue its press release saying that it is getting tough on white collar crime and will have the legislation it has passed. In fairness, the caveat is that the Liberal Party tried to make it a better bill but the government chose not to support it. In any event, the government can issue its press release making it very clear that it brought in legislation.

However, if the government is not prepared to put in the resources that are necessary to make this bill work, then I would suggest—

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), be read the third time and passed.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud) is a bill we have seen before.

In fact it was with us in the last session of Parliament as Bill C-52. We went through some process on it, but as members are probably aware the House was prorogued. When prorogation occurs, all the bills die and have to start again unless the government chooses to reinstate them at the same position they were when prorogation took place.

As a consequence to that prorogation we have this bill. It is an interesting bill. It has an interesting short title, Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act. If people heard that, they would have an image of what they think this bill might do, but in fact this particular bill does not deal with all white collar crimes. It deals with fraud over $1 million, and whether or not there is going to be a mandatory minimum sentence. It is somewhat misnamed. I will comment more on the short title later.

When the bill came back in the current session, it took another 60 days before the government brought it forward for second reading. Second reading occurred on October 4 and 5. I had a look at the debate. It was the same bill and pretty well the same speeches as were given in the last session.

It then went to committee and it was another 60 days before the committee got around to it. That is an indication of another problem, and it is that the justice committee is a very busy committee. There are an awful lot of justice bills, which arguably could have been combined with other bills and put in an omnibus bill. There are going to be the same witnesses if we are dealing with the Criminal Code or sentencing provisions. Chances are it is going to be the same interveners, the same witnesses and the same government officials.

The government has this thought that possibly if it takes every little change that it wants to make to the Criminal Code and gives it its very own bill, and the number of bills gets up high, people will say “My goodness, look at all the wonderful criminal justice bills we have here. Are we not tough on crime?”

I think someone actually did a little analysis and found out that 15 of the bills could have been handled in 3 bills alone. It gives the idea that there might be something to look at here, and maybe not to be too quick to judge a bill as to its scope or the ambit that it covers because it is a mirage.

The committee finished on November 30, and now a couple of weeks later we have third reading. Now we are going through this. The first thing that happens is that the government gets up and says that all the parties are supporting it, so why do we not just forget debating; we will just vote and pass the bill. It says we are delaying it and we should not be delaying the bill.

If we look back at the prorogation, the recalibration of the government, it was kind of an interesting excuse for doing things. If the truth be known, if the government wanted to say the truth, it was on its heels and in great difficulty, and the only way it could get out of it was to shut this place down, let things cool down and have some thinking time so we could come back and have a better start. I do not want to be too cynical about it, but the evidence sure does speak for itself.

The bill itself, as I indicated, has to do with sentencing for fraud. This is what this bill is about. It has a few elements, and they are included in the summary. It says that:

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to

(a) provide a mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment for a term of two years for fraud with a value that exceeds one million dollars;

This is only relevant to fraud where the aggregate value exceeds $1 million. Obviously that is not all white collar crime. There are certainly some big name cases.

Part (b) of the summary says that the bill would:

provide additional aggravating factors for sentencing;

Although there is a proposed mandatory minimum, the sentencing for fraud at this level is usually significantly more than two years. But the number of years, which I think could go up to 14 years, is actually the longest term of sentencing currently, second only to life imprisonment. This already has penalties as high as one can get. That is a ceiling. We are talking about a floor in this bill.

The next part says it would:

(c) create a discretionary prohibition order for offenders convicted of fraud to prevent them from having authority over the money or real property of others;

That makes some sense and there are some provisions here.

It also would:

(d) require consideration of restitution for victims of fraud; and

(e) clarify that the sentencing court may consider community impact statements from a community that has been harmed by the fraud.

In a number of cases, there are some very interesting people who are involved and they hurt a lot of people. The victims were in fact their friends and family.

When this bill went to committee, and this is a bill that the members of the justice committee are well familiar with, they reviewed it and the bill had to be reprinted as a consequence of their work. But the only change they made was to add the words “a victim seeks restitution and”. Those are the words that are added to this bill that was originally tabled at second reading.

To put that in context, this has to do with restitution. The full section, subsection 380.3(5), will read in total now, in this amended bill from the committee:

If a victim seeks restitution and the court decides not to make a restitution order, it shall give reasons for its decision and shall cause those reasons to be stated in the record.

Earlier today I asked a question about this and it actually revealed something really interesting to me. I am not a member of the committee, but I followed the debate very closely.

This basically says that if a victim wants restitution and the court decides not to do a restitution order, the court has to give reasons. I asked, why should the court not give reasons in all cases of fraud as to why it is not ordering a restitution order?

It would make some sense to me that people have to know why the courts do what they do and why they have made certain decisions. It may mean that it is very clear that there are no assets, but the fact that a victim has decided for whatever reason that he or she is not going to seek it does not mean that he or she is not entitled to it and should not get it. In this particular case, it is simply a matter that if the court is going to decide that it is not going to make a restitution order, I thought in all cases it should give reasons for its decision.

I raise this because the chairman of the justice committee spoke earlier, and has asked a number of questions, basically encouraging people to stop talking and just vote and pass this bill because we are delaying it, after the Conservatives wasted over a year with all their shenanigans and here we are finally getting a chance to talk about this bill.

It was one of those moments when somebody says that there is a reason it is there. I had to find out and I went and asked somebody.

The parliamentary secretary did not indicate, but as it turns out, the reason this is here is that one of the intervenors was the Canadian Bar Association, which said we needed to put this in. Effectively what this does is relieve the courts from a requirement to do a restitution order and to write up the reasons for its decision if the victim seeks restitution.

Now we are talking about money. We are talking about the Canadian Bar Association saying this will bog down the system if all of a sudden the courts have to explain their decisions in cases where they said it would not affect the victim so they would just move forward.

