Bill C-42

An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Canada Business Corporations Act to, among other things,
(a) require the Director appointed under that Act to make available to the public certain information on individuals with significant control over a corporation;
(b) protect the information and identity of certain individuals;
(c) add, or broaden the application of, offences and provide the Director with additional enforcement and compliance powers; and
(d) add regulatory authority to prescribe further requirements in certain provisions.
It also makes consequential and related amendments to other Acts.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

There is one motion in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-42. Motion No. 1 will be debated and voted upon.

Motions in Amendment

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

moved:

That Bill C-42 be amended by deleting the long title.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. I outlined the amendment because we really did not study or work on too many other acts.

Earlier last week, when we finally had time to debate this bill and study it extensively at committee, it was very unfortunate that we had our committee witnesses appear the hour before we were to discuss amendments and go through clause-by-clause of the bill. There were some aspects of the bill that could have been improved had we had more time.

An example is the threshold for significant control. While the government repeatedly claimed that 25% is the international standard, witnesses made clear that it was only a guideline and that Canada could be a leader by reducing it. James Cohen, executive director of Transparency International, noted:

I don't think, for one, lowering the threshold from 25% to 10% and a risk-based approach are mutually exclusive. I think they actually go hand in hand. I would note that the 25% isn't so much a standard as it was an initial global recommendation that everyone just kind of grabbed on to.

Furthermore, when asked if a lower threshold would create unnecessary administrative complications, Superintendent Denis Beaudoin, director of financial crime for the RCMP, stated, “The RCMP standpoint is that the more names and more information, the better. As we're trying to make links in a criminal investigation, it certainly can help.” Both Conservative and NDP members of the committee tabled amendments to reduce the threshold for significant control from 25% to 10%. However, they were blocked by the Liberal and Bloc Québécois members.

The next aspect of the bill that could have been improved had we had more time to go through the amendments and hear from expert testimony relates to searchability. The Conservatives tabled two amendments to improve the searchability of the public registry, which were both raised by Transparency International in its submission. The first would have required that the jurisdiction of residence for tax purposes and the name of the corporation be included for each individual listed on the registry. The second would have added specific language to the bill requiring that the registry be made available to the public in a searchable format. Other good-faith amendments that were rejected included the inclusion of real estate in Bill C-42 and interoperability measures that could have improved the ability to work with the provinces and territories to have all the data that our law enforcement needs to go after white-collar crimes.

The next clause that was deleted that I think could have improved the bill related to law enforcement access. This amendment would have added specific language to the bill to ensure that law enforcement and other investigative bodies like FINTRAC could access information from the director rather than having to go to corporations individually. It also would have removed a reference to prescribed circumstances in relation to exceptions, ensuring that only minors are automatically exempted from having their information disclosed and that all others must apply for an exemption and prove that it is necessary.

There was a good-faith amendment brought forward by the Conservatives and recommended by Transparency International related to post boxes. This amendment would have barred individuals from listing a post office box as their address to be made in the public registry. Transparency International and the End Snow-Washing campaign requested that this be included in the bill. Ministry staff assured members that disallowing the use of post boxes is already standard practice at Corporations Canada and that including this language in the bill would be unnecessary. However, that analysis did not account for fact that the provincial registries may have different guidelines. If we are to truly seek interoperability and go after white-collar crime, we have to be more open to explicit language in legislation like this to give law enforcement the tools it needs and to close as many loopholes as possible.

Another good-faith CPC amendment was related to penalties on provincially registered corporations. This amendment would have changed the definition of a corporation in the context of offences to include provincially regulated corporations. This was important to ensure that when we reach a stage of interoperability with all registries, either provincial or federal, all people who are in contravention of the bill, and hopefully future law, are subject to the same penalties and convictions under the Criminal Code of Canada. I will note that the Conservatives, in good faith, did support an amendment that we also tabled to increase the fines for people committing an offence under the corporations act and it was supported. It was one positive aspect of the process at committee.

However, overall, while enemy cannot be the perfect of the good, I think the bill could have used just a few more meetings to hear from witnesses to get it at a stage where we could be really assured that we made the necessary and appropriate amendments. I say that because there was a good-faith commitment from all parties on this legislation to move quickly. I will repeat that it is not good parliamentary practice to have serious witnesses appear an hour before we are doing clause-by-clause, especially when they are bringing forward substantive amendments and have very little time to present.

I will go over some of the positions of the Canadian Bar Association, which had concerns with public access to the beneficial ownership registry and ensuring that Bill C-42 complies with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It noted this in a letter to me:

Individuals have legitimate personal and business reasons for not publicly disclosing sensitive personal information of beneficial owners. Canada should be mindful that businesses will look carefully at the requirement to make information public and determine how and in which jurisdiction they want to structure their corporations.

Public disclosure of additional corporate information may deter corruption and money laundering, and frustrate the efforts of fraudsters to use sham corporate vehicles for criminal purposes. However, it may also increase identity theft...which could undermine the anti-fraud rationale of the registry.

I think we needed to hear more from the Canadian Bar Association to get the balance between personal information being disclosed publicly and the need for law enforcement to have the necessary tools to do its job effectively. Indeed, the letter from the Canadian Bar Association said that a key aspect of this bill is balancing public interests and privacy rights. It noted:

In 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) examined an anti-money-laundering directive...establishing a Register of Beneficial Ownership where some information on the beneficial owners was accessible to the general public. The CJEU held that the directive was invalid because the public’s access to information on beneficial ownership constituted a serious interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.

Although witnesses did appear before committee, they had very limited time to bring forward all of their amendments. In fact, we only received amendments from Publish What You Pay Canada, Transparency International and Canadians for Tax Fairness on June 8. They outlined a number of really key amendments, some of which we were able to get on the floor at the very last minute. However, again, had there been a week in between hearing from serious witnesses and going through the amendment process in clause-by-clause, the bill could have been a bit better.

For example, Transparency International outlined the verification of identity of a significant individual. It recommended for “the Government of Canada to review Division Two and consider amendments requiring corporations to provide identity documents to the registrar upon request for the specific purpose of verification.” Transparency International outlined the need to improve intergovernmental corporations, which was a big aspect of the work we did to study the legislation. It also pointed out, especially in the context of a place like British Columbia, where we see a lot of foreign investment or at least a lot foreign money entering our real estate market and local businesses, that more needed to be done to ensure that the country of residence, the name of a corporation and valid government ID be part of these registries moving forward. As I outlined earlier, it mentioned that post office boxes should be included and should not be used as a place to do business in Canada.

Overall, we did get some good work done on this bill, but a lot more could have been done.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, corporations, joint stock companies, were conceived almost 150 years back as a means for individuals to pool their resources, de-risk their investments and channel their resources for commercial gains. That is the fundamental reason why these corporations exist. It is not the right of any individual, Canadian or someone outside of Canada, to form a corporation. They do not have this right. They can form a corporation, but the details are not made public.

I would like to ask the hon. member whether he agrees that, because it is a privilege offered by the government to individuals to form corporations, the fundamental details of the names of the shareholders and their citizenships should necessarily be made public.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, I actually raised the hon. member for Nepean's testimony from the debate we had at second reading during the amendment process. We should do more to ensure that valid government identification is included in the registry, maybe not on the front end that the public can access, but making sure that our law enforcement agents can in fact review that information in a timely manner.

Indeed, citizenship and current address should be included as a part of these measures as well. I will be encouraging members of the other chamber to look more closely at those aspects of this legislation to ensure that we get it right.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech.

In the United States, the U.S. Congress is currently introducing the same kind of registry. Rumour has it that some elected officials oppose the idea because revealing the source of donations would hurt the financing of their permanent election campaigns. Does my hon. colleague think that this kind of approach could be considered in the House?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, if we are to compare the way we take information for someone who donates to a political campaign in Canada versus the United States, I think we can rest assured that in Canada, we have a maximum donation of $1,700 for an individual. No corporations are allowed to donate in Canada, and we have a public registry that is updated on a regular basis by Elections Canada.

I think, in Canada, we have done a very good job of creating a level of transparency so that everyone in our country knows who donates to which political party. Indeed, in America, the arrangement between corporations and donating to elected officials is very different. I am very proud of the Canadian system we have today.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the thing that stood out to me most about the member's speech was when he said that we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good in this case. I take his points about the process. I think there are ways that this model can be improved upon; I am also cognizant of the fact that, in order for this registry to be implemented by the beginning of 2024, I believe the legislation has to pass before the end of the month. This will give officials time to implement the will of Parliament on this matter.

I know that there is a sense of urgency because of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and the extent to which folks think that Russian oligarchs have assets in Canada. A public beneficial ownership registry would be an important tool in pursuing those folks.

In the opinion of the member, should we get this legislation passed by the end of the month in order to allow for this registry to be put in place in a timely way that allows Canada to pursue Russian oligarchs who are hiding assets in Canada?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, indeed, the member raised some important points. I do not believe that any of the security officials who appeared at committee, in their limited time, referenced a correlation between this legislation and the invasion by Russia into Ukraine.

I think what is important in this registry, as the lawyers from the Canadian Bar Association outlined in their information to the committee, is that we balance the Charter of Rights and Freedoms right to protection of personal information with the need for a public registry to ensure that we end snow washing in Canada. Indeed, that is a very fine balance. That is why we needed just a few more meetings to get this legislation right and hear a bit more testimony. A couple of meetings, even if we were meeting next week on this legislation, would have been enough to get to where we needed to be.

For that reason, because we were not able to get as far as we needed, we are going to have to push for amendments in the Senate, which is actually going to slow the process down more. We are better off to do our work very well the first time and not the—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to offer a few thoughts on Bill C-42, which proposes amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act, or CBCA, and would make consequential changes to other statutes to create a federal beneficial ownership registry. This registry would be, arguably, the most important tool we could utilize to better detect, deter and prosecute money laundering, tax evasion, fraud and terrorist-financing activities.

First of all, I want to congratulate all members of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology for their hard work. They studied a bill with more than 20 clauses, dealing with a highly complex subject matter, and heard from numerous stakeholders who represent a spectrum of views.

Among other factors, the committee heard that the interoperability of the registry is a key concern and is, in fact, a key ingredient to the success of a pan-Canadian beneficial ownership registry. Certain witnesses appearing before committee emphasized the need to ensure adequate alignment, both domestically and internationally. The need for this is obvious, given the transnational nature of organized crime and the complexity and sophistication with which actors can conceal the true owners of different assets. We need to be able to work together to counter this.

Interoperability has many dimensions, but it generally means that Canada not only respects international best practices on thresholds and uses the best available data standard but is also similarly aligned with domestic best practices. Thus, provinces are enticed to join a pan-Canadian registry and information can be shared seamlessly to trace illicit activities across jurisdictions. That is why Canada has adopted the beneficial ownership open data standard, which is an internationally accepted open standard for modelling and publishing information on the beneficial ownership and control of companies. It is used for collecting, sharing and using data on beneficial ownership. Canada's use of this standard would ensure that our registry could communicate and speak using the same technical language as beneficial ownership registries around the world do, as well as communicating with our provincial and territorial partners.

The standard would also mandate that corporations provide information about individuals who have significant ownership stakes and control in any corporation, thereby empowering law enforcement, the CRA, banks, journalists and the general public to accurately ascertain the true owners of any given company. This will help prevent criminals from using anonymous, numbered corporations, or shell companies, which are sometimes spread across multiple jurisdictions as a shield to conceal the true owners of companies.

Furthermore, I want to highlight the work of the committee in increasing the maximum penalties for those found to have failed to comply with the legislation, with fines now up to $1 million. This will ensure that there is a sufficient deterrent effect for individuals frustrating the important purpose of the legislation.

The provinces and territories have a major role to play here, because the vast majority of companies are in fact incorporated provincially. That is why I am pleased to see my home province of British Columbia taking a leadership role in response to widespread allegations of money laundering in the province. B.C. has tabled legislation to create its own beneficial ownership registry for corporations, and it has already created a beneficial land ownership registry, which is now in effect.

