Evidence of meeting #6 for Declaration of Emergency in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Excuse me, Madam Jacques, I'm just going to take a minute and ask that questions go through the chair.
We will respect the fact that committee time allotted to each parliamentarian is their time to redirect on questions. We'll ask that you please answer the questions that are asked to you, given the seriousness and the nature of this committee.
You're at one minute and 53 seconds. You still have roughly three minutes left in your rounds, Senator Carignan.
7:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
So the duty to preserve property comes from the order. We agree on that, don't we?
7:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Yes.
7:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
All right.
Who gave the banks the names of the designated persons? I imagine they were the names of the people who were on the Hill or in the crowds. I wasn't a designated person, which means there was a test for designating those persons. Who determined who the designated persons were?
7:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I know that the RCMP provided the banks with the information, but the banks had to decide, based on the order and the information they had, whether the designated persons…
7:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
They had to decide whether to hold the property of those persons.
7:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
That's correct.
7:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
It's like in any seizure, where a judge has made an order, except that it was an order made under the Order in this instance.
My next question is for the FINTRAC people and concerns financial services.
Under subsection 4(2) of the order, the banks and financial institutions had to
…report to the Centre every financial transaction that occurs or that is attempted in the course of their activities and in respect of which there are reasonable grounds to suspect that…the transaction is related to the commission or the attempted commission of a money laundering offence…or…a terrorist activity financing offence….
Were those types of offences and reasonable grounds for suspicion reported to you?
7:10 p.m.
Deputy Director, Intelligence, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Thank you for your question.
But that didn't alter the reason why they had to report suspicious transactions. In this case, they couldn't be connected solely to the convoy or the event as such. They could report suspicious transactions to us only if there was some doubt that they could be linked to money laundering or terrorist activity financing. The fact that a person was in Ottawa wasn't a sufficient reason.
7:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
Did anyone report cases of designated persons in which there were reasonable grounds to suspect that those persons had committed money-laundering or a terrorist act?
7:10 p.m.
Deputy Director, Intelligence, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
I couldn't say since we didn't receive the list of designated persons. That list was provided to the financial institutions, not FINTRAC. So I'm not aware of that.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Senator Carignan, my apologies. I didn't put up the one-minute card, but you are at five minutes and you got a little bit extra there given the interruption.
Thank you.
We will now move onto Senator Harder, for five minutes.
Senator Harder, the floor is yours.
7:10 p.m.
Peter Harder Senator, Ontario, PSG
Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us.
I want to pursue some of the questioning that my colleague, Senator Boniface, began with. First I'll go to Isabelle Jacques.
Could you tell us when in the sequencing of events you were asked to develop the regime that became the financial measures in the emergency measures act?
7:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I found out the weekend of Saturday the 12th that the emergency order would be invoked.
7:15 p.m.
Senator, Ontario, PSG
Can you tell us which organizations were in a sense requesting of finance to develop the financial measures because of the circumstances that were before us?
7:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
There weren't any organizations that requested it, but in view of the circumstances, we were contemplating what could be done to help the situation.
7:15 p.m.
Senator, Ontario, PSG
Right, but this wasn't you sitting at your desk looking at the screen and seeing what was happening on the street. I presume that there was an interaction with the department at the senior level with police and other organizations who were looking at the options as to what measures could the government undertake. Is that correct?
7:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
For the economic measures that are covered by the order, certainly I had discussions with the deputy minister of Finance.
7:15 p.m.
Senator, Ontario, PSG
Can you tell us the extent to which the Department of Finance engaged in consultations before the order came into effect with the financial institutions that would ultimately have the enforcement role and with the RCMP?
7:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Unfortunately, I was not involved in any of those consultations that they were in.
7:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I would not be able to tell you. I do not know who was involved at what moment. All we know is that when we found out that the emergency order would be invoked, we certainly worked to develop measures that could be taken.
7:15 p.m.
Senator, Ontario, PSG
I suspect that this will be an area of inquiry with the minister, and hopefully Mr. Sabia will join the minister when she appears.
After the invocation of the Emergencies Act, what kind of outreach did your department undertake to the financial institutions both to respond to their questions and to give them guidelines as to how you expected the enforcement to take place, and how were the relationships between the financial institutions and the RCMP developed?
7:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Independently, after the order came into force, we reached out to some of the larger financial institutions—as I mentioned before—and Desjardins. We also reached out specifically to the Canadian Bankers Association, so we could help centralize some of the questions they might have had. We were trying to help them understand the order.
We reached out to the Canadian Credit Union Association, the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association and the Insurance Bureau of Canada.