It does raise the point, and I know a number of members have raised it in debate already, that we have cases where the Government of Canada, the federal government, passes legislation and then it gets promulgated, it becomes part of the law, part of the Criminal Code or other legislation, and then it is up to other jurisdictions to enforce the laws. We have cases now where even the smallest thing about saving some time for the courts, so they do not have to write up reasons for decisions on restitution orders, will save them money and it is worth doing and it is worth changing the bill to make sure that they can save a little bit of money. That pales in comparison to what is happening out there in the real world.

We have heard a lot about Ponzi schemes, basically pyramid schemes of a sort, and about Bernie Madoff. It is in the news every day and I do not have to say anything more there. Earl Jones is another one, where 150 clients were defrauded of some $50 million; he was sentenced in February of this year to 11 years.

One person who has not been mentioned is a Canadian case, Tzvi Erez, who is a very renowned pianist. He got involved in a so-called Ponzi scheme and he defrauded 76 investors out of $27 million. This is not insignificant and this is precisely what the bill is supposed to deal with, right? Wrong. The charges were dropped in this Ponzi scheme of $27 million, the reason being that the police made the argument that either we want them to deal with the rape case or the homicide case or we want them to deal with the Ponzi case. We made the decision that it was more important for us to deal with a rape or a homicide. It would take far too long. It was a very complicated scheme. It would take years to do and would be very costly. It would drain the courts and so many cases would not be dealt with. Does that not tell us something?

The Canadian Bar Association says it does not want the courts to have to give reasons for a decision, because it will save them a little bit of money. The police in Ontario and Attorney General Chris Bentley are basically saying they do not have the resources to deal with someone who defrauds Canadians of $27 million.

How can we say that we are being tough on crime and those criminals when, within the system, in a case such as that, the magnitude of that, the charges will not be pursued?

I am not sure that the people who were defrauded are very happy about that. I am not sure of their personal economic circumstances, but obviously there are only 76 of them representing $27 million, so they are significant investors. But we do not discriminate against people in their financial situation. People who are in good shape versus those who are living from paycheque to paycheque are covered by the law equally and things should be done, but the fact is that this was a matter of the courts in the provinces not having the resources to be able to enforce the law. How is that possible? How is it possible that we get to those situations?

We have now in the Criminal Code that fraud over $5,000 is actually subject to a maximum term of 14 years. But in this case, Bill C-21, the only difference between that and dealing with it under existing law is that Bill C-21 provides for a mandatory minimum of two years. If that is the only difference and we have cases that are being thrown out because the provincial courts cannot enforce the law, how can government members say this is their bill, Bill C-21, and they are very proud of it?

The short title, which happens to be much longer than the actual title, is the “Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act”. It is not. In fact, it is a sentencing bill and it amends the sentencing.

It says that if it is over $1 million in terms of aggregate value of which people were defrauded, a mandatory minimum may be applicable. But time after time, members of the justice committee got up and said that the penalties being given out in the courts now when those cases are heard are well over two years and that this mandatory minimum is really not going to achieve very much. So how can they boast that they are taking care of victims of white collar crime when this bill, with all the work and all the time and all the complaints about delay, in fact does very little and is going to affect very few cases? Even if there is not a mandatory minimum, using the court's discretion they can get up to 14 years anyway.

People should be a little disappointed that the government doth protest too much about delay of this bill, because any delay that has occurred in this bill has been the government's doing by various things such as prorogation and by stacking up bills, and I want to talk a bit about that.

As I said, someone did an analysis and found out that 15 justice bills could have been done in three omnibus bills, because bills that relate to the same sections of the Criminal Code or other justice matters can be combined, when they have the same or similar elements and we are going to be dealing with the same witnesses, the same intervenors and public interventions as well.

If that is the case and if the government really wants to show that it has the public interest at heart and that people who commit wrongdoings, who commit serious fraud, are going to be dealt with on a timely basis, it would say that will be shown when legislation actually passes. But we have not had very many of these bills even pass, because of all the delays and the lumpiness of the parliamentary calendar. We just seem to have these breaks, and now there are rumours of a spring election and maybe most of these bills are going to die. There will be another Parliament and these will be back again with the same slogan: “We are getting tough on crime”.

They cannot be tough on crime if they cannot pass legislation that is going to be effective. They cannot be tough on crime if the provinces that are responsible for enforcing it do not have the resources to apply the law and they allow people to get away because they cannot lay those charges.

If one is not part of the solution, one must be part of the problem, and what I heard today from a number of members was that we need a strategy.

I thought one of them was fairly comprehensive. I am not going to repeat it, but one of the critical elements of a strategy is to have these kinds of cases dealt with by a joint task force such as the RCMP and other agencies that have experience and expertise in dealing with serious fraud and complicated schemes. To go through the regular process has been a problem and that is where the money goes, but if we have an efficient system of processing and we have this expertise built up, these laws can be enforced. But we need to work with the provinces and other jurisdictions that are involved, because there is no point in passing laws that will never be enforced or in fact never passed because a government is really only interested in recycling them for the same purpose of having a political slogan about being tough on crime.

It is not honest to tell Canadians that, and if Canadians would look at the transcript of the debate today, they would see significant examples and testimonials from members of Parliament that in fact the government has been using these bills for political purposes rather than for the best interest of Canadians.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up where I left off and in the meantime one thing I wanted to bring to this debate, which I did not have a chance to do, is to note that even today we had the crown prosecution in Newfoundland and Labrador recommending a businessman involved in a 2006 spending scandal in Newfoundland and Labrador's legislature be given a three-year prison sentence and be ordered to repay $450,000.

That was coming from the situation we had in the province where some elected members of the day as well as some administrative members had defrauded the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador, which in turn defrauded the population of the province of several sums of money well in excess of $1 million. People were charged and brought to court for that and sentenced. Many of the sentences have been served, but nonetheless today we see one of the people involved in that case and the extent to which this can go to.