It is easy to see why action is important. A 2018 report estimated that money laundering has played a role in increasing housing prices by approximately 5% in British Columbia. The lack of knowledge regarding the true owners of over half of the top 100 most-expensive properties in B.C. not only worsens the problem of housing affordability but also raises further concerns about potential tax evasion related to the treatment of principal residences. Furthermore, clear ties have been made between money laundering and the devastating health crisis we are facing in B.C., the opioid epidemic, where illicit funds garnered from the sale of fentanyl and other illegal drugs are laundered through real estate and other opaque means, contributing to the problem.

That is why, in addition to Canada's adoption of the beneficial ownership open data standard, the federal government has worked and continues to work alongside its provincial and territorial counterparts to continue to move the needle ahead on ensuring beneficial ownership transparency in Canada. This collaboration began at the officials level in 2016 and was formalized in a 2017 agreement among federal, provincial and territorial finance ministers. They agreed, in principle, to pursue legislative amendments to their respective corporate statutes that would require corporations to hold accurate and up-to-date information on beneficial owners, as well as to eliminate the use of bearer shares.

In 2019, finance ministers further agreed to “cooperate on initiating consultations on making beneficial ownership information more transparent through initiatives such as aligning access through public registries, while respecting jurisdictional responsibilities with respect to corporations.” The ongoing collaboration has resulted in, among other things, the majority of the provinces making amendments to their corporate statutes to create and maintain a beneficial ownership registry of their individuals with significant control. These amendments largely emulated the 2019 legislative amendments made to the CBCA. This means that, for most businesses operating in Canada, there will be information available on their beneficial owners.

Our ongoing collaboration with the provinces has also culminated in the establishment of a common platform called the multi-jurisdictional registry access service, or MRAS for short. MRAS is a common front-end portal that provides access to all the corporate registries in the country. It was a project adopted many years ago among the provinces, the territories and the federal government, and it represents one of the options to build on in creating a pan-Canadian registry.

Our efforts to harmonize federal and provincial beneficial ownership regimes are an ongoing initiative. To illustrate this, it is notable that, on June 5, Minister Champagne and Deputy Prime Minister Freeland sent a joint letter to their respective provincial and territorial ministerial counterparts, asking them to once again join the federal government's effort to create a pan-Canadian beneficial ownership registry and seeking specifically to understand each—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I must interrupt the member.

The hon. member for Joliette is rising on a point of order.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect, it is the practice of the House that we do not refer to ministers by name but by their title of office.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I completely agree. I was distracted. The hon. member is quite right; we do not use the names of members.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, the letter was seeking to specifically understand each jurisdiction's particular needs and any supports required to facilitate their participation in a pan-Canadian system.

During the committee hearings, requests were heard to lower the ownership threshold to disclosure from 25% to 10%. First, it is important to point out that the decision to adopt a 25% threshold was made in 2018, and it was approved by Parliament in 2019 in Bill C-86.

With that said, the government does not support lowering the ownership threshold from 25% to 10%, because doing so could introduce significant interoperability issues. The 25% threshold makes the most sense for the following reasons: It is in line with the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, Canada's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing legislation. It also aligns with the beneficial ownership thresholds put in place by Canadian provinces, including Quebec and British Columbia. It is also in line with the ownership threshold adopted in all major jurisdictions in the world, including the U.S., the U.K., the European Union and Japan. Finally, it is compliant with the G20 and the norms set by the G20's Financial Action Task Force.

It should be emphasized that lowering the ownership threshold is not necessary to uncover significant control. Individuals who have a right to or actually exercise significant influence or control over a company are still required to be registered, even if they own less than 25% of the shares.

To ensure the effectiveness of the new registry, it is crucial for Canada to stay in line with domestic and international norms. Otherwise, the data it collects would not be interoperable or comparable; this would create both a significant burden on businesses and a significant challenge in ensuring compliance. Lowering the ownership threshold from 25% to 10% will take us out of alignment with best practices, both domestically and internationally; therefore, it is not recommended by the government.

The lack of beneficial ownership transparency is impairing Canada's ability to combat serious financial crimes, such as fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. It also limits our capacity to enforce domestic and international sanctions and to effectively trace and freeze financial assets. Finally, it is impacting the trust of Canadians and foreign investors in our marketplace.

Our inability to quickly and quietly identify a company's beneficial owner delays criminal investigations; denies law enforcement leads to potential suspects, witnesses and evidence; and impairs the identification and seizure of suspected proceeds of crime. It also reduces the ability of private businesses to protect themselves.

It is clear that the registry proposed by this bill and the interoperability measures that form part of the regime would significantly improve Canada's ability to fight financial crime. It would help public authorities verify owners across corporate layers, help businesses better validate the identity of their trading partners and render more difficult the use of corporations for illicit activities.

Future areas that should be examined to improve our ability to ascertain the beneficial owners of assets include bringing in new requirements for foreign companies doing business in Canada to disclose their beneficial owners, as well as for the Government of Canada to play a coordinating role in assisting the provinces and territories to establish a pan-Canadian land ownership registry. This registry would be able to work in concert with the corporate beneficial ownership registry. It would dovetail the important legislative changes to improve our ability to tackle financial crime that were announced in this year's budget implementation act.

A forthcoming review of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act will surely identify further measures to take. I hope all members of this House will join me in supporting this important bill's passage so that we can continue to improve our ability to protect Canada from financial crime and the illicit activities that it supports.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon is Canada's number one riding.

I will just note that, during the witness testimony, we heard from Transparency International and the RCMP that the standard practice the government keeps talking about was not actually a standard practice; it was just a norm that became adopted.

I fail to see why the government sees such an impediment to decreasing the threshold, as if it were going to suddenly stop us from doing more work. The RCMP wants it. The leading experts in Canada on money laundering think lowering the threshold is a good idea. As well, in conjunction with lowering the threshold, more businesses, under the federal corporations act, would be included. I should point out that we did not even have a chance to discuss the stacking of corporations in conjunction with the change in thresholds as well.

I do not know why the government is so stuck on not doing this. The RCMP thought it would be a good—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would say my riding is the most beautiful riding in the country.

I talked quite a bit about the rationale for keeping the disclosure threshold at 25%. It is important for it to be seamless in order to operate and communicate with all jurisdictions around the world that are implementing this system. Making sure we are consistent would be very helpful and seamless for the sharing of that information.

I think there are always opportunities to see if this might be changed down the road. I know some jurisdictions are actually now thinking of lowering the threshold. If that were to take place around the world, then I think there would be good rationale for us to emulate that; however, I think, as it stands right now, this is the standard, and it is important for us to be consistent.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I invite my two hon. colleagues to come and visit the riding of Joliette. I am certain they will change their minds about how they rank the ridings by beauty.

I would like to congratulate my colleague on such a wonderful, informative speech. He also pointed out that this government's process of working with the provinces has been beyond reproach, and I am grateful for that, as it seems quite rare these days.

In my opinion, this is really a step in the right direction. However, we are going to have to go further. For example, we need to know the identity of the companies' real beneficiaries, who could be in tax havens. What does my colleague think about that?

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette for his question. I look forward to seeing his riding as well.

That is a good question. We need to be able to determine the identity of the true owners of companies that come from other countries. As I said in my speech, this is a subject that could be researched in anticipation of future amendments to the act. I think this could present problems, because criminals are starting to use very sophisticated methods and they operate in several countries. We need to find ways to fight them.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, there is no debate that I do live in the most beautiful riding in the country.

To my colleague, who is also from British Columbia, I say that there was a really important study done by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, called “Sharing Risks and Benefits”, and it was by commercial fishers, to ensure that their needs are being met, because we have a broken commercial fishing industry in Canada. On the east coast, we have a local ownership model. On the west coast, we have a concentration of commercial interests.

One of the top asks of commercial fishers in this study was to ensure that we know who owns the quota in our public fishery.

Can my colleague assure that commercial fishers in Canada would know, through this legislation, who owns the quota, so we can better manage our fisheries and ensure that the concentration of wealth actually ends up in the hands of those fishing—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to wish my hon. colleague from Courtenay-Alberni well. I know there have been some serious issues with forest fires impacting transportation throughout his riding. I wish him the best, and it is good to see him here.

I very much agree with the premise of his question. The fact that we do not know how the quota is allocated is something of significant concern. I certainly support looking into what it might look like to have that quota allocated to the fishermen themselves, not to companies that are perhaps reselling that quota.

Now that we have created this beneficial ownership registry, it would be interesting to see how that might be able to be expanded to the owners of the quota as well, so we can better understand—

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, as previously stated, the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-42. This bill will reveal who is really behind shell corporations. The bill will make it easier to fight tax evasion, money laundering and the financing of illegal activities.

Furthermore, the process that resulted in this legislation is beyond reproach and respects the jurisdictions and autonomy of Quebec and the provinces. This approach is becoming increasingly rare in Ottawa, and we applaud it in this case. Finally, I would like to remind the House that Quebec already has its own registry.

However, for anyone who believes in tax fairness, surely it is high time we cracked down on tax havens. As members know, by using them, the ultra-wealthy are evading taxes like never before, and so are the big banks, multinationals and web giants. These companies justify their actions on the grounds that their schemes are legal, even though their greed is completely immoral.

I would now like to refer to two economists, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who clearly illustrate the method in their book The Triumph of Injustice.

First, they explain that the legal framework for multinationals has changed little since they were first developed in the 1920s. Subsidiaries of the same multinational are treated as autonomous entities. For example, “Apple Ireland must be considered for tax purposes as a firm of its own, distinct from Apple USA.” Since Ireland's tax rate is half that of the United States, it is in the multinational's interest to transfer its profits there to pay half the tax.

In theory, subsidiaries must exchange goods and services at market value, on an arm's-length basis, as if the entities were independent of each other. In practice, however, they have considerable leeway to shift profits to tax havens.

The principle, which has barely changed, was developed in the 1990s by tax optimization consultancies. It involves the sale between subsidiaries of assets that have no market price, such as logos, brands, management services or financial services.

The economists give some examples:

What's the price of Apple's logo? It's impossible to know: This logo has never been sold in any market. What's the price of Nike's iconic “swoosh”? What's the price of Google's search and advertisement technology? Since these logos and trademarks and patents are never traded externally, firms can pick whatever price suits them.

The firms sell all-in services, that is, a creative intragroup transaction accompanied by a certified “correct” transfer price. Saez and Zucman explain what this means:

Thanks to the proliferation of intragroup transactions conducted at doctored prices, high profits [in the hundreds of billions of dollars] end up being recorded in subsidiaries where tax rates are low, and low profits in places where they are high.

The economists estimate that $800 billion U.S. in multinationals' profits is transferred to tax havens. That represents 40% of their global profits and 60% of the profits of U.S. multinationals.

Variations on these schemes are made available throughout the world by the Big Four accounting firms, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

It is always the same thing. Here are two examples provided by the authors:

In 2003, a year before it was listed as a public company in August 2004, Google sold its search and advertising technology to its own “Google Holdings,” a subsidiary incorporated in Ireland but for Irish tax purposes a tax resident of Bermuda, an island in the Atlantic where its “mind and management” are supposedly located.

Transfer pricing was kept secret, but it was certainly low. Otherwise, it would have had to be declared to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Saez and Zucman estimate the figure at $700 million U.S., tops, when the same algorithms have, for example, enabled Google Holdings to report $22.7 billion U.S. for doing business in Bermuda in 2017 alone. That is 30 times more for a single year. Talk about the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Economists have pointed out that, in Asia, Singapore is the location used instead of Bermuda. Its tax rate for multinationals is also nil, or zero.

Here is the second example. In 2004, Skype, which was founded by a Swede and a Dane, transferred the better part of its technology to its Irish subsidiary. However, thanks to LuxLeaks, the leak of confidential documents from PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2014, we know the details of that transaction. The cost of the technology transfer was estimated at 25,000 euros, which is scandalous, given that Skype was bought by eBay a year later in 2005 for $2.6 billion U.S., over 100,000 times the price of the transfer. Saez and Zucman explain that corporate tax dodging schemes are quite simple. They said the following:

At its core, it involves manipulating the price of intragroup transactions in goods (like iMacs), services (as when a US firm buys “management advice” from an affiliated party in Switzerland), assets (such as Google selling its search and advertisement technology to its Bermuda subsidiary), or loans (as happened during the Netherlands Antilles frenzy of the early 1980s).

