Thank you for inviting me.
With the name of love, Happy Nowruz.
Honourable Mr. Chair, members of the House, good afternoon, bonjour. It's a great pleasure and honour for me to be at the Canadian Parliament, in one of the most democratic countries in the world.
I would like to wish each and every one of you a happy and full of love Persian New Year, the beginning of spring, which is tomorrow.
To begin with, I would like to thank the Canadian judiciary system that provides its independence and proves its independence again and again. Without it, fairness and justice would not be served, although I was up against two of the most reputable government lawyers paid for by taxes, and they were right that I was an easy kill for them, but not on Canadian lands, thank God.
Second, I appreciate the Canadian lawmakers who have landed FINTRAC to protect us Canadians and to make sure we do not let any terrorists or their dirty, bloody money laundering into our society and economy. I believe it is a fantastic law to protect us Canadians.
This is the short story of what happened.
I received my real estate licence in 1989 and achieved my real estate broker licence around 2003. After working full-time in real estate for a number of years, and having good publicity in my surrounding communities, I decided to open my brokerage, which was the first Korean-Persian-Canadian real estate company in Canada. At the time my goal was to train new immigrants in this field, and I was trying to attract investors into Canada, which I did. I attracted a lot of good, clean dollars to Canada. In the end, I made a decent living for me and my family.
Up to 2009, I had trained about 188 brokers and agents, some of whom were collecting social services assistance from the government. At that time I sold my house and bought a building from which I was conducting my business.
A couple of months after the FINTRAC law came into effect for real estate brokerages, I was visited by two government employees from FINTRAC. After going through our paperwork, she told me that as