Picking up on Bill C-21 once more, I want to go through some of the notes that I discussed earlier talking about minimum sentences applying solely to a person convicted of the general offence of fraud, subsection 380(1). It does not seem to apply to other related offences and that is what I want to pick up on, that it is one of the reasons why we need to make this a much stronger piece of legislation. These are some of the loopholes that we brought up earlier as well, and I would like to touch on some of this such as fraudulent manipulation of stock markets, insider trading, fraud affecting publication.

In these three cases, however, where the value of the subject matter exceeds $1 million, that would remain an aggravating circumstance and therein lies the strengthening that needs to come back to this piece of legislation. Nonetheless, when we talk about criminal offences to institutions, that was also brought up by one of my colleagues. The institutions exempt are the larger offenders. In this situation it becomes a milder offence for the few that are charged even though they do receive extensive charges.

Clause 3 of the bill adds four aggravating circumstances to the list. That would be the magnitude, complexity, duration or degree of planning of the fraud committed was significant. In the form of sentencing this is a very key aggravating factor. The offence had a significant impact on the victims given their personal circumstances including their age, health and financial situation.

The third aggravating factor: The offender did not comply with a licensing requirement or professional standard that is normally applicable to the activity or conduct that forms the subject matter of the offence. Finally, the fourth one contained within clause 3 is: The offender concealed or destroyed records relating to the fraud or to the disbursement of the proceeds of the fraud, which are prominent in many of the recent cases, which I will not go into because there are far too many to mention.

In addition to these specific aggravating circumstances, the general aggravating circumstances contemplated in paragraph 718.2 of the code will continue to apply. That includes the abuse of a position of trust or evidence that the offence was committed in association with a criminal organization. Moreover, the court shall cause to be stated in the record the aggravating and mitigating circumstances they took into account when determining the sentence. That is contained in 2.2 and that is the aggravating circumstances one must consider when talking about sentencing, which I agree with in this case.

With respect to restitution order 2.4, under the existing provisions a judge passing sentence for any offence under the code may order the offender to make restitution to the victim for damage to property or for bodily or psychological harm. That is very important. The court must give priority to restitution before imposing a fine on the offender. A restitution order is discretionary however, meaning that the judge may decide not even to grant it.

The bill states, “the court shall inquire of the prosecutor if reasonable steps have been taken to provide the victims with an opportunity to indicate whether they are seeking restitution for their losses”.

That is a new subsection within this legislation. In addition, “If the court decides not to make a restitution order, it shall give reasons for its decision and shall cause those reasons to be stated in the record”.

In the few minutes I have left, I would like to talk about one of the issues that came up in this particular legislation, and in other pieces of legislation, which is the victim impact statements. I have always ascribed this to be a very important element when it comes to the sentencing of people convicted of crimes. In this particular bill, clause 4 talks about that.

The code currently provides for a victim impact statement to be filed at the sentencing stage. For the purpose of determining the sentence to be imposed for any offence under the code, the court is required to consider any victim impact statement describing the harm done to, or loss suffered by, the victim arising from the commission of the offence.

Each and every time these frauds take place, we see in the evening news, in all the newspapers, that the impact of this is absolutely immense. So much of this occurs. Thousands and thousands of cases are reported. I would say the vast majority in this House know people, family members, maybe their own parents and children, who were victims of fraud. It is excruciating to go through and it could last for quite some time for those people defrauded of their life savings, their nest eggs, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course, in this particular case, we focus on the $1 million mark.

For the purpose of the code, “victim” means a person to whom harm was done or who suffered physical or emotional loss as a result of the commission of the offence. To me, that seems to be a very valid and important part of this legislation.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), be read the third time and passed.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, over the last three or four years, this has become a large issue. We have seen the reports on all the major television networks in North America. Bernie Madoff in the United States was sentenced to 150 years in prison, which gives us an idea of just how serious this has become. It also shows how one particular judge decided to engage the public to find out where the fever was on this. For the general public it is an incredibly large issue. It is beyond imagination. We do not realize how many people have been victims of this type of fraud and scam that has been perpetrated by people of despicable means and measure.

In this country we had the case of Earl Jones. It was so visceral to watch the coverage on television where as he was leaving the court and approaching his vehicle, he was attacked by the masses. I had never seen that before.

It gives us an idea of the heightened intensity about this issue. There are so many people involved and so many stories to be told that we would be amazed at some of the issues. There are people who come to me from my riding in Newfoundland and Labrador to talk about how destitute they are as victims of fraud. They are embarrassed at having lost their life savings. They do not want to bring up the situation with their children and other people in the community because they do not want to be embarrassed.

There are people out there, culprits who prey upon the weakest and most vulnerable of society. They know where they are and they know how to get them.

Bill C-21 goes a way to catching up with that. Perhaps it needs to go a bit further. The bill has been reported back to the House, and I think we are looking at one amendment.

Nonetheless, we will look at this and move on. This is something that we are going to be talking about again and again as the situation becomes more prevalent. In my own personal situation, people, primarily seniors, come to my office and talk about the sheer embarrassment of it. They tried to invest what little money they have to better themselves, and not so much themselves but their family, children and grandchildren.

It is incumbent upon us to have a serious debate about this. I appreciate everybody who is debating this in this House.

Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), includes a mandatory minimum sentence, which is an expression we have used a lot in this House. It includes imprisonment for two years for fraud valued at more than $1 million, and provides additional aggravating factors for sentencing, which I will touch on in a few moments.

It requires consideration of restitution for victims, which is a highly contentious issue as we have seen from all the media coverage not just in Canada but also in the United States. In dealing with the seriousness of this issue, my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis mentioned that it is such a big issue in his riding. He has fought so well for this issue, and I want to thank him personally.

I do want to move on to the situation we find ourselves in right now regarding Bill C-21. For this side of the House, we proposed earlier that the mandatory minimum sentence of two years should apply to practices such as market manipulation of shares and of course the Ponzi schemes.

Conservative, Bloc and NDP members, in my opinion, need to explain why they refuse to stand up for all the victims of white collar crime. There are some discrepancies within this that I would like to see addressed. However, we are moving in the right direction as the House of Commons is addressing the legislation today and will soon pass it.