In that regard, the Netherlands Antilles frenzy was a sort of dress rehearsal for the use of tax havens. It started in the late 1970s and was banned in the late 1980s. This new corporate tax evasion industry fits within the context of the emergence of the neo-liberal ideology, which occurred at the same time as the boom in tax havens for individuals. Saez and Zucman illustrated that as follows, and I quote:

Here is how it worked. A US firm would set up a subsidiary on the island of Aruba, Bonaire, or Curaçao. It would then have this affiliate borrow money from a European bank at the prevailing interest rate, around 3%, and lend it back to the US parent company at a much higher interest rate, around 8%.

The difference in rates helped shift the profits from the United States to the Caribbean.

As we know, the use of tax havens really took off in the 1990s. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, neo-liberalism triumphed. The new generation of executives focused their corporate role on serving the shareholders exclusively. In the meantime, the share of profits earned overseas doubled from 15% to 30% for American multinationals.

The response from wealthy states was to lower the corporate tax rate, which did not help repatriate their profits. Between 1985 and 2018, the average corporate tax rate was halved, going from 49% to 24%. As the two economists point out, in the early 1950s, corporations paid as much in taxes as individuals. Today, with the tax cuts and the use of tax havens, this ratio has changed dramatically. Businesses contribute 10 times less than individuals. Back home, in Quebec, this imbalance has been documented extensively by Professor Lauzon.

Multinationals now reign supreme; they artificially relocate their profits to tax havens to avoid paying taxes. The profits they do not relocate are taxed at half the rate they were 30 years ago. Not to mention that they outsource their real activities to countries where the people are underpaid, allowing their profits to swell even more.

The solution to this injustice is first and foremost political. In fact, that is the pretext that multinationals use. According to their rhetoric, all of this is legal. What is more, they undertake a colossal amount of lobbying to keep it that way. Saez and Zucman take issue with that:

It's a weak defense: nothing of substance happens in Bermuda, so it stands to reason that Google has booked $22.7 billion in revenue in that island to avoid taxes, in violation of the economic substance doctrine.

The authors conclude it will take a revolution in how things are done if we want to change the game, saying, “In need of a Copernican revolution, [the OECD has] been busy refining the Ptolemaic model”.

I therefore invite the House and this government to be the revolution the world needs.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, my riding of Nepean has two rivers, farmland, a greenbelt and a high-tech processing and testing facility. Best of all, we have the best people in Canada, who speak 120 different languages. It is not only beautiful but it is also a mini-Canada.

These days, with the number of corporations being set up, sometimes there is no difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. The hon. member mentioned the tax havens around the world. I want to pick his brain and get his comments on the global corporate minimum tax that is being proposed, and which would be implemented soon.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would really enjoy visiting my colleague's wonderful riding.

I think that the plan to establish a global minimum tax rate is a good solution. I think people were waiting for the OECD or the G20 to endorse it before they moved ahead with implementation. In my view, the fact that the Biden administration is using its influence could help the proposal pick up steam. As far back as 2009, after the last economic crisis, the President of France at the time, Sarkozy, said that playtime was over. Since then, nothing has changed.

It will take something big for words to turn into action. Maybe this time is the right time. Even though 15% is not enough, it is a step in the right direction.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for informing us, like a good teacher, about the tax evasion issue. I would like him to go into greater detail about one of the points he raised in his speech. I am referring to international lobbying and the large corporations that set up tax evasion schemes.

Is there any way to raise their awareness or simply enact legislation to prevent them from doing these things?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, just looking at the registry of lobbyists reveals how many times big players like Google, big accounting firms and large multinationals meet with members of this government. It is the same elsewhere. It is astounding.

One has to wonder whether the minister spends more time with them than he does with his children and his family. That definitely needs to change. Obviously, it is going be difficult. Legislation is needed, but to make these legislative changes, the government has to serve the people, not these big multinationals.

When we think of Paul Martin, who made Barbados a legal tax haven while he was building his clubhouse there, when we think of Bill Morneau, who was the finance minister and whose company Morneau Shepell boasted of selling advice on how to use tax havens on its website, one has to wonder who this government serves.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, we know that arrangements that allow for tax evasion are made in secret, but we also know that the consequences are not secret when governments do not have enough revenue to pay for the services Canadians rely on.

I wonder if my colleague could elaborate on the consequences of not having the tools to expose the arrangements that allow for tax evasion.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is an insightful comment and question. I thank my hon. colleague, with whom I am fortunate to serve on the Standing Committee on Finance.

When a Toronto bank reports its profits in the Caribbean, this means unpaid taxes, longer hospital wait times and less school funding. These are directly linked. This is so important. We all remember the tragic fires in Fort McMurray. The IMF said that these fires were causing a recession in the Caribbean, where Canadian corporations and Canadian banks report their profits, because there was a direct impact. That gives us an idea of the situation. It is opaque, but we can indirectly see the scale of the problem. This has to change, but it takes political will. I implore the government to do something about it.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-42 at report stage. I will be talking about themes that have already been explored today.

One of the reasons a public beneficial ownership registry is so important is because Canada, notoriously, is losing tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue ever year as a result of tax havens. That is where Canadian corporations are able to declare their revenue in other jurisdictions, and then either bring that money back into the country or not, without paying any sort of tax. That means, despite corporations doing their business and raising their revenue here in Canada, they are finding ways out of paying their fair share.

That is from a more general point of view and about paying into general revenue that then goes to paying for things such as the Canada health transfer and other important sources of funding that ensure Canadians have access to health care, education and the other important services they depend upon. It is also because these companies are making use of a fair amount of Canadian infrastructure, which Canadians pay for through the public purse, to create the profits they are getting. It is only right that they pay their fair share.

If we look at the share of government revenue that comes from business and corporate tax over the last number of decades, that share has been decreasing considerably against the share that working Canadians are paying. We do end up in a difficult situation that is not financially tenable, where corporate Canada is no longer paying as much of the bill as it used to for government services.

One of the tools to do that is to better define the extent to which tax revenue is being avoided or escaped by corporate players in Canada. Part of that puzzle is lifting the veil of secrecy that so often covers various business arrangements and makes it hard to tell who needs to be held to account for their business practices.

Even though I think it is an interesting idea to have a global minimum tax, which is not to say that means Canada has to have a minimum corporate tax, we have a lot of other competitive advantages that make us an attractive place for investment, and Canada should not sell itself short in that regard.

Nevertheless, even if we did have a world minimum corporate tax, it is not going to address the issues of secrecy that a public beneficial ownership registry rightly addresses. It is also important to say that, in the current context and over the course of the last year or so, the arguments for a beneficial public ownership registry have become even more urgent because there is another side to this story.

When I talk about the veil of secrecy around corporate actors and ensuring they are paying their fair share, that is just one part of the story. We also know that there are malignant actors who are not just getting out of paying their fair share of taxes, but who are doing far more. I think of some of the Russia oligarchs who are known to be close associates of Vladimir Putin, who is currently waging an illegal and unjust war in Ukraine. Canada, unfortunately, is one of the places where they have seen fit to stash some of their cash and assets.

To be able to properly enforce sanctions against people like that, we have to lift the veil of secrecy around corporate ownership because those are the spaces where these kinds of folks are hiding. That is why we have seen so many of Canada's allies across the world, in the last 18 months or so, really accelerate their own programs for beneficial public ownership registries. This is why Canada cannot be left behind.

My understanding is that, to implement this registry, it will take some time after the legislation passes to do that. That is why I believe it is important this legislation pass before we break for the summer. That gives about six months to the end of the year for officials to, with a legislated mandate from Parliament, begin to put this registry into effect.

That is one thing we can do to support Ukraine and ensure that Canada is not a haven for those that would do Ukraine harm. It is why this has to pass with urgency.

I take some of the points that were made earlier in debate about the imperfections of the process at committee. What I am hearing is that there is some goodwill around this bill and a willingness, I hope, as we move forward, to look at some of the weaknesses of the bill and improve upon it in the future. However, I would rather see us improving upon something that is in place than continuing to talk about what might come to be in a context where the buddies of Vladimir Putin are having a relatively free run here in Canada because we do not have the information we need to adequately track those sanctions.

I will give an example. There has been talk about lowering the ownership threshold under the public beneficial ownership registry. That is an idea I am quite open to, but I am also mindful that, if this registry is going to be a success, we need to have participation from the provinces. My understanding is that, where provincial registries already exist, the threshold is around 25%, so that is a conversation the federal government needs to have to work with the provinces to bring everyone along together in order to lower that threshold. If we end up with a federal registry with a lower threshold and some provinces decide not to participate, or to delay their participation, I do not think we will be doing ourselves a service.

That is why, while there is room for legitimate criticism and an opportunity to do better as we learn more about public beneficial ownership registries, it should not delay this legislation's passing before summer, so this can be brought into place in a timely way. Then Canada would be able to begin applying more pressure, as it rightly should, to folks who are supporting Vladimir Putin and his illegal war in Ukraine.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to understand the rationale behind lowering the significant threshold from 25% to 10%. Indeed, the New Democratic Party supported this amendment after hearing testimony during the debate at committee on why Canada should be a leader in money laundering to adopt a more progressive threshold, which was outlined by the RCMP.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, as the member likely knows, when we talk about problems in the tax regime and folks who would like to evade paying their taxes, they can often structure their business in a way to come right up to the threshold but not exceed it. Therefore, with a 25% threshold, the concern is that it leaves a lot of latitude for a corporate organization to be able to go right up to a relatively higher threshold.

However, as I say, if Canada is going to have a lower threshold, which I am quite open to as an idea, that is not a decision that can be just taken here in Ottawa alone. It is a decision that the provinces have to go along with. It sounds like we are not there yet, unfortunately. I do not think we should delay setting up the registry while that conversation happens, and I certainly encourage the federal government to have a strong dialogue with the provinces about how to get that threshold lower. We should enable the government to set up that infrastructure now, while those conversations are happening, instead of insisting on the conversation before the infrastructure.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his very detailed and interesting speech. With regard to the last question, it was mentioned that Canada could become a leader in the fight against tax evasion. Would this not require a major revolution?

I will give an example. There have recently been document leaks. Radio-Canada reported that Canada recovered 20 to 30 times less money than European countries. We also learned that even Revenu Québec recovered more money than the Canada Revenue Agency, and that is just for Quebec. Is that not outrageous?

We really need to send a message to the Canada Revenue Agency and the government that they need to do a lot more.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. A Canadian author, Alain Deneault I believe, wrote a book that describes the role played by Canadian banks in the creation of the entire international infrastructure of tax havens.

We need a major change in culture in Canada, not just in government, but in the banking sector, which is truly an integral part of this entire international enterprise. We have work to do.

We must change how we think about this to ensure that Canada is no longer a place where it is impossible to obtain justice for accountants who want big corporations to pay their taxes, and not just the Canadian workers who are footing the bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I just want to emphasize that, when we talk about corporations and laundering and so forth, it is important to recognize that many of these companies are actually under provincial jurisdictions. With the federal government bringing forward legislation of this nature, this demonstrates leadership and the hope that the provinces and territories would do likewise. Both complementing each other would give strength to what is actually being proposed.

Could the member expand on that particular point?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, this is certainly an area for federal and provincial co-operation.

As I said before, what is important is that we create the legislative mandate for the federal government to move forward as expeditiously as possible, and that the government take a lot of the constructive feedback that has already been offered in the course of this debate into very serious consideration. It should take that into their conversations with the provinces and territories so that we could build the best possible public beneficial ownership registry.

What we have in the legislation now is good, but it could be better. However, we do not need it to be better to get started on all the work that needs to happen in order to start applying pressure to folks like Putin's buddies who are stashing cash here in Canada.

The House resumed from June 16 consideration of Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

Canada Business Corporations Act

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would encourage the member to go back a little further in terms of Canada's involvement in money laundering. Donald Fleming, a former Conservative finance minister, was instrumental in setting up the Cayman Islands as an international tax haven, and he set up many others, in the Bahamas and elsewhere. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that Canada is known for money laundering, because Canada helped set up some of the financial centres of the world where money laundering takes place, and, through various taxation treaties to avoid so-called double taxes, made it possible for money to move very easily between Canada and these other jurisdictions. That is why we lose tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue from legitimate sources of income, in addition to the damage that is done in Canada through money laundering.

