Thank you very much for your question.
The FATF conducted an evaluation and found two important things about the Canadian system. The first is that lawyers do not act as reporting entities and the second is with regard to beneficial owners. These two factors are truly crucial to improving the system. They are difficult and complex issues. Including the legal profession is particularly complex from a constitutional standpoint.
The committee's study will be rather important. The weakness in the Canadian system that was underscored by the FATF is quite sizable.
In terms of information that could be useful to FINTRAC, they could first look at e-currencies,
the cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and the others.
This aspect was not envisaged when FINTRAC was created, when the law was originally adopted. I think it needs to be updated in that respect. I think the government signalled that.
I think the second category is in relation to foreign money service businesses that offer services to Canadians. Again, when the legislation was adopted in the early 2000s, this was not envisaged. I think this is a sector that is emerging strongly. We're talking here about the PayPals of the world, and others. This financial service is offered to Canadians, so we need to make sure the information they have that could be relevant to money laundering or terrorist financing is sent to FINTRAC. I think the government is also committed to looking at that issue.
I think closing those two information gaps would advance our work significantly.