Principles behind the stricter sentencing rules are very important, but we also know that they are not enough to prevent frauds from happening, which is why we also have to seriously consider working on the public campaign. That is where we are falling down on the job. We need to do more to improve the way we deal with the situation and public learning of this type of fraud.

Certainly when it comes to enforcement and how our law officials enforce this will be a contentious issue as we move forward with this type of legislation. It is one thing to put these sentences into place, but the enforcement is going to be a tricky situation as we have witnessed in the past. We are compelled in the House to call upon the government to provide those extra resources upon which it can exercise the principles of the bill, which are to bring people to account, people who are the lowest form of life, if I can use that term, and I will use it because I think I am very apt in that description.

We should consider this from two perspectives. On one hand, we have to alert the people of what this fraud is and how they can protect themselves from this type of offence. On the other hand, we have to provide the resources as a government to allow the officials to enforce this and make sure people are brought to account. That is what we have been talking about in the bill right from second reading through committee and now at third reading.

We are glad to finally see legislation on the issue. We have called on the government to act on white collar crime for many years now. We have had this discussion for quite some time. This legislation is going forward and it is good that it is. We have seen the anger heighten dramatically because of people like Bernie Madoff, Earl Jones and what we see in the media regarding Ponzi schemes and the originator of them, Mr. Charles Ponzi himself.

I would like to turn to some of the research that has been provided to us as legislators in the legislative summary from the Library of Parliament. I would like to thank Cynthia Kirkby and Dominique Valiquette, both from the Legal and Legislative Affairs Division, Parliamentary Information and Resource Services.

The background on this goes back for quite some time. We have seen prior amendments to the fraud provisions. These amendments created a new offence of improper insider trading, increased the maximum sentence for the offences of fraud and fraud affecting the market from 10 to 14 years, and established a list of aggravating factors to aid the courts in sentencing. I certainly think that provides an ample guide for judges to allow a sentencing situation to take place. When it comes to sentencing, the enforcement is one area we may be falling down on.

Let us look at the integrated market enforcement teams. In 2003, the Government of Canada created the IMET program. Its funding is through the RCMP. Ten IMETs are operational in four of Canada's major financial centres. Their mandate is to investigate and lay charges for serious Criminal Code offences involving capital markets. At that point the enforcement was happening. We need to take that one step further. It was a good start with the IMET teams in the financial centres. The IMETs, continue to this day. From December 2003, when the program began, to March 2008, five investigations led to nine individuals being charged with a total of 29 Criminal Code offences. In fiscal year 2008-09, however, 17 individuals were charged with 979 counts.

There in itself we see a perfect illustration of the criminal intent that permeates throughout the system. These people get into the system and it shows how hard it is to bring these people to law and how important enforcement must be in order for these rules and measures to have some effect on all these people.

As I mentioned, 17 individuals were charged with 979 counts. A total of five individuals have been convicted since the IMET program was established and sentences range from 39 months to 13 years.

Going back on the history alone, members will see some of the statistics from C-21. This gives us a good glimpse of the situation. In 2007, 88,286 incidents of fraud took place in our country. About 10,001 cases of people were found guilty in the years 2006-2007. To break down those 10,001 cases, these are the following statistics: prison sentences, 3,580, resulting in 35.8%; conditional sentences being brought down on those people, only 8.7%; probation was the biggest at 60.3%; receiving fines, 12.1%; and restitution at that stage, 18.9%. Other sentences that were handed down included absolute conditional discharge, community service orders and prohibition orders as well.

Returning to the legislation at hand, let us take a look clause 2.1, which is the minimum sentence for fraud. This is the one that is probably getting most of the attention right now. Currently a person convicted of the general offence of fraud is liable under subsection 380(1) of the Criminal Code to a maximum term of imprisonment of 14 years where the value of the subject matter of the offence exceeds $5,000, or two years where the value of the subject matter of the offence does not exceed $5,000 and no minimum sentence is specified.

Clause 2 of the bill introduces a minimum sentence of two years imprisonment in case of fraud over $1 million. My colleague from Ontario brought up a good point earlier. When we try to come up with these numbers, in this case two years imprisonment minimum on a $1 million case, what if someone achieved $900,000? That is a pot of money. I know people who were working on $100,000 as their nest egg. What if they had been defrauded of $100,000? How do we address that in the situation where we make the cutoff at $1 million?

On the other hand, the minimum sentence applies solely to a person convicted of the general offence of fraud, again subsection 380(1) of the code. It does not seem to apply to other related offences, such as fraud affecting the market, fraudulent manipulation of stock markets, insider trading or the publication of a false prospectus. In the latter three cases, however, where the value of the subject matter exceeds $1 million, this remains merely an aggravating circumstance.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-21. I believe I was fortunate enough to speak to it earlier and I do not think I had enough time.

I want to point out for my friends across the way that this is our job. We are not trying to hijack the process. We are doing our job in opposition. A lot of the time we will suggest the glass is half empty and the government members will suggest it is completely full, but that is okay. We still have a job to do and we want the record to show our concerns and misgivings. No bill is perfect. Every bill will get criticized usually in some way. That is my job and that is what I will do today.

Reflecting on some of the earlier comments, there is an air of pretense surrounding the bill. There is a sense that the bill will do a whole lot more than it really does. One of my colleagues said that this was just a sentencing bill, that it did nothing to stop crime. The sentencing occurs after a conviction. The conviction occurs after the criminal act. It has done nothing to deter or prevent that particular criminal act. By pretending a bill that has a whole lot to do with sentencing will have a whole lot to do with crime prevention is pretentious and we in the opposition have spotted that pretense. Whether or not the pretense is on the six o'clock news, as my colleague from Moncton just suggested, or whether it is in the short title of the bill, it is our job to identify it as pretense, which allows me to speak about the short title of the bill.

For the last couple of years, the government has consistently hijacked the short title of these bills. Not everyone knows the short title is section 1 of the bill, which tries to describe what the bill is about, but the government has hijacked that for a commercial. Conservatives want to spin what is in the bill. In fact, some of the time, as has been pointed out, they are spinning something that is not even in the bill. Therefore, members of the House have taken objection to some of the bills that go to committee.