I wonder if the member perhaps has some reflections on the way that a certain kind of anti-tax rhetoric has been used over decades now to position Canada as a world leader in money laundering.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

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

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

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, the one part of the member's speech that certainly drew my attention was when he said that the system is only as strong as the weakest link. One of the challenges is that provinces may say that they are going to put in place their own registries, but the problem is the interoperability. The government has raised expectations and has basically said it is going to eliminate money laundering and see greater transparency in real estate, but that would apply to only a very small number, regulated under the federal watch.

Could the member maybe elaborate a little further on his views about this issue and the lack of interoperability between these systems?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the research we did, only the Province of British Columbia, at the provincial level of government, is implementing a registry that will include provincially incorporated companies and provincially incorporated trusts, which will include real estate. Nova Scotia is the other province that has already implemented a separate beneficial ownership registry for real estate. None of the eight other provinces has any plans to implement a registry for real estate, and that is a problem because the Cullen commission highlighted the fact that significant international money laundering is being laundered through real estate in British Columbia, and, no doubt, is being laundered through real estate in other provinces, such as Ontario.

The system is only as strong as the weakest link, and the fact that eight out of 10 provinces do not have a beneficial ownership registry for real estate, and that one province has no beneficial ownership registry for provincially incorporated entities and trusts, means that the system would be ineffective. That is why the federal government should have proposed legislation that used the criminal power given to it in the Constitution to create a registry that mandated all companies in Canada, federally incorporated companies, provincially incorporated companies, all trusts and all real estate, be registered under a single system to start giving law enforcement the tools they need to crack down on money laundering, the proceeds of crime and the proceeds of terrorism.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to be able to enter into debate on the important issues that Canadians are facing in this country and, specifically, those issues that impact Battle River—Crowfoot.

However, I was celebrated, along with so many in this place and fathers across this country, this past weekend on Sunday, as our nation recognized fathers. If I could for a brief moment, before I get into the substance of what is a very substantive debate, I would just like to pass along my greetings, officially on the record, to my father, all fathers across the country and those grandfathers who have impacted us. Although I do not have grandfathers alive anymore, I know the significant role they played in my life. I wish a happy belated Father's Day to all the fathers represented across our country from coast to coast to coast.

We are debating Bill C-42 here this evening. Although, unfortunately, it seems that the government did some tricky manoeuvring to change the debate from Bill C-18 to Bill C-42, this is an important issue that bears fulsome and comprehensive discussion in this place.

I will back up a bit and talk about something that is probably not on the radar of many Canadians, because when it comes to the idea of money laundering, most Canadians do not really understand the significance of what it is. For example, I know the Panama papers are part of the discussion that has surrounded this bill in particular. I will enlighten us on the challenge that brought us to the point that we would be debating this here this evening. I will then get into what is proposed and where I think some additional items need to be challenged, discussed and addressed, when it comes to the larger issue of what the bill is trying to accomplish.

Most people who have spent much time watching Hollywood movies will have heard of the Cayman Islands, Switzerland or other jurisdictions that are known for hiding money. Criminal enterprises, gangs and thugs store money there, access it in a secretive manner and ensure they could take dirty money that was earned by some nefarious process, whether that be the sale of something illegal, the proceeds of crime or whatever the case is. They go through a process where the money comes out, and it might not be clean on the other side, but at least it is not traceable to the original way that it was earned. This is why we call it “laundering”.

Things like the Panama papers and other news articles make headlines on occasion, and specifically, they often only make headlines when there are significant figures that are involved. This may happen if there is a businessperson or a politician who has some notoriety and is named in these sorts of releases. However, one of the really unfortunate realities is that Canada has become a place where we are known for being able to have money laundering take place.

That is incredibly concerning, especially in a world where digital technology, artificial intelligence and the dynamics associated with some of these things are incredibly complex. We have not had a great deal of time to discuss artificial intelligence in this place. The fact that Canada has become something of a safe haven for money laundering and the proceeds of crime is incredibly concerning.

Some of those proceeds would be from criminal activities that take place on Canadian soil, but the unfortunate signal that has been sent to the criminal enterprises that exist around the world is that Canada seems to be the place where one can see money laundered, regardless of where those proceeds are from. This is something that definitely needs to be addressed.

This has a few unintended consequences as well that I think bear mentioning. Just to highlight for those watching, one of the things that has been highlighted that would be a possible way to see this happen is through the purchase of real estate. At a time when we already have some of the lowest per capita housing availability in the developed world, it is incredibly concerning that some of the pressures that exist there would be for purposes that are nefarious and certainly not benefiting Canadians for the pricing structure that exists. Especially when we have a price point that is determined in a market that is not based on the product and its availability, laundering artificially inflates it. This is something that definitely needs to be addressed.

That is the problem. Now we have Bill C-42, which is a step in the right direction to address some of those things. The question is whether it goes far enough, and I will get to the ways that I do not think it does. However, it does address some of the challenges and attempts to ensure that some of the currently existing loopholes that allow Canada to be this safe haven, as I mentioned, are addressed.

One thing is to ensure that there is greater accountability for those who are purchasing businesses that have those large financial interests in this country. The reason this is important is to ensure that there is that registry and that ability to have accountability at every stage of the corporate process. For those who have no reason to hide their actions, of course, this is not something that will concern them. There may be some reporting requirements through financial institutions and whatnot, but if a person is not doing anything wrong, these burdens are not something that would be part of the daily life of the accounting of a business's operations; that is valuable.

When it comes to the fines, and we have certainly heard a lot about the fines as we have had debate about this issue, there would be an increase in the penalties, both monetary penalties and possible prison sentences. Certainly, I think that is important, although I will note the irony that it seems as though the Liberals have this habit of being soft on crime in many regards, but they want to send a signal through the legislation, it would seem, that Canada is willing to get tough when it comes to white-collar crime. However, there are certainly some challenges when it comes to the crime that is affecting so many Canadians.

There are a number of aspects that build on some of the actions that have been taken by the previous Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which saw this as a challenge and started to make some of those changes. Notably, back in 2014, I believe, there were some significant changes that the Harper government made to ensure that it would tighten up some of the areas that were loopholes at that point in time. A number of steps have been taken over the last number of years.

I believe my colleague for Wellington—Halton Hills said it well when he talked about a chain being only as strong as its weakest link. We are seeing that there could be some holes plugged in the challenges that Canada faces when it comes to money laundering. However, it is fundamentally important to ensure that we do not stop here.

A lot of this discussion took place at committee, and I know folks who are watching are interested in seeing some of that. The work that the committee did highlighted some opportunities that existed in terms of strengthening this legislation, and we saw a few amendments pass. However, a whole host of other amendments could have made this legislation stronger.

To address some of this strange occurrence that happens increasingly with the government, it seems to be quick to rush everything through, because it is a crisis. This is unfortunate; as it is rushing things through, it often ends up having to go back and fix the challenges or the gaps that could and should have been addressed in the earlier stages of the process. At the industry committee, there were some challenges brought up, including from some senior public servants who were concerned about the possibility of challenges when it comes to implementation. There are privacy concerns that the Liberals have to address, and this is simply another part of those areas.

To conclude, it is incumbent on us all in this place to do our utmost to ensure that every bill that comes forward is debated thoroughly and that we have engagement from the affected stakeholders. When it comes to something like this, it may not be on the forefront of many Canadians' minds, but it is fundamentally important that we get it right, so that we can stop Canada from being a safe haven for money laundering in this world.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

My colleague spoke with a great deal of knowledge on this point. I can see he represents his constituents well for a relatively young MP, compared with people in mid-life like me; I am at the tender age of almost 45 now. I said I was 44 the other day, and I heard about it.

Money laundering has had both a pervasive and a significant impact. I will ask my colleague this: Could he comment on how his riding of Battle River—Crowfoot has perhaps been, maybe not directly impacted, but impacted generally by these types of things?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciated being called “young” in this place, although with the rate my hair is turning grey, I am not sure if that is more the job or my age.

I can highlight how this would specifically impact my constituents, although this would not be unique in the context of this discussion. Most people do not understand the intricacies of major business operations, how a corporate registry would affect them, how that would affect the accounting of major multinationals or what reporting requirements banks have.

For example, if the average Canadian were asked on the street what FINTRAC is, most people would probably not know. However, this all has to do with Canadians having confidence in our economy to be able to purchase anything, to go into a bank and trust the fact that the institution is going to have security on its deposits and to ensure that our law enforcement is able not only to pull somebody over for speeding but also make sure that there are consequences for serious crimes, such as laundering money from the proceeds of crime.

This comes back to the very basic principle of ensuring that there is trust in our institutions.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to say how disappointed I am with Bell Canada's decision to eliminate jobs back home, in my region, particularly in Rimouski. One of the people who lost his job was an experienced journalist, Martin Brassard. He has 35 years' experience and worked for the Énergie radio station, which he left recently, and then for Rouge FM in Rimouski.

Local and regional information is vital to the development of our communities and also to the health of our democracy. I hope that the government will listen to reason and put in place the solution proposed by the Bloc Québécois of creating a special fund to support regional media.

Members know that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-42 because it seeks to foster transparency. We have heard much about the Panama Papers. Is it normal that there are whistle-blowers and people hiding behind corporations, but that we do not have any information about this? Does my colleague agree that there should be more transparency in corporations?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, there is a lot to address. I will try to get to all three points.

We need to strengthen whistle-blower protections in this country. That is absolutely essential to ensure that those who are taking risks, whether they are professional risks, risks to the possibility of advancement or sometimes even further risks than that, have those protections. Certainly, I have talked at length about that at the ethics committee here in Parliament.

When it comes to transparency and the need for it, this is absolutely and fundamentally important. That comes back to my response to the previous question. Most Canadians may not understand the intricacies associated with multinational business operations and why money laundering may affect them, but when it comes to trust in our institutions, every Canadian feels that. Unfortunately, we have seen an erosion of trust in the institutions that we all count on.

When it comes to job losses in the member's constituency, I hear his concerns. When the Keystone XL pipeline was cancelled by President Biden, and the Prime Minister refused to do anything about it, I had to face 2,000 constituents who got pink slips. They lost their jobs because of the inaction and political indifference of a party that has wanted to shut down the largest economic driver in our country. I hear that member and the pain associated with so many individuals who face the personal crisis of a job loss, especially when it is a surprise. We need to do more in this country to ensure that we create a business environment that allows for prosperity.

Certainly, the member for Carleton has talked about everything that we have been talking about. We are working diligently to ensure that we can be a country that fosters prosperity again. Together we can do that and bring it home.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak about Bill C-42 today. It is an honour for me not only because I am speaking on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola but also because it also gives me a chance to recall some of my work as a member of the finance committee in 2017, where we did an extensive review of the money-laundering regime in Canada as it relates to not only money laundering but also to the financing of terrorism.

Let me give a quick shout-out to the former chair of that finance committee, the Hon. Wayne Easter, who basically said that we should travel to places like London and Washington as part of it. I was a member of Parliament who was quite skeptical of junkets in all their forms, but he told me that he thought it was important for the committee to do that, and some of the best testimony we received as a committee on how Canada is seen in the world with respect to things like money laundering was absolutely correct. I have to thank the Hon. Wayne Easter for those observations, because it really showed that Canada is an outlier, and for all the wrong reasons.

We have seen Transparency International talk year after year about how we are slowly becoming a country where money laundering has become a problem. We were once very respected under the Transparency International regime.

Those 2017 recommendations from the committee still stand. It was an all-party report. The Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc members and New Democrats participated in the report and came to many unanimous recommendations, partly as a result of those trips and experiences, because we saw very clearly that Canada had a lot to achieve.

Coming back to Bill C-42, there are a number of things missing from this legislation. For example, recommendation 10 from the 2017 report refers to a rule in the United States.

It states:

That the Government of Canada make it a criminal offence for an entity or individual to structure transactions in a manner designated to avoid reporting requirements. These provisions would be modelled on Title 31 of U.S. code section 5324.

