Finance Committee on March 8th, 2011

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

I want to come back to a topic we addressed earlier: dovetailing; I wouldn't say gaps. We have two examples of the challenge that combining the work done by each one presents. You gave us a very good explanation of what you do and what you don't do.

I will come back to Mr. White. When we met with the representatives of the Canada Revenue Agency, they explained something that was new to me in my experience as a legislator in Quebec. In Quebec, the police don't file a complaint, they make a report. Systematically, it is always the Crown prosecutor who files a complaint. The people at the Canada Revenue Agency tell us that they do their analysis, they prepare a case, and then they come and see you, and it's the RCMP that files the complaint directly. It doesn't necessarily go through the hands of a Crown attorney.

Is my understanding accurate?

[Superintendent Stephen Foster, Director, Commercial Crime Branch, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

I'm not sure I understand that's the way things are done with respect to how the charges get before the court.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

That's the question. You've understood the question.

[Supt Stephen Foster]

I wouldn't understand that to happen that way. If you could....

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

I'll go over it slowly.

When we met the Revenue Agency, they explained to us that at the federal level, if they find a criminal case under their statute, they are not equipped to get it before the courts on their own; they have to come to the police, the RCMP, en l'occurrence, and they name you and then you take it before the courts. In Quebec, you can't go to the police to do that; you have to go to a crown prosecutor. Every case has to go first to a crown prosecutor.

I'm just trying to understand the process federally. Clearly that's what the agency said to us here.

[Supt Stephen Foster]

My experience is that the Canada Revenue Agency takes their own case to the prosecutors.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Great. We'll get that clarified. Your answer is super clear for us, so there's a slight dovetailing of the two.

I want to talk about another agency that's not at the table. I mentioned OSFI. I'd like to talk a little bit more about another federal agency, which is what used to be called the combines branch and today is the Competition Bureau. This is a huge area for us in Quebec right now. Again, I'm not trying to drag you into the future work of this committee, because there's an idea on the table that we want to look at some very specific things that have happened in the Montreal office recently. But I do want to talk to you about the Competition Bureau and perhaps ask you to elaborate a little bit more on how your work dovetails with that of other agencies, and where you think there might be something we could help you leverage a little bit more, make the work more effective and efficient.

The example of the Competition Bureau is that in the province of Quebec, the biggest corruption cases that have come up recently have involved elaborate schemes where you've had price fixing on public contracts. The City of Montreal estimates that having eliminated most of that challenge in the past couple of years, it's saving literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year. There was an elaborate scheme where 14 companies were apparently fixing prices amongst themselves. A lot of that's before the courts now.

How does the Revenue Agency...which is stuck with sort of the tail end of that comment, because the revenue side was essentially a fraud where you would get bogus factures—I'm speaking good Quebec English—bogus bills from somebody in a fake company to allow you to get cash out, presumably to put a little bit of grease here and there in the machine. So the question I have for you is, how does the Revenue Agency, the RCMP, FINTRAC, le cas échéant, dovetail with the people in the Competition Bureau? They have investigators. They have their own branch. How does that work? How do those come together? If you're not doing tax investigations stricto sensu, how then do you work with the people who see that the tax offence is the end product of all the collusion they've been studying? How do you work together?

[A/Commr Stephen White]

From a law enforcement perspective, we work actually quite closely with the Competition Bureau in a number of different ways. But in an example like that, there's obviously a fraud investigation to be carried out. That is something we do regularly in Quebec police forces jurisdiction, whether it's Sûreté du Québec or the Montreal Police; they do a lot of fraud investigations as well.

Information can flow from those agencies to us if it's related to a potential fraudulent activity that has taken place. We can investigate with them. In terms of mass marketing fraud, for example, we actually have members of the Competition Bureau working in some of our commercial crime offices. We have that exchange.

In terms of mass marketing fraud specifically, that is a key area of focus of the Competition Bureau. It's also a key focus of the RCMP. We just partnered, for example, in developing a national mass marketing fraud strategy based on enforcement, education, and prevention with the Competition Bureau.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

One of the—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

—best examples of all of the forces—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you, Mr. Mulcair.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

—working together was when you brought down—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you, thank you. You're way over.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

So I don't have my Pacetti five minutes.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

No, you're way over. You're at 5:40. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. White.

Mr. Brison, five minutes.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

It's like the Andy Warhol fifteen minutes, the Pacetti five minutes.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

It feels like two, but to me it felt like 10.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Because it pointed out all your inadequacies. Okay.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Right. Yes. Oh, boy.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Go on, Scott.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Earlier you spoke of the G-8 as being a multilateral forum to deal with some of these issues. Has the G-20 evolved?

I guess the question would be, why hasn't the G-20 become more central in this, given its role after the financial crisis? In fact, going back to Paul Martin as finance minister, the genesis of the G-20 at that time and its increasing importance, is the G-20 the next step, and what is happening to facilitate that?

[A/Commr Stephen White]

From a law enforcement perspective, potentially, I'm not aware of any law enforcement groups that currently exist under the G-20. I'm only aware of the one that exists under the G-8.

I think right now between the G-8 and the broad spectrum of working groups related to law enforcement that exist under the Financial Action Task Force, the G-20 community is largely represented and engaged at those two forums. Whether or not there's potential for evolving that specifically under the G-20—for example, having a law enforcement working group under the G-20—potentially that is something that can be looked at moving forward and expanding the G-8 law enforcement working group.