The member opposite asked why were we concerned about semantics. It is not about just semantics; it is about hijacking the bill for a political purpose. We did not fire the first shot on this. It was whatever clever bird in the backroom that helped to prepare the bill decided to hijack the title and put something really different and sexy in the short title of the bill. It will get attention and every time people refer to the bill they will repeat this politically torqued short description. Most of my colleagues in the House, not on the government side, are saying no, that we will not do that. If the government wants to have a short title, put it in. Let it describe what is in the bill and do not torque the thing for the six o'clock news.

Also, by dealing with sentencing, I really do not think it will provide a lot of deterrence for future crime: denunciation, yes. However, by standing in this place and talking about the badness associated with any number of criminal acts, by telling the courts that when they process these crimes, when they attempt to address the needs of victims, it will be done in a certain way, shows a very reasonable level of societal denunciation with respect to the crime. I cannot imagine anyone would not be in favour of that. Putting a crime on the front page of the newspaper pretty much does the same thing. Denunciation is there, but deterrence is not.

My experience in this field over the last 20 years, not as a criminal but as a member of the justice committee, has always led me to believe that criminals who commit this type of offence and many other types of offences are not deterred by what is in the Criminal Code. It does not matter what the sentence is, they do not think they will be caught.

Torquing the sentencing in some of these areas, yes, because it reflects increased denunciation. It is like saying that we are really mad at people who commit criminal acts. That is okay, but it will not deter the person because that person does not think he or she will be caught.

In relation to white collar crime, at which this bill is said to be targeted, a lot of those perpetrators really do not think they will be caught. They think they have a really neat scam. Usually these things start small in the beginning and then they become bigger and a lot of people are hurt.

The objective, from a public policy point of view, really ought to be to get out in front with some kind of crime prevention, some early warning system that can intervene and protect the people who are about to be hurt. In almost all of these scams, once the money is in, it is gone. It is down the road somewhere. It is in lifestyle, gambling, whatever.

In some cases, these white collar crimes started off all right. There was an investment in real estate. Maybe the real estate investment was a little wonky, but it was still an investment in real estate. It could be swamp land, but it starts off with something tangible. Then things go sideways. The money gets diverted. The fraud and deceit begin. People are lied to. After a year or two or three, whether it is a Ponzi scheme or something else, the people are hurt, the investment is seen to be bad and lost.

This bill is almost like a fairy tale. It suggests that we will deal with the loss of the money. We will step in and make the court deal with restitution. That sounds great, but so do fairy tales. If restitution had been possible, the bozo who began the scam would have been able to pay back all or most of the money in the first place.

It is because the money is gone. I suppose there might be one case in hundred where the person who is convicted has a restitution order made against him or her may go back to work, or may go back into business, if the individual gets out of jail, and start to work to pay some of those restitution orders.

I wanted to reflect on the pretense, the fairy tale involved in this type of legislation. I do not, for a moment, want to suggest that I am not favour of victims getting restitution. That is the concept, that is the fairy tale and that is the hope.

I suppose we could say that if in one case out of hundred victims received restitution, it was worth it. I would have to agree with that. I just do not want the record to accept the pretense that this legislative solution will solve all of the problems, and there are a lot. Fraud is a very old section of the Criminal Code. It is based on the common law tort of deceit, and it is a criminal offence. It always has been.

However, since the Second World War there has been a huge increase in community interconnectivity in terms of money. We are not just moving dollar bills around. We have credit cards, cheques, money orders, debit cards, ABM cards and cash cards. There is no end to the money or money's worth in all the vehicles we have for spreading it around. We have chequing accounts, savings accounts, RRSPs, home ownership savings plans, RESPs, RIFFs, stocks and bonds, treasury bills, GICs, life insurance and pension plans, some of which are self-administered. However, with all of that financial interconnectivity, there is huge potential for money going sideways or being stolen.

I often think about how lucky we are that with all the billions and trillions of dollars moving around there is not more of it that goes sideways. It is probably because we in Canada and a lot of the rest of the world have at least some financial infrastructure that works. I am reasonably assured that the money I put into my bank I will be able to get back and I can transfer money safely.

There is certainly a whole lot more potential for fraud. Individuals who make one mistake in the beginning when handling people's money, which then leads to a second mistake, and then it escalates. All of this multiplies 1,000-fold when we put it all on the Internet. It can happen with collective amounts. I have to accept that there is a need to update our law on fraud in the Criminal Code provisions.

I want to look at the process in this bill that governs restitution. I had a question that was never answered throughout the process. I wanted to know what would happen if there were a conviction. The court must ask, under the provision, whether victims have had an opportunity to indicate if they would like a restitution order. It does not mean they get one, but the judge must ask if they have had that opportunity. The prosecutor will then respond yes, no or maybe and there is a form that victims can use. That is a step up. It is more like something in a small claims court but there is a form victims can fill out to describe their losses. That is not a bad thing.

The part that caused me to raise the question is in subclause 380.3(5). This is after there has been a request by a prosecutor or victim for a restitution order. It states:

If...the court decides not to make a restitution order, it shall give reasons for its decision and shall cause those reasons to be stated in the record.

That is in a case where the judge says that for particular reasons, he or she will not give a restitution order because it would be useless. I cannot imagine all of the circumstances that could be involved but the judge has that capacity to make a decision. What I am curious about is what happens if the court does not make a decision. It does not really say that the court has to make a decision. There could be a scenario where the court does not decide yes or no and no reasons are given.

After reading through the section, I got the impression that there was a gap. We have the situation where a judge decides to make a restitution order and the situation where the judge decides not to make a restitution order and those two situations are covered off in the bill. However, there is a third scenario where a decision is not made. The process that is outlined in the bill leaves it rather unclear and that usually causes problems down the road for judges, lawyers, victims or those who are accused.