What that means is that while this will capture some of the significant control of a particular corporation's holdings so that someone would be able to find out who had significant control of an asset, such as a piece of real estate, it operates only after the fact. Only then can law enforcement start to draw evidence together to link a particular group, such as organized crime or a terrorism group, with a group of accountants or business owners and lawyers, and through that web be able to trace exactly who is connected to whom and be able to start pulling on those threads.

The Americans have taken a much more proactive approach by making it a crime to help someone to structure their affairs to avoid transparency. This is quite important. While there are many measures in the Criminal Code, it is important that we look at Canada. One of the outcomes of the report is that the legal community is still not within the FINTRAC regime. While we have seen an expansion in recent years, I think partly because of our report regarding FINTRAC, we still do not see everything included, such as lawyers.

Members may ask why that is important. It is because they are the very professionals who structure those affairs so that the money can be laundered in Canada, so I think it is an area still worthy of investigation.

Let us go to the beneficial ownership registry itself. When we went to the United Kingdom, one of the things that struck me there is that it has this beneficial ownership registry online. It is free, and there is very limited information.

First of all, I do not think most Canadians will go to a beneficial ownership registry. There is always a temptation to see what one's neighbour owns and, of course, there could be some abuses that way, but essentially, the people who would be looking at this are law enforcement and Canada Revenue Agency employees working on files that are related to the matter of money laundering. It is absolutely critical that those law enforcement officials, people who are lawfully accessing it for investigate purposes, be able to do so quickly.

However, this registry would only carry just a sliver. Again, for the people at home saying that a beneficial registry sounds good to them, it would only be for those corporations that are registered under the Canada Business Corporations Act. As someone who has lived in British Columbia my whole life, I will say that, from speaking to many lawyers, I know that the bulk of solicitors' work is when they are processing real estate and updating the registry of which a company is kept, and most of that action happens provincially.

As my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills recently said, this particular measure might offer some good points, but it is only as strong as the weakest link. If we have 10 different registries, we may end up in the tyranny of small differences.

We could take health care as an example. Not all health care information is delivered to the Public Health Agency of Canada in a uniform manner. We find that fax machines are still being used. If one province only gives information under certain forms, it is then very difficult to aggregate that to get a whole picture.

The government, just as it has done in previous agreements with provinces, comes to an agreement on principle, but when it comes time to do the work, unfortunately it does not seem to have a true consensus. I will just harken back to the Canada free trade agreement, which apparently all parties sided with. Half of it was exemptions. One may agree in principle with something, but when it comes to the operability of what comes out of something, it seems that the government is only looking for the big announcement. In this case, it is a beneficial ownership registry that would be transparent.

Again, if it is only a sliver of the activity and it does not necessarily create a uniformity of interoperable registries where everyone can funnel the same information and have aggregated information that is the same, meaning that it is always going have the same basics available, one is going to have that tyranny of small differences. When someone is looking for that information, the last thing we want to do is end up where we do not supply the information to law enforcement in a straight, one-stop shop.

I should also point out that in the U.K., the so-called transparency model has some caveats. When I was at committee, I asked officials about this, and they did say that for persons under 18, their information would not be shared, which probably is for the best, although I would ask how someone under the age of 18 would end up with significant control over a Canadian asset, but we will leave that for another time. Also, there would be exemptions on a case-by-case basis. In the U.K., politicians and celebrities are often taken off. This creates, just like all government systems, a system where someone who is working the registry is now making choices about who is included and who is not.

It is an honour for me to step forward here, and it was an honour to serve on the finance committee. This is an area where I think we can do more. As the Prime Minister likes to say, better is always possible. Unfortunately, we will just have to take what we can get today and hope that a new Conservative government would do the hard work with provinces so that we could really clamp down on money laundering.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, there are a couple of themes I have heard in Conservative speeches about this bill. One is that the ownership threshold is too high at 25%. I think one of the awkward tensions with another line of Conservative argument is that the 25% standard is actually present in most of the provincial registries that currently obtain. I think part of the goal of starting with a 25% ownership threshold was to have more congruence with existing provincial systems.

My concern is that, as we try to resolve these tensions between, as the member rightly pointed out, the importance of collaborating with the provinces and some of the things we might like to see as more stringent requirements in the legislation but that are not congruent with the existing provincial situation, the clock is ticking. There are folks, like Putin's buddies, who are hiding money here in Canada and whom a public beneficial ownership registry would help pursue.

It is not perfect legislation, but can we get the legislation passed before summer in order to ensure that we can begin doing the work to bring those folks to justice?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is a very reasonable question. Again, we are essentially putting a line in the sand with this 25% threshold. Let us be clear: It is arbitrary, and it is following the provinces rather than leading on the arguments. Being able to say who is involved and who has significant control over large assets in Canada, particularly from a law enforcement perspective, is quite important.

We have seen that some of the lawyers, accountants and other professionals who have been compromised in this area will use every planning tool possible to evade scrutiny, which is why I made the suggestion that we should follow suit by making it a Criminal Code infringement for those who structure their clients' assets in such a way as to evade transparency. Those are the mechanisms.

While my colleague and I may not agree on the 25% threshold and on whether the federal government is showing leadership, I do understand his point that we need to get moving. I also think we need to send a signal to those who operate in this space that it will not be tolerated.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague spoke about certain loopholes, particularly with regard to individuals who facilitate money laundering. I am referring to lawyers, notaries and other professionals.

Would my colleague agree that, at some point, we should also legislate so that there is less of an incentive to support businesses and individuals involved in money laundering?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is an important issue for Canadians, who understand that the crime rate in this country is high right now. It is also important that the federal government make clear the consequences of criminal activity.

I think that the federal government needs to introduce a new crime bill to crack down on fraud and crime.

I appreciate the member's question. This is how we can convey that to professionals. I also think a reference to the Supreme Court, as was laid out in the 2017 FINA study, so we can clarify what protections there are—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I would like to give one more member the opportunity to ask a question.

The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for his very substantive speech tonight. Can he share with the House how his constituents feel about ending money laundering? What do the great people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola think the government should be doing to provide more transparency and accountability as it relates to money laundering?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, simply put, British Columbians have heard a lot of politicians talk and talk when it comes to money laundering. We have had the Cullen commission, which seemed to talk about many of the activities, but we seem to see a dearth of action from both the federal and provincial governments.

There have been some improvements in casinos. As B.C.'s casinos tightened up, a lot more suspicious activity went on in Ontario. This requires leadership from the federal government. My constituents believe in the law. They want to see the laws enforced.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, before I begin my speech, I want to pay tribute to the people back home, especially those who are helping to fight the wildfires. The town of Normétal has been spared so far, but it is important to mention that the situation there is now critical. As of tomorrow, we are expecting really dry weather. The firebreaks put in place by the SOPFEU should hold, but there is a chance that there will not be enough resources to keep the flames at bay if new fires break out.

I therefore want to say thank you to all the responder units. I am thinking especially of the firefighters from New Brunswick. One of them, Bruno Pelletier, whose name has been in the news, explained all the operational details to me, for example, how a firefighting team takes action on the ground. It is rather impressive to see how they are able to deploy not just to Abitibi-Témiscamingue but anywhere in North America. I want to commend them for their courage, and I am very grateful to them for being there to help with what is to come, because we are still on high alert. We will just have to wait and see what happens in my region and others, obviously.

I am rising to talk about Bill C-42 and how vitally important it is. The bill amends the Canada Business Corporations Act and makes consequential and related amendments to other acts.

I want to begin by noting that this bill is long overdue. It is the result of federal-provincial agreements reached in 2017 and 2018 about collecting and sharing information. During those negotiations, all parties agreed to amend their laws on business corporations to ensure they would remain harmonized. Ultimately, this will make us more effective in the fight against money laundering and terrorism.

Information in the registry of one province is automatically recognized in another, thanks to the similarity of our laws. However, it is important to note that Quebec recently made changes to its law in 2021, through Bill 78, and it is expected that the other provinces will follow suit. Bill 78 contains provisions to create a beneficial ownership registry and make it public.

However, this amendment to Bill C-42 does not stem from an agreement with the provinces and is not intended to maintain this harmonization. It is poorly timed. Obviously, we opposed it in committee.

We need to recognize the importance of maintaining cohesion and respecting the process done previously. I commend the leadership of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, because he was able to put together a bill that took into account harmonization and the priority of the provinces in something like this. As a result, the debates are less tedious, and harmonization is easier to achieve in this kind of context. What is more, Bill C‑42 went through rather quickly at the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, despite some rather constructive amendments on both sides.

The market relies on investor confidence and that confidence is directly tied to the transparency and good governance of corporations. Businesses also have to fully understand the purpose of the changes made to the business registry.

By passing Bill C‑42, we are strengthening the principles of corporate governance, not only to the benefit of shareholders, but also in the interest of the public as a whole. The whole notion of a registry that will enable us to do searches is something that is very important. We received witnesses from the RCMP who came to tell us how a tool like this could help them in their work, which is far from trivial.

This bill is much more than a simple administrative measure. That is why I am urging my colleagues to move forward with it as soon as possible. The House is about to rise for the summer. It would be really unfortunate if the bill were to die on the Order Paper, because the future is hard to predict at this stage. This is an opportunity to fight organized crime, money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

By strengthening our legal framework, we are creating an environment that is less conducive to illegal activities and that helps protect our fellow citizens and financial institutions. As a result, by rejecting the amendments that threaten the harmonization of the legislation, we are sending a clear message—and that is what the Bloc Québécois has done—that we are determined to fight these scourges and preserve the integrity of our financial system. Obviously, that is the basis of our economy. Maintaining a strong economy depends first and foremost on trust and predictability, as well as on robust laws that are not easily circumvented.

To say that this bill was necessary is an understatement. I wonder why it took so long to present it in the House. A consensus could have been reached in the previous Parliament, or even in the one before that.

It is vital to recognize that corporate governance principles are important for the proper functioning of the market. By encouraging transparency, accountability and informed decision-making, we are bolstering investor confidence and promoting long-term financial stability. We must ensure that our companies have a transparent governance structure that allows for informed, responsible decisions not only in the interest of shareholders, but also in the interest of the Canadian public, obviously. However, shareholder interests are not trivial.

Legislative amendments must never be taken lightly. They have a ripple effect on our entire economic system. If we throw the harmonization of our legislation off balance, we could create disparities and needless obstacles for our companies. This could slow economic growth, discourage investment and detract from the ability of Quebec and Canada to compete internationally.

We are at a pivotal moment. We need to pass Bill C-42 in its current form, after the amendments that were adopted by the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. I am not talking about the one we are debating right now, which essentially strikes me as a waste of valuable parliamentary time. In fact, I hope that the voters of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount are watching our debates right now and will think about this before going to the polls at the last minute. Maybe it will make them think twice about supporting the Conservatives, if they were tempted to do so.

Passing this bill would be an illustration of our commitment to combatting organized crime and terrorist financing, as well as promoting sound corporate governance principles. We will continue to work with the provinces and stakeholders to maintain harmonized legislation and ensure market fluidity.

We must seize this opportunity and take action. Bill C-42 is a positive measure for Quebeckers and Canadians. It is essential that we commit to passing it, recognizing the importance of transparency, corporate governance and co-operation with the provinces to maintain legislation that can provide a robust mechanism to combat money laundering and catch fraudsters.

Together we can strengthen our economy, protect Quebeckers and Canadians, and promote a fairer and more prosperous society for all.

When I think about studying this bill in committee, I think about the day we received the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. We were able to question him about a number of things, including how this fight against organized crime is being conducted. I asked questions about how much it costs to fight organized crime, but also how much it costs to not fight organized crime. The figures are staggering. I think that in a society like ours, when we are fighting, when we see the forest fires, when we see the consequences for the economy, when we are forced to keep investing in tax credits for oil companies, I think we are fooling ourselves economically. We need to be able to refocus our investments responsibly. That means having the means to match our ambitions. If we want to make this economic transition a success, we are going to have to come up with the money to do it. That money can be found in tax havens.

