Evidence of meeting #137 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bitcoin.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
I've heard economists propose that blockchain technology could be a solution to corruption, particularly for land registries in underdeveloped countries. Because of the dispersed nature of blockchain, it would be very hard for a corrupt government official, for example, to switch a land title to a friend, family, or himself, and therefore future property registries could go on the blockchain. I think Georgia has done that.
President, Académie Bitcoin
Yes, the country of Georgia did it. You mentioned a really interesting use case. There's also a pretty interesting use case with the traceability in the supply chain of medication. I work in a few emerging markets, especially West Africa, where you can buy medicine in the drugstore, and the medicine you pick up from the shelves is counterfeit. You could use blockchain technology to trace and make sure that every actor in the supply chain would, for example, sign with their own private key, and that data would be stored on the blockchain.
It's really the public blockchain—for example, the Bitcoin blockchain—that has the most computer power behind it. That's why it's hard to tamper with the data. There are billions of dollars involved if you want to tamper with only one inscription.
Liberal
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you both for coming.
Mr. Mirkhan, I'm sorry, but I missed what you said at the beginning. Which province did you say you operated in?
Broker of Record, Max Realty Solutions Ltd., As an Individual
It's Ontario.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Were you ever a member of the Ontario Real Estate Association or CREA?
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Then I guess you didn't realize that both of those organizations provide FINTRAC training and your obligations within it?
Broker of Record, Max Realty Solutions Ltd., As an Individual
No, I didn't know that.
Broker of Record, Max Realty Solutions Ltd., As an Individual
I didn't know that three months after this law came into effect. Nobody even knew about it. They came and they audited us.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Do you feel that there are some obligations...? You weren't just a real estate agent; you were a broker, which means you were responsible for other agents who worked for you. You actually had a higher obligation to understand the laws within the jurisdiction in which you operated. Just as sometimes tax policy changes, either provincially or federally, and it's your obligation to understand what those changes are and to file your taxes accordingly. Furthermore, when you get a real estate licence or when your agents get a real estate licence in Ontario, there are obligations. You feel that for FINTRAC the government has the obligation to inform you, but for things like paying your taxes and remitting the actual taxes or knowing any changes, you have to understand your obligations as a business owner.
FINTRAC works with local associations—in your case Ontario—and the Canadian Real Estate Association to provide information to their members. Did you ever go to CREA or the Ontario Real Estate Association to ask how come they didn't provide you, as a member, with this information?
Broker of Record, Max Realty Solutions Ltd., As an Individual
No, nobody knew about it at that time. Not even the franchisees knew about it. I called RECO, the Toronto Real Estate Board, and CREA. People at the government level sit until somebody gets hurt and then they say, “Oh, he got hurt. Now we have to do this.” Nobody knew anything about it.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Hamel, you mentioned earlier in your presentation that Bitcoin and blockchain go together exclusively. I've heard otherwise. Can you maybe elaborate on why you feel that's the case?
President, Académie Bitcoin
Yes. I would say that there are some competing networks that resemble some features of the Bitcoin blockchain. However, the true nature of a blockchain is the fact that it's immutable—you cannot tamper with data. To have that property, you have to have true decentralization. Having a closed network without any incentive for a participant to enforce consensus doesn't create the condition for a true immutable and decentralized blockchain. In reality, most of the use cases that these competing platforms try to address don't really need blockchain. When you have a closed network of people who already trust each other, you don't really need a blockchain. That's why public blockchains that are enforced by proof of work like Bitcoin aren't a true blockchain.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
If we go back to the question by Mr. Poilievre and the example of land registries, what does that have to do with Bitcoin? That's blockchain technology without the Bitcoin component. In terms of a type of technology that is highly encrypted and obviously has that benefit, I don't see how they have to go together. In that one example, I didn't hear anywhere that Bitcoin was a factor in land registry in potentially corrupt situations.
President, Académie Bitcoin
It's because most of these projects are fakes or scams. The real interesting use cases will be based on public blockchains like Bitcoin. In fact, the only way to write and store data on a blockchain like Bitcoin is by doing a Bitcoin transaction. People now are actively developing second-layer protocols—for example, Rootstock—that rely on the proof of work mechanism of blockchain to, for example, create smart contracts. Advanced technologies and advanced use cases like land registry and supply-chain tracking could be developed on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. With respect, I think the real revolutionary blockchain use cases will be built on public blockchains.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Just to clarify, that's assuming that someone can't replicate the blockchain that Bitcoin established.
President, Académie Bitcoin
You can, if you want. You can start today, but Bitcoin has billions of dollars of computing power behind it to enforce the consensus and the authenticity of transactions. There is a network effect. It's the same thing as not wanting to create a second Facebook or a second Google. You can if you want, but there's a strong network effect to use the actual network.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
You have time for a 30-second question, Pierre, and then we have to run.
NDP
Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC
You said that the number of existing bitcoins was limited. I think that you brought up a figure of $21 million.