Quite naturally, the government wants to pretend that this is a great bill but there is no place in this bill to discuss what happens with such things as the impact of a bankruptcy. As well, there may be some who will resist the obvious policy position of the government that, where there has been a theft or a fraud, a criminal court would be turned into a small claims court. I do not think the two fit. The work of a criminal court has a lot of bad stuff reflected in it. It is not the kind of environment where one would think there would be much positive coming out of small claims court atmosphere, which is being imposed in part by this bill.

However, we will see how it works out. If some victims, even a few, are happier to have had the chance to put their loss on the record and a chance, however small it might be, of some restitution, then I am happy about that and I do not want to carp about it. This could be a good change.

I suppose we could look at this from a public policy point of view. For example, let us say that we did have a criminal conviction but that there was no restitution order made for the victim. Let us say that the amount involved was manageable, not one of these $20 million scams, but about $10,000 or $20,000. If there was no restitution order and the person convicted serves a one or two year sentence, whatever it is, the victim in that case would probably need to go to civil court to recover those moneys. This provision would pre-empt that and put them together. The citizen who had been defrauded would not need to go to the civil courts. He or she has the court order and it is good for the sheriff. It is good to go if there are assets that can be seized to pay the debt.

I want to draw attention to another area. Franchise sales are accepted to be a provincial jurisdiction. It is a commercial transaction but it involves someone who has a business concept and he, she or it, as a corporation, will then sell a franchise right to a purchaser. This is a common happening. Many of the large franchise grantors are known and it is a very successful commercial vehicle for a small or medium-sized investor. However, over the last few years I have been made aware of problems in the franchising industry. I represent a riding in Toronto, Ontario and the provincial legislation just was not up to snuff. However, if one can get evidence of fraud, it looks like this legislation would cover it.

We may be solving more problems here than the government has actually advertised. It may be possible to rectify what has been a sad situation involving the sale of weak, non-existent or fake franchises to people who put up the first deposit, and the second deposit might be up to $100,000 or more, just to find out that there is nothing there. The guy who sold it to them could be living in Halifax, Calgary, Moose Jaw or Toronto.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the short title of the bill is the “Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act”. I suppose it more accurately should be “Standing up for Some Victims in Some Cases of White Collar Crime”.

I think we should pick the right battle to confront the Conservatives with respect to how they are short-titling everything. It is clear that they are very short on substance, and they are confusing the public, because in this case, the long title of the bill is accurate. It says, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud)”. It alludes to the fact that there are other sections in the code that deal with fraud, and we are amending it. We are going to vote for it, so we are amending it to buttress that.

That should be enough for us. Justice issues should not be showboat items for the six o'clock news. We should be quietly and efficiently doing our work at justice committees and in this House to modernize the Criminal Code, to make the laws more effective.

What it really comes down to is that the Conservatives would stand up for victims of white collar crime a whole lot more outside the short or long title of this act if they resourced police officers, if they co-operated with their provincial and territorial partners and if they got out on the international scene, and in an effective way, instead of embarrassing Canada as they have on other fronts, this is a chance for them to be real leaders with respect to money laundering, the opening of bank accounts at offshore sites, and doing what is best in terms of restitution for the victims of white collar crime who are without their savings this Christmas.

For example, there are the people who have been the victims of Earl Jones. I have read many stories about how they have moved from large houses to little apartments. They probably do not have anything but a lump of coal to put under their Christmas tree. How would you feel, Mr. Speaker, if it were you who was denuded of your savings and I told you we were making four or five amendments after five years to the Criminal Code that really will not affect that? I do not think you would feel very good.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the speeches today have dwelt on what this bill does not do. It is pretty clear from the objective input that members have had that this is a sentencing bill that is going to deal with fraud cases of over $1 million, but it is a mandatory minimum sentence. In fact, the name of the bill says that it is “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud)”.

The real fraud in the bill is the short title, which says this is “Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime”, but the evidence is that it deals with only a small portion of white collar crime. The bill does not deal with fraud of $900,000. It does not deal with fraud under $1 million. That is already in the legislation. This is a bill about sentencing.

So I am asking the hon. member, why is it that the short title does not reflect what the legislation in fact does?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-21. Following on the remarkable comments of my friend and colleague from the justice committee and the Bloc member's comments, it is a good theme to continue.

Much of the Conservatives' anti-crime agenda purports to help victims. It purports to take victims' rights over those of offenders, over those of politicians, over those of many other groups in the community. However, much of what they actually do in terms of the legislation has little positive impact on the victims at all.

I think in the area of white collar crime more than anything where what was taken away, in terms of assets or wealth, is sought to be restored, this is the most apt example of how not seizing on the goal of anti-white collar crime, which is the restoration, restitution, recovery of wealth lost, the government is doing a disservice.

In other forms of crimes, I suppose one could argue very cogently that that which was taken away, whether it was life, liberty, or sense of security, cannot be easily returned. They are not things that are in the marketplace. It is very difficult in the case of a violent crime to return the victim's sense of security. It is not a market commodity.

In this case, however, we are talking about the victims of white collar crime whose wealth, nest eggs and futures have been stolen through deceitful and fraudulent means by someone else. It would seem to me that in addition to increasing penalties, which is really all this bill would do, the government, which has now been in power for five years, even administratively without having to come to this place, which it really does not like to do very often anyway as its record on prorogation shows, might have administratively notched up its game on the recovery of assets.

Instead, as I will show in my speech, it has been left to the devices of the provinces with respect to their powers under property and civil rights.

I want to apologize in advance if my speech seems a little familiar, but there is a recurring theme on these bills in justice. I sit on the committee; I have for five years. All the time we see bills, and this case is no different, that seem to the other side to be strong electorally and politically, but not so strong on policy.

We have seen bills on auto theft, on the reporting of child Internet pornography, and now this one on white collar crime, all of which have pithy and exciting titles which, on a quick reading of the short title, would lead people to believe that the problem is solved, that we have a cure and there will be no more white collar crime, no more child pornography, no more auto theft.