We have lists of corporations, but the problem is that we do not know who the real owners of these corporations are. One corporation belongs to another corporation, which also belongs to another corporation and so forth. That is often the problem in the financial world. Who is the true owner? It is all very well to say that there is an ecosystem of 120 or 150 countries that are working together and sharing data, but the fact remains that the threat continues to be that we do not know who the real owners are.

There are companies that want to open mines and process minerals in a region such as mine. However, there is a risk, because a Chinese mining company whose ownership is unknown will have particular interests, and perhaps its sole objective will be to take over our resources and process them in China so they can keep them, or to thwart Canadian companies' growth in order to maintain a monopoly and keep the price of raw materials high.

At some point, there must be a paradigm shift. We must be able to determine who really owns corporations if we are to make the changes needed in our society. Clearly, money has a certain value in our democracy. If we want to continue providing quality social services, we have to go and get the money back from where it is stashed, by fighting against money laundering and tax havens.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. As a member of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, I helped analyze this bill. Obviously, it is a very important bill, considering that it aligns with the provinces' legislation, as my colleague pointed out. I would like to ask him a question.

My colleague mentioned Bill 78, which was adopted in Quebec in 2022 or 2021, with respect to the beneficial ownership registry. I would like him to tell me how the legislation we are about to pass aligns with Bill 78. Obviously, no one can object to the value and importance of catching fraudsters, who are unfortunately present in Canada, and more so in some provinces than in others. I think that fraud is a major problem in British Columbia, although it exists in Quebec too.

As a law-abiding business person who follows the rules, I agree with the importance of laws that help us catch fraudsters. I would like my colleague to talk to me about the importance of ensuring that the two bills are interoperable.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for his intervention and his hard work in committee standing up for the interests of Quebec. We do not always see eye to eye on what is best for Quebec, but I think that we are certainly strong voices for standing up for these interests.

As members know, in February 2020, the Government of Quebec announced its intention to create a registry. Bill 78 was introduced in the National Assembly in June 2020 and was passed in December of the same year. To answer my colleague's question, there were provisions to create this registry of beneficial owners and make it public.

What are the challenges involved in bringing in such a registry and harmonizing it with those of the other provinces? That will become clear over time. If we are careful and create legislation based on what the provinces have already created, then we are more likely to achieve harmonization. There will no doubt be some bumps along the way, but solutions might present themselves.

I think that in a context like this, the provinces have jurisdiction. It is essential that the federal government build on what the provinces are doing and not fight what the provinces are doing. I think that is one of the intentions. Obviously, in Bill C‑42 before us, information sharing and transparency are fundamental.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I think that we see eye to eye when it comes to fighting tax evasion and the misuse of tax havens. We are on the same wavelength.

The federal government is doing something it has never done before. The Canada Revenue Agency now measures what is known as the “tax gap”, meaning the difference between the tax revenue it should be collecting from individuals and companies, and what it actually collects. It calculated that in 2022, Canada's tax gap was $23.4 billion.

Our shortfall is $23.4 billion. I would like my colleague to tell us what he thinks the Liberal government should do to go after that money.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the member for Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie's leadership on the issue of fighting tax havens. It is not the first time I have heard him speaking about this in the House of Commons. I also want to highlight the commitment of my colleague, the member for Joliette.

This is a fundamental matter. We must be able to take much more robust action. According to Statistics Canada, Canadian corporations invested $381 billion in the top 12 tax havens in 2019. That represents almost one-third of all Canadian foreign investment.

It is all well and good for the minister to tell us that more and more countries are becoming our allies, that they are working on the same things as we are and that we will have a common registry. The fact remains that if our wealthiest corporations and individuals, who do not care about the common good of society, invest in the 12 most notorious tax havens in the world, we will not make progress.

The first thing that needs to be done is to go and get our money where it is hiding and ensure that everyone pays their fair share of taxes.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, money laundering in Canada is a big problem, and it is a very big problem because it has a worth. That worth, as we heard in committee, is $113 billion a year. It is a staggering number.

The UN estimated that Canada's has up to 5% of the world's money laundering. Canada has become known, unfortunately, across the world as a place to park dirty money. There is even a name for Canada's ability to hide money. It is called snow washing. I think there are advertisements in some circles. It is theft, plain and simple.

While Bill C-42 aims to combat this $113-billion problem, it falls short of combatting the future of money laundering and relies on the provinces to do most of the work. The bill may do some of the work for today, and certainly in this House we can support a lot of that, but there is a lot of work to do as we move forward.

I sit on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, and we dealt with this very rushed bill. It came through very suddenly. We were talking about how it is tackling things not only today but tomorrow. As we went to the witnesses, we heard how it fails to address the problems of tomorrow and money laundering.

Money laundering became very popular after the 2016 release of the Panama papers. The Panama papers revealed trillions of dollars of money laundering, and there were certain lessons we were meant to learn from that. One was that there was a widespread scope. The Panama papers showed a vast scale of global money laundering and tax evasion. They exposed offshore financial activities of individuals and entities from around the world, including politicians, but we will not talk about that today.

The Panama papers exposed the use of shell corporations. They exposed the widespread use of shell companies and offshore entities to conceal the true ownership of assets and facilitate money laundering. It was of a cross-border nature. When we looked at how money was being laundered, it was being done across state lines and country lines across the world. The papers also brought attention to the role of professionals, such as lawyers, accountants and financial intermediaries, in facilitating money laundering. In other words, it was widespread.

When we talked about this with regard to Bill C-42, there were a couple of lessons the bill probably has taken into account that we can learn from. One is the need for transparency. Another is public awareness and the fact there are shell corporations using their own entities to launder dirty money.

We looked at the benefits we wanted to see from this bill in bringing it from committee to Parliament. The Conservative Party stands behind the fact that we need to combat money laundering. When it comes to certain aspects of the future of how money is going to be laundered, including blockchain technologies, the use of AI, decentralized exchanges, privacy enhancing technologies, and smurfing and layering, this bill falls short in addressing those things.

Furthermore, many people do not understand that when we look at the way we are going to collect data from these businesses when tackling money laundering, which is through the Canada Business Corporations Act, or the CBCA, it is only on 15% of businesses in Canada, meaning that we will rely on the provinces to do the work for the remaining 85%. If any last holdout province, for instance, does not want to join the registry and all of a sudden we see a certain province's limited partnerships start to skyrocket as other provinces' go down, there is pressure to be put on that particular province: Why do they want to be Canada's last secrecy jurisdiction?

This follows what we saw with the U.K. registry, where Scottish limited partnerships dropped by 80%. One way to mine the data once the registry comes online is to look for movement shifts, because of course crooks are going to go where the weakest link is. That is why it has to be a harmonized approach, not just a federal approach.

The CBCA governs the incorporation and operation of businesses at the federal level, setting the framework for corporate governance, accountability and transparency. By enforcing strict obligations on corporations, directors and officers to maintain accurate records and disclose information, the CBCA enhances transparency and hinders criminals from exploiting corporate structures for illegal purposes. Additionally, the CBCA empowers regulatory bodies, law enforcement agencies and courts to investigate suspected money laundering activities within corporations.

We heard from the RCMP at committee. One of the concerns we had was about how strict the rules are that protect whistle-blowers. We need whistle-blowers to identify where illegal activity is happening. As a small business owner myself, I have about four corporations that govern different parts of my business. Members can understand that without the ability to protect whistle-blowers, it is really easy sometimes for a small business owner to hide money and find different loopholes to hide it. I normally rely on an accountant to do that for me, but there is a reason that Canada has been able to hide $113 billion a year: It has become very easy.

One of the main aspects of this is that we have to be able to protect whistle-blowers. We asked questions of the RCMP on whether that is going to happen. This bill was so rushed that it went through committee in only two meetings, which included clause-by-clause and having testimony alongside the clause-by-clause. Some of the experts could not even get back to us, including the RCMP, on how effective this bill would be in protecting whistle-blowers, and that is a big concern.

When it comes to the future of money laundering, there was also testimony on the fly during clause-by-clause, with questions that I tried to get witnesses to answer, but the witnesses did not really have the right answers. For cryptocurrencies and blockchain, for instance, criminals may increasingly turn to cryptocurrencies for money laundering purposes. The anonymous nature of certain cryptocurrencies and the decentralized nature of blockchain technology can make it more challenging to trace and monitor transactions.

We saw that in a study we finished on blockchain technology. Blockchain is really good for Canada and good for the future. We employ 16,000 employees in blockchain, and it is worth over $2 billion. However, as we have seen blockchain for good, there is also blockchain for bad. This is certainly one aspect in the future where criminals will try to hide and launder money, and this bill would do nothing to address that.

When we talk about decentralized exchanges, criminals might explore those exchanges to launder money. DEXs, as they are called, operate on blockchain technology and facilitate peer-to-peer transactions without centralized oversight, making it more difficult for authorities to track and identify suspicious activities. We just had an incredible blockchain study, but at the same time as this bill would not address the criminal element of blockchain technology, we are not looking at the good. That is something the government is not embracing. Most times, it would rather slag cryptocurrencies and blockchain as a whole, even though we should be looking at deregulation and ensure they are part of money laundering bills.

On privacy-enhancing technologies, criminals may utilize emerging privacy-enhancing technologies that aim to provide increased anonymity and obfuscation of transactions. Those technologies could make it harder for authorities to trace the origins and destinations of funds involved in money laundering. Smurfing and layering involves breaking down large amounts of money into smaller, less conspicuous transactions.

That brings me to an amendment we brought forward that was turned down by the government. Instead of looking at ownership that was only 25% or higher, it should go as low as 10%. The technologies of the future are going to allow companies to hide more money easily, and 10% is something that we found should have been easily amended in this bill and was not.

It is important to address the potential regulatory gaps and weaknesses and make sure that this bill addresses the system that criminals may wish to exploit. As regulations evolve, criminals may identify new vulnerabilities or target regions with less robust anti-money laundering frameworks. Strengthening international co-operation and collaboration among governments and financial institutions is crucial to countering the global nature of money laundering effectively.

The Conservatives can support this bill. This bill would address the $113-billion problem. We just wish it was not so rushed. We wish that we had been able to address some of the amendments that went further. What the bill would not address is the future of money laundering, which will include blockchain and advanced technologies. This bill would just address today and would not address tomorrow.

I know that a Conservative government, which will be in power in the next few years, will be able to address that. I look forward to contributing to it to make sure that we bring down the $113-billion theft of Canadian money and work toward a better future where we have less snow washing in Canada.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the other day I drove through the hon. member's riding for the very first time in almost a decade. I remembered how wonderful the beaches are where he lives. They are quite amazing on the lakes.

The member raises an important question about how much further this bill could have gone had we had enough time at committee and not been rushed with hearing from witnesses and automatically going into clause-by-clause. If the government wants collaboration and wants to work with all political parties effectively, what could it have done differently to stop some of the nonsense due to its parliamentary practices?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to talk about the beaches of Bay of Quinte. Sandbanks is the largest freshwater sandbar in all the world. We welcome well over a million visitors a year, and everyone is welcome. Some of us wish we were there today.

The bill deserves the attention that we are trying to give it, as rushed as it is. We need to spend time on a lot of different bills right now. We are dealing with Bill C-34 and are waiting for Bill C-27. The reality is that there is a lot of important legislation that we need to get through, and we need to spend the ample amount of time that these bills deserve to have spent on them. As I have mentioned, we certainly would have liked to see a few more amendments studied. We wanted to see the future of money laundering studied and not just to catch up to today.

There is a lot of great work to happen ahead, and as soon as we are done with the beaches and it gets a little colder, we will see everyone back here in Parliament so we can keep working on behalf of Canadians.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to my colleague's remarks, I was reminded of the debates we had at the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology.

My colleague asked some very good questions. We have heard that the amount of money laundered in Canada could be as high as $113 billion a year, which is a staggering number. According to a United Nations statistic, the amount of money laundered worldwide represents between 2% and 5% of global GDP.

Coming back to my colleague's speech, I would also like to remind him of a question he asked Ms. Ryan from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. This centre works primarily to combat money laundering.

How can we ensure that cryptocurrency cannot be used to circumvent the system? That was the gist of his question, and he also asked whether the current bill could guarantee the appropriate protection or whether a new bill should be introduced.

Basically, we understand that under this bill, the authorities will be using more and more mechanisms to address the issue of virtual money and the fight against money laundering. However, this is a brand new phenomenon, of course, and there are gaps in the current context.

I wonder if my colleague could elaborate on that. What does he think should be done in a future bill?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of great work my hon. colleague and I do, and I have a lot of respect for him. He does a lot of great work at the INDU committee, and I am happy to work with him.

There is a $113-billion question for money laundering, and my colleague and I are on the same page when it comes to blockchain technologies. As I mentioned in my speech, we finished that report.

When it comes to blockchain, it is tremendous for Canada, because it is about a $2-billion industry, with 16,000 jobs. With the companies and the work being done here in Canada, Canada right now, in the meantime, is considered a world leader. From there, we need bills that tackle the regulation of those industries so we can become and continue to be a leader. We also need to tackle money laundering problems that exist with cryptocurrencies and blockchain itself.

The member is right that we need a separate bill that takes up the work we completed over eight or nine meetings at the industry committee on blockchain to ensure that cryptocurrencies and blockchain are used for good in Canada. Canada can be a world leader in this. We can take the examples that have been brought to committee and make sure that Canada benefits the most from them. I know that my colleague and I would be happy to work further on that together at the INDU committee as we continue it.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, with regard to Bill C‑42, if we were to talk to our constituents today about money laundering and ask them what it is, how it works and how to stop it, I am sure they would have fairly clear and strong opinions about it.

However, some would think that we are still living in the time of Al Capone and that money laundering is actually done through laundries. Times have changed, but I will come back to that. Everyone would agree that money laundering is unfair and unethical. It is unfair to honest workers, to those who start and run honest businesses and pay their taxes.

It is unfair to all those who see that their health care system is struggling for various reasons, but I will not get into that. It is unfair to all those who are wondering how many billions of dollars a year are not going into the government coffers in Canada because of money laundering and whether those billions of dollars could be used to improve the health care systems in Quebec and the other provinces. These people are right to wonder about those things. They are right in thinking that it is unfair for some people to fly below the radar and launder the proceeds of crime or even just money that was not declared. Everyone would also agree that the governments need to do more, be stricter and put in place laws to better control money laundering.

Bill C‑42 is a step in the right direction. This bill amends the Canada Business Corporations Act while respecting what is already in place in Quebec and the Canadian provinces, while respecting the agreements already reached between Quebec and the Canadian provinces, which is certainly a good thing.

Bill C‑42 also amends the Access to Information Act, the Income Tax Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, and the Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1. A number of laws are being amended, but there is one that is not, specifically the Criminal Code. Perhaps we need to think about that, and I will come back to that.

As I was saying, when we talk about organized crime, people often think of Al Capone, outlaw biker gangs, street gangs and the various mafias that exist today. However, we forget that criminals can be found outside of the groups I just named. There are also white collar criminals who often fly under the radar. However, their sources of income are not necessarily any more legitimate.

As I said, some people may still think that laundering money requires a laundromat. The many ways of laundering money have been modernized, and it is important for our laws to be modernized as well. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the days of Al Capone, but money laundering is as lucrative as ever. It may be more insidious, but it is no less lucrative for criminals. It is a different story for our society, however.

In the U.S. alone, an estimated $300 billion per year is generated by illegal activities. This amounts to about $1,000 per U.S. resident. In Canada, the same $1,000 would add up to $40 billion in illegal activities unaccounted for in Canada and absent from the treasury. This $40 billion is only $14 billion more than Quebec and the Canadian provinces are requesting in health transfers.

That is a huge amount of money. Let us imagine what we could do by regulating this.

Transparency and the obligation of transparency are excellent means of countering organized crime. This is what Bill C‑42 proposes. If forced to name themselves or be included in a registry, people and businesses that want to launder money will perhaps think twice before trying to do it themselves or hiring investors whose purpose is to launder money. No self-respecting company wants to see its name and reputation dragged through the mud. It takes a long time to build up a reputation, but not long for it to be torn down.

However, the current law only mentions directors. Only directors can be named. Even if all the saints in heaven are sitting at the boardroom table, a company will not be cleaner or more legal if the investors and owners are demons from hell. The ideas will not be any better and the money will not be any less criminal. Naming the owners explicitly in the registry will remove the temptation for criminals to invest in businesses.

What is happening right now? We often learn about scandals from whistle-blowers. Unfortunately, they may be taken to court, have their lives threatened or, in some cases, even be imprisoned. We need to ensure that these whistle-blowers are protected because they are valuable to society.

Today's crime requires the collaboration of professionals who are very familiar with the flaws in the system. Those flaws allow them to help criminals to launder money. One of the flaws in Bill C‑42 is that it does not cover the people who knowingly help criminals launder their money or those who are forced to do so. That is an improvement we need to think about making in a future bill.

Right now, I also see that, if a company commits an offence, then it has to pay a fine of $100,000. If they refuse or fail to add certain names to the registry, then they may be fined a maximum of $100,000. For some companies $100,00 may be a lot, while for others it may be very little. It seems like a rather arbitrary amount to me. I think that perhaps we should look at other ways of calculating the fine. Perhaps, instead, the fine should be based on profits declared. We should look into that. However, as I have already said, this is still a good start.

This bill, while not perfect, is an excellent step towards greater transparency and greater honesty, and it will allow Canada to be a role model rather than a dunce. I also want to say again that this is an excellent example of co-operation rather than intrusion into the jurisdictions of Quebec and the Canadian provinces, which is quite exceptional these days. However, it is a good idea.

The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of this bill, despite some minor flaws that can be corrected over time.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the speech that the member from the Bloc made. However, I would like the record to show how interesting this is in the light of the negotiations that go on to create orders and speaking lists and whatnot. That was meant to be an NDP speech, in the midst of what I thought was the confidence and supply agreement the NDP has with the Liberals. I did not think the NDP members were big fans of bringing in what is known as “scab labour”.

I am concerned that there are certainly some parties in this place that do not seem to be taking this seriously. The Bloc Québécois members obviously want to take those spots, as do Conservatives. They want to take spots to speak about the fact that Canada has become a haven for money laundering. I think it is important that the record does show that the NDP members are not taking advantage of the spots that were allotted to them.

Specifically, my question to the member from the Bloc Québécois is this. Canada has become known around the world as a haven for money laundering. I understand that in money laundering circles, it has been coined as “snow washing”, and it represents more than $100 billion a year in economic activity. I am wondering if the member believes that this bill goes far enough. Is there more that needs to be done beyond what is contained in Bill C-42?

I know that some things were discussed in committee, but certainly there are a whole host more in addition to those. Is there more action that needs to be taken to combat money laundering in our nation?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, if I understand correctly, we all agree on passing Bill C‑42. We have taken our speaking time to say that we agree but there are some flaws we needed to think about. The Conservatives are doing the same thing. If the Liberals or the NDP do not take their speaking time, that is on them.

Every party could have said that they agree the bill is not perfect, but it is a good step and we are ready to pass it quickly. That could have been a possibility. It is up to the parties, and even though I do not necessarily agree, I will respect it.

As far as Canada's reputation is concerned, it is time to do something. This first step is better than nothing. If we need to introduce another bill to make improvements, then that is what we will do, but the first step is always the most important.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in regard to Bill C-42, we were approached by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, or CFIB, which asked us to determine how we could help businesses, because one of the challenges is all the red tape that comes with this.

We definitely agree that there should be more transparency, but at the same time we must ensure that this burden is not shouldered by all businesses, which are already struggling to survive because of all the paperwork. How can we strike a balance in this case? How can we help small and medium-sized businesses with Bill C-42?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is already a law affectionately called the Red Tape Reduction Act. It should be enforced intelligently; that would help businesses. According to this act, if one page is added to a form, one should be removed elsewhere. That is the problem: It has to be removed elsewhere. It may not necessarily be in the same department and for the same reason. We have to give some serious thought to our obsession with forms. We must simplify forms and ensure that they are truly important and relevant to the information we seek.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

It seems as though we were supposed to be debating Bill C-18, which is legislation that deals with online news. It is interesting that, in this House, Liberals have accused Conservatives of playing partisan games, then half an hour before the debate on that bill begins they tell us we will be debating Bill C-42, so clearly these games are going both ways, but they probably do not want to admit that.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the life of Ms. Kathleen Beauchamp from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. She was my grade 5 teacher who later went on to become the principal at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Elementary School where I went to school. I ran into her a couple of years ago as I was getting into politics and I remember she gave me a really big hug. It was nice to see somebody with so much life, exuberance and vitality. She was volunteering into her nineties. I found out about her passing recently and I want to recognize her life because it was a life well lived. She was a model for the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. May perpetual light shine upon her and may she rest in peace.

I also want to recognize the life of Jerrid Larkin, the brother of a constituent and friend Sean Larkin. May perpetual light shine upon him and may he rest in peace.

Today, we are debating Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. It is always nice to get up to learn about areas that might not be one's area of expertise. Despite being a lawyer and having some corporate law background, the Canada Business Corporations Act is far from being my area of expertise. However, I know a bit about some of the areas, particularly when we talk about money laundering and how that has impacted corporate crime and the Canadian economy.

I recall being a young criminology student, about 20 years old, and having a professor who told us to put down the sports section and pick up the business section. It was then I realized that corporate crime costs society much more than street-level crime. The problem with corporate crime is we do not always see it. It happens through things like price fixing and illegal influencing. We do not always see these types of things and sometimes, because it almost always happens behind closed doors, it is really hard to detect.

As a former prosecutor I can say that part of what the police authorities have to do is connect the dots and sometimes build what is called a circumstantial case, which is when they take facts from here and there and paint a picture. Each piece of evidence is like a piece of the puzzle. This is obviously an important aspect when we talk about a registry under the Canada Business Corporations Act. It is something law enforcement is asking for and really does need.

Again, as has been said repeatedly in this House, this bill is required, but it could have gone further. I was speaking with our shadow minister, the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, and I believe he spoke about this in the House this morning. He said that there were witnesses at committee and within minutes of hearing from them the committee went into a clause-by-clause analysis. In other words, the testimony of those witnesses who had information to give that was directly germane to the bill at hand was not fully incorporated into this legislation, because the government seems to have been in a rush to deal with this.

I believe four speakers were put up at report stage and then the government moved closure. It is a government that has repeatedly moved closure to stymie debate by saying it needs to get legislation through. I understand that there is a legislative objective, everybody understands that, but it should not push legislation through this way; rather, it should be done co-operatively.

This is a government, as I understand it, that said it would not use closure and time allocation. I am sure it was highly critical of Stephen Harper when he did it. We now see the Liberals and the party that is supposed to be the conscience of Parliament, the NDP, backing them up at every step of the way. I cannot remember a bill, controversial or not, for which we have not seen some sort of time allocation or closure invoked by the Liberals; their coalition partners, the NDP, just go along with it. What happened to being the conscience of Parliament and to hearing debate?

Yes, the government wants things to go through quickly. Here we are at the end of June. It is not Canadians' problem. It is not everybody in the House's problem that the government did not manage its time effectively and has not been conciliatory in terms of addressing things that would be of mutual interest. The Liberals say they want to work together. I am just not seeing that when we see these types of actions.

I will move on to some of the elements of this bill and the necessity for it. For me, as a British Columbian, the necessity comes when I review the Cullen commission. The Cullen commission was authored by Austin Cullen, from British Columbia; I believe he was associate chief justice at the time. He found that money laundering had risen to an unacceptable level in British Columbia. The province and law enforcement not only were not keeping up with it, but enforcement and shining a light on these types of issues had also become secondary.

This is a timely issue to be dealing with. The Cullen commission report, I believe, came out in the past couple of years. However, we have to remember that we should not be rushing these types of things in order to simply get them through, when more things could be done.

One thing that stood out to me was that the threshold for share ownership for being listed in the registry is at 25%. That is actually a high threshold. When we look at other corporate legislation, if memory serves me from when I was studying, there is a threshold of 10%. When somebody owns 10% of shares, that is enough to trigger a warning system.