That is not at all the case. The government's steps are baby steps toward those evils in our community and, as with all Conservative government agendas, the sound bite of the short title is more important than the pith and substance of the legislative tool.

The government's publicity machine will go to work and tell everyone that Bill C-21 emphasizes standing up for the victims of white collar crime and that Canadians will feel a lot safer about their nest eggs.

Electorally it is a gamble. There is the saying that one can fool all of the people some of the time, or one can fool some of the people all the time, but the message to the government today on these legislative bills toward crime with their very sexy short titles is that the government cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

It has been five years. We have to start thinking in the Parliament of Canada that the Conservatives have driven the government's legislative agenda for five years. I would love to see a survey as to whether people feel safer in all areas, but let us concentrate on white collar crime. I would love to know whether people feel they are less likely to be made the victims of losing their nest eggs and fortunes than five years ago when many of the tools that the Conservatives possess as government could have been used.

Let us take a quick look at the history. It has been a very prolific period these last five years for embezzlers and fraudsters. Today, Madoff and Earl Jones are household names, but they were not 5 or 10 years ago. There has been a real run on fraud, Ponzi schemes, investment schemes, direct mailing and direct investment schemes. These have taken a lot of wealth out of communities in Canada, largely from people who have saved all their lives for retirement, which in some cases now they cannot afford.

If we look at the title of this bill, it is obvious the bill falls short of the expectations. It does not make Canadians safer. The Earl Joneses and Vincent Lacroixs of this world are still around. Last month, in fact, Carole Morinville was arrested in Montreal in another Ponzi scheme investigation. These investigations are not carried out solely by the Conservative Party or the government; they are all conducted by police forces.

What do we hear from police forces? They are under-resourced. What do we hear from the government? The government says that it has added 1,000 more RCMP members. It has not. It is a shell game. The government does not deliver on what it promises with respect to manning police forces across the country. Ask any police force that question.

Ask the people of Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe whether they are happy that the government has not moved on giving the 10% subsidy it gives to every other RCMP force in Canada, except the one in Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe. That is the same as saying that one out of ten crimes will not be investigated or prosecuted. That may be okay for the nine cases where the criminals are prosecuted, but what about that other case? There will never be the chance to have an investigation and prosecution in that other case because the government will not stand up for its principles with respect to prosecuting criminals.

The government has been in power for five years and gives lip service with short titles and publicity bills. It is not enough. Over five years, as I have mentioned, serious things have happened. White collar crime is far more serious than it was when I was first elected.

White collar crimes and tax fraud are very serious problems. These crimes wreak havoc on the lives of victims. People can lose an entire lifetime's worth of savings overnight. When people lose their entire life savings, they lose faith in the idea that if they are doing their part, if they work, they will get their fair share.

This nation-wide loss of faith is dangerous because it can be passed on from one person to the next. The government is thus called upon to take action to protect the victims of these financial crimes and to protect people's faith in the integrity of the financial system. We all saw the damage that a pyramid scheme or Ponzi scheme can cause to the victims and to a country's reputation when Bernard Madoff was caught in the United States. We cannot allow such a thing to happen again.

We cannot stand by idly. The bill simply does not follow up on its promise to protect victims of white collar crime entirely. What does a mandatory minimum sentence of two years do for the victims of Earl Jones when he is already in jail under sentence for 11 years?

The lessons of the Madoff affair in the United States tell us that the damage to the victims would have been far less if the financial authorities had been better empowered by regulation and better equipped in resources and staff to apprehend and stop the carnage.

Why is the government peddling its minimum sentences into this area? Is this comforting to the victims of Earl Jones? He is in jail for 11 years. There may be a requirement to reconsider a restitution order, but the money is usually gone. The money is gone and the person is usually locked away for more time than the mandatory minimum set out in the bill.

I really think the government should take the next step outside of an amendment to the Criminal Code and review the financial regulatory system and the funding of our financial regulation enforcement, because it is what Canadians need to protect their investments.

The response from the finance minister might be that the Conservatives have a financial regulation overhaul, review and reform under way, that they are proposing a single regulatory agency, which will be voluntary, and will be located in Toronto. I assume that is the plan; it is where the finance minister is from. I have not heard a lot of people against that in the government, but if it was suggested it be moved to Moncton, they might have a different song to sing. I have nothing against Toronto. There is no question that the TSX is the largest index in the country.

It is an issue of provincial regulation. We have seen the government step into areas of provincial domain on many occasions before. Occasionally it takes a first ministers conference on these issues to decide what are the real ills in society with respect to white collar crime and what are the tools best suited to combat them.

People whose life savings have been taken away by a scheme will not be comforted by a Criminal Code amendment. They might be comforted by a federal-provincial announcement that a joint task force, which applies throughout the country, will concentrate on cracking down on Ponzi schemes and fraud in the general sense. They might, at that press conference, say that they are quite comfortable with the Criminal Code and with what has existed before.

If the justice minister had a TV show, it might be called “PJ”, pure justice. The Conservatives march in here before the evening news with a bill to protect Canadians from white collar crime, and the government indicates that is the cure. What Canadians will not know, and maybe it is our job to let them know, is that part X of the Criminal Code between sections 380 and 432, and on pages 280 to 304 of the short version of the code, those 25 pages in the compact pocket Criminal Code cover fraud.

So on the idea that someone looking at a newscast would think the government is enacting new legislation, legislation that did not exist before, that is just misleading.

We ought to say, yes, there are some amendments here that we can certainly stand behind, no question. But our response is three-fold.

First, these are minor amendments to the Criminal Code. The Criminal Code already has provisions in place to combat fraud.

Secondly, there is so much more that the government could have done in five years in office, working with the provinces to surgically crack down on the sources of fraud through the regulatory reforms that might be proposed.

Finally, if the government really cared about moving legislation along, especially legislation such as this that is not going to be opposed, why did it prorogue? Why did the government limit debate? Why did it shut down Parliament if it really wanted bills passed?