Therefore, 25% of shares seems inordinately high. I would suggest that we perhaps move back to 10% of shares. As I understand it, the RCMP was supportive of this. Its view is that 10% would get more names into this registry, and the more names, the better. With more names on the registry, more dots can be connected for the police. Moreover, the police will have more tools to combat money laundering.

Before I go any further, I just want to highlight a couple more things from the Cullen commission, because I think they are really important to this discussion. There are unexplained wealth orders. I believe they would probably be an issue for the provinces, but while we are talking about commercial crime and Canada as a whole being a safe haven for money laundering, the provinces should really explore this issue in conjunction with the federal government as we enact this legislation. They could be used in conjunction with civil forfeiture and things of that nature.

The Cullen commission made a number of recommendations and really came up with things that the government should be doing. It looked at how money laundering was occurring in British Columbia. For instance, it was occurring by laundering money through casinos; the commission looked at how this impacted the real estate market.

Before I end, I want to recognize a news anchor, Bill O'Donovan, who received the RTDNA career excellence award in broadcasting. I am the godfather to his granddaughter. Bill is a great human being and a great broadcaster. Congratulations to him.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for his thoughtfulness, particularly when he mentioned the people of his community, including his teacher, in those circumstances.

I wonder if my colleague could comment on the whole notion of fighting fraud. At the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, I asked Mr. Beaudoin from the RCMP whether his organization had enough resources to combat fraud. Mr. Beaudoin talked about the fact that fraud has evolved, that it is quite broad, that it has changed, particularly in the past five to 10 years, and that cybercrime to obtain money fraudulently has really changed the game. Obviously, as he said, there is no doubt that they could do more if they had more resources.

Should we give the RCMP more resources, specifically to do more to combat fraud and to go out into the field where they have the means to recover some money?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand where the member is coming from. I also understand where the RCMP is coming from; they are expected to do more with less, each and every day. When it comes to fraud, there are limited resources. We are finding there are limited resources for the RCMP, period. The Liberal government is running a $60-billion deficit, yet when it comes to the enforcement of crime, whether it be in fraud, as my colleague referred to; in things like simply proving a firearm is a firearm; or in the area I used to prosecute in mostly, Internet offences against children, it takes 12 months to 18 months to analyze a hard drive. The RCMP needs more resources.

It is puzzling to me how the government could rack up $60 billion in deficit and still have a national police force that does not have the resources to deal with these extremely salient issues of the day. To me, that is unacceptable; I agree with my colleague. These things, and commercial crime, fraud and money laundering, impact each and every one of us. We do not always see the impact of them, but they do impact us.

I would like to see the government focus its spending and divert some of the funds that, in my view, are being recklessly spent, to matters of significance like the one the member raised.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, the invasion against Ukraine made it obvious, now more than ever, how important it is to place sanctions against those people who are closely connected to Putin, for example.

Could the member explain how sanctions enforcement could be improved with the public beneficial ownership registry in place?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is not something I turned my mind to when I was preparing this speech, so I appreciate the fact that the member raised it.

This is another piece of the puzzle. When we talk about connecting the dots for proving an offence, it would seem that we would have to connect dots in order to prove who owns what when it comes to sanctions. Perhaps that would be another by-product of this legislation. There is an illegal invasion of Ukraine, and there are also other people around the world who have committed all sorts of atrocities, and those people should not be using Canada as a safe haven for their money. I fully support using this registry and every tool available to find their assets and seize them.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are here in closure again with the Liberal government. Does the member opposite agree that more time to study this bill at committee would have helped strengthen it? I am looking at letters from stakeholders. They were pleading for more time. I wonder if the member could answer that and speak to our being in closure again.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises an excellent point. Why are we rushing this through? This is important legislation. Everybody around here says that this is important legislation, and when legislation is important, so is debate. We should not be settling for an okay bill or a good bill; we should be pursuing excellence for the people of Canada.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, and I want to take a moment congratulate all of the young folks. In fact, everyone is taking the opportunity to thank everyone else because of the short time we have left in the House of Commons. I would like to take a minute to thank and congratulate all of the young people who found a summer job in all of the ridings, mine in particular. These young people are contributing to the regional economy of our communities and embracing work. As I see it, work is an extremely important value to instill in young people to help them rise to the challenges of the future and gain experience through summer employment.

I am very pleased to rise in the House this evening to speak to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. This bill is one phase of the government's plan to create a national registry of individuals with significant control over corporations in Canada pursuant to the Canada Business Corporations Act, or CBCA. Of course, we are talking about federally regulated companies.

The purpose of this bill is to require Corporations Canada to make public some of the information collected under the 2022 amendments to the CBCA. The bill also introduces whistle-blower protections, introduces exemptions for certain individuals, adds new offences and gives Corporations Canada additional powers with respect to inquiries, data validation and information sharing. For one thing, these powers allow Corporations Canada to share information with provincial authorities. We know that Quebec already has a registry. Since I am an entrepreneur myself, my name is on this registry, as are the names of my company's shareholders. I think it is important for the public to have access to this information.

According to what the government is saying, this bill basically seeks to protect Canadians from money laundering and terrorist financing, deter tax evasion and tax avoidance, and make sure Canada is an attractive place to conduct business. I completely agree up to that point. It is a worthwhile initiative. Money laundering and terrorist financing do a lot of harm.

Unfortunately, Canada has a poor record when it comes to fighting these modern scourges. Canada is known as an easy target for criminal groups and as an epicentre of money laundering and tax evasion. According to a 2020 investigative report published by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada on money laundering and fraud in Canada, the estimated extent of money laundered in Canada is between $45 billion and $113 billion. That is a huge amount of money, and it is good that the government is doing something about that.

The Conservative Party has agreed to vote in favour of Bill C‑42, but not because it is perfect, far from it. The review process in committee was rushed. There were only two meetings. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, and I would say that everything happened quick as a flash, leaving members and stakeholders little time to develop and debate amendments to improve this bill. We also proposed amendments that were unfortunately rejected, and that is what I want to focus on.

The first amendment we proposed that was rejected had to do with share acquisition thresholds. We proposed: “(a) any number of shares that carry 10% or more of the voting rights attached to all of the corporation's outstanding voting shares; or (b) any number of shares that is equal to 10% or more of all of the corporation's outstanding shares measured by fair market value.”

This amendment would have added a new clause to the bill, amending the parts of the CBCA that define significant control to lower the threshold from 25% to 10%. We know that there are several categories of shares in a business. In this case, we are talking about voting shares, those with decision-making authority.

James Cohen, the executive director of Transparency International, made the following comment regarding our proposal, and I quote:

I don't think...lowering the threshold from 25% to 10% and a risk-based approach are mutually exclusive. I think they actually go hand in hand. I would note that the 25% isn't so much a standard as it was an initial global recommendation that everyone just kind of grabbed on to. There is room to go down to 10% and provide more information for the RCMP.

The amendment that we proposed would have enabled the RCMP to cast a much wider net in terms of tax avoidance in particular, and also money laundering.

We also moved an amendment to make it easier for law enforcement to access information during investigations. This amendment would have added specific wording to the bill to ensure that law enforcement and other investigative bodies such as the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, could access information from the director rather than having to approach companies individually. It would also have removed the reference to prescribed circumstances with regard to exceptions, ensuring that only minors are automatically exempt from having their information disclosed and that everyone else must apply for an exemption to prove that it is necessary. Once again, this amendment was rejected. This bill could have been improved, but the NDP-Liberal coalition said no.

Not only were our amendments rejected, but, as I said earlier, the bill was rushed, to put it mildly, through the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, on which I sit. In fact, we had just one meeting to hear from departmental officials, and we heard from justice experts on the same day that the clause-by-clause process took place.

Briefs from interested organizations such as the anti-money laundering campaign and the Canadian Bar Association were received the day after amendments were submitted. There were several amendments, and several of these briefs were received after the presentation of certain amendments. It is strange because we received some very interesting briefs from law firms, which had some significant reservations about this bill.

It is truly unfortunate, but that is how this government operates. It waits to take action and then, at the last minute, it acts hastily and imposes time allocation, which is what we have been experiencing for practically two months in the House of Commons. Time allocation is introduced time and time again. I will take this opportunity to point out that the NDP has now adopted almost 55 time allocation motions, which it never, or almost never, did before. This demonstrates the extent of the government's hold over that political party.

As I was saying, by colluding with the NDP, the government is getting its way with obviously shoddy results. Canadians expect the federal government to combat money laundering and the proceeds of crime in a way that aligns with our economic and security partners around the world. Canada must shed its reputation as a haven for dirty money. A future Conservative government will make it happen.

In 2021, the Conservative Party committed to establishing a federal registry of beneficial owners for residential properties and implementing comprehensive changes to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to give FINTRAC, law enforcement and prosecutors the tools they need to identify, arrest and prosecute money launderers and, ultimately, stop illicit funds from making their way into the real estate market. This is the kind of policy our government will bring in to really tackle the problem of money laundering and tax evasion. Particularly in the Vancouver area where my colleague lives, absolutely huge sums of money are being invested by outside entities that launder money directly through real estate acquisitions.

The provincial and federal registries must be harmonized. In Canada, about 15% of corporations are in federal registries, while 85% are in provincial registries. The two types of registries therefore need to be harmonized so that the provinces and the federal government can work together. As I was saying, Quebec has a great registry that works very well, but it was recently amended. The federal registry could have been even better had the time been taken to study it.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup for his work. I was thinking back to the question that he asked me earlier. The key word that I missed was interoperability. It is important to have laws that are interoperable, so I would like to try again by putting it in a comment and asking him the following question.

How important is it that our laws remain interoperable?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, by interoperability we understand the connections and interplay between the provincial laws and the federal law that enable them to work together. It is imperative and fundamental that these laws can work together so that the work done upstream or downstream—whether at the federal or provincial level—can be constructive and effective, particularly against money laundering.

I think my colleague is right, and I thank him for that. I must say publicly that my colleague is a very fine individual who does great work on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology and who always makes an effort. As he said earlier, we do not always agree. However, in general, I think his arguments are geared towards the common good of Quebec and Canadian society as a whole. That is what we are arguing for as well. To answer his question, I think it goes without saying. Everyone should realize that this is really something that should be interoperable.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on this same point, I would say that this interoperability is really important. The provinces that already have a public registry have set the threshold at 25%. The member mentioned 10% before, but, for the bill to be compatible with the laws of the provinces that already have a public registry, it seems to me it would be important to start with a 25% threshold and to then have some conversations with the provinces, instead of legislating something in the House that is incompatible with the provincial registries.

How can we address this and make sure we create laws that allow the federal government to have an important tool it can use to go after the Russians who are hiding their assets in Canada?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent question.

To move society forward, we must move bills forward, be it at the federal or provincial level. I realize that the registries are all harmonized at 25%. We are fully aware of that, but, in moving amendments like the one meant to lower the ownership threshold to 10%, we have made people think, not only in the House, but also at the provincial level.

In doing so, we could perhaps improve the registries to ensure that all the information could be collected more effectively, both at the provincial and federal levels, so as to eliminate, once and for all, money laundering, tax evasion, and related crimes.

The tighter the measures across Canada, the greater the chance of limiting the damage. I am an entrepreneur and I regularly consult the Quebec registry. I will be consulting it again soon, because my daughter will be taking over for my associate in my company. I will be required to have a notary make the change at the IGIF, the institute that records all the information in a registry. We will record my company's new shareholder, my daughter. Actually, it will just be my daughter and me. That is very important. We each hold 50% of the companies' shares, but there could have been several shareholders, and the threshold could have been 10% instead of 25%.

In our case, it does not matter, because we are not fraudsters. I remember that my colleague said that there are companies that own multiple companies. It becomes a sort of puzzle. It would have been more obvious to have a 10% threshold rather than a 25% threshold.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The question is on Motion No. 1.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote, please.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the division stands deferred until Tuesday, June 20 at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I believe that you have received the proper advance notice and, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at midnight so we can begin Adjournment Proceedings.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I have received notice from all recognized parties that they are in agreement on this request.

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from June 19 consideration of Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It being 3:20 p.m., pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at report stage of Bill C-42.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #391

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I declare Motion No. 1 lost.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #392

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion carried.