It is a good question, but we have never heard a real good answer. We did hear the word “recalibration”. Tell that to the victims of white collar crime. We could tell them that we are waiting to crack down on white collar crime, so could they recalibrate their losses? That one would not really fly.

There were fake fears about the governance of the country. People who have lost their savings want a government that will respond.

They might be shocked to know that, five years after the government took power, there was a bill that moved the yardsticks a little bit, a bill that no one would really object to, that could have been passed a long time ago, but the Prime Minister and his gang decided to pull the plug on Parliament, so it could not be passed. People should know that every time the plug is pulled on Parliament by prorogation, bills that are on the order paper, bills such as this, are killed. Prorogation stops everything.

This bill had a previous incarnation, called Bill C-52. It never became law because it was stopped in its tracks, and here we are, debating Bill C-21.

Ironically, sometimes the new incarnation is better. Because they have let it go so long, there are changes in the communities and in law enforcement techniques that have been incorporated into the new bills. So the argument that it is exactly the same bill and we are just bringing it back in every case does not fly. We want to hear the evidence to date about what is going on, in order to get the best bill on the books to combat white collar crime.

What was the reason for prorogation? Did the government think opposition parties were for white collar crime? Has anyone ever seen in a pamphlet, on the news, on the airwaves, in the blogisphere, in Twitter, Facebook or otherwise, that any Liberal, NDP or Bloc member is for white collar crime? Has anybody ever stood up and said that? I do not think so. It is preposterous. So why did the government not come forward earlier with this legislation?

The chairman of the justice committee asks, why do we not fast-track the 80 bills, or whatever number there are now? Why can we not get the job done? Why do we not stand up for Canada? It is a tired speech. The Conservatives are the ones who pulled the plug on their own bills, cutting off their nose to spite their face, and when they do come forward with legislation, it only effects change in the most minor of ways.

Carole Morinville is the case that I mentioned a minute ago. She was an unlicensed security adviser who was arrested for what financial authorities believed to be another Ponzi scheme. That case might have been better dealt with by a task force, by people knowledgeable in the financial regulation industry. It might have been something that the government would oversee and help with, rather than saying that opposition parties are against bills with Criminal Code amendments that really do not affect what is going on out there.

I have gone on at some length about the government attitude of not really helping victims. The provinces have really leap-frogged the federal government. We have seen it with respect to auto theft and many other areas, such as white collar crime.

Since the government came to office, a number of provinces have ratcheted up the provisions they have under the property and civil rights sections of the Constitution to enhance their powers of seizure and forfeiture for crimes committed, and not just in the white collar crime area. The provinces did that pretty much on their own, because they were not getting a lot of legislative resources through funding of policing or joint task force help from the federal government.

Then the other end of it is, what could the government have done with respect to the proceeds of white collar crime? It does not all just disappear into ether; it does not just disappear into thin air.

There is no way Bernie Madoff could have spent all the money he took, nor Earl Jones, so it went somewhere. The usual suspects are the international banking community. What has the government done with respect to international banking reform?

When we bring up the government and the international stage, we could be here for days talking about how it has embarrassed Canada, whether it is a seat on the United Nations, whether it is Copenhagen, whether it is the environment, and so on. But what has it done with respect to reforming the international banking system? What pronouncement has come forward from the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and others with respect to saying, “We want to crack down on white collar crime because we know where some of this money may be going; we have looked into it; we are doing our job; we are getting the job done”? They are not getting the job done. We have heard of no serious reforms in this regard.

What Canada needs, much as every other country, is an overarching national scheme of financial regulation with international components. We cannot wait for these crimes to happen and then say that we will be tough on crime with mandatory minimums. This approach is proven not to work. It will not keep Ponzi schemes from happening and it will not bring the money back to our church programs, our school programs, the family nest eggs and investment funds and community funds in general that have disappeared. We need to stop these funds from being defrauded in the first place, before it is too late.

The case I come back to in conclusion is that of Carole Morinville, who was not even an accredited investor. She should never have got her hands on the honest citizens' investments. At the very least there should have been officials with some authority tracking her activity to stop her before it was too late.

What it comes down to is resources and support beyond tinkering with the Criminal Code. The government has not shown its trust in police officials by funding them adequately. It has not shown its co-operation with provincial and territorial partners by having adequate and frequent meetings on this topic. It has not stuck its head out of the foxhole of its own parochialism on the international stage to be even a follower, let alone a leader, on reforming the international banking system to find the money that has left so many Canadians destitute and without hope.

As parliamentarians, we must restore hope in the system. I hope the government will get to work on these needed reforms.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was really hoping that somebody from that side was going to ask me this question. I have two answers.

First, on the NDP's role in protecting victims, I always remember the session we had with Gord Mackintosh, who was the attorney general at that time for Manitoba. We were having a debate on how we deal with crime, and in particular the victims, and he said that there is not a political movement or political party in this country that has greater claim to protecting members of society, in all of the work that it has done, not just in crime areas but in all areas. That is our responsibility in the crime area, in the criminal justice system area, as it is in protecting people, to see that they have adequate housing, that our foreign affairs protect them, and we could just go down the list. That has been a guiding principle for me since I have had that discussion with him, because it is true. As a political movement and as a political party, as social democrats, our primary responsibility has always been to take care of people in our constituency base.

I want to answer the question about whether we want more debate on this by responding with a question. Did the member, did the Minister of Justice and the parliamentary secretaries for justice and public safety go to the Prime Minister and say to him, “How come you keep proroguing? How come you keep having elections when you promised to work at fixed dates?"

Did those members on that side, who claim to be concerned about victims, say to the Prime Minister, “We have had Bill C-52. That was the predecessor to Bill C-21. It sat on the order paper. It got knocked off the order paper because you prorogued. How can you keep doing this? We have 15 or 16 crime bills, public safety bills”.

Did they go to the Prime Minister and say, “Stop doing this. If you are really concerned about victims of crime in this country, and we believe that these bills are going to make a difference, why do you keep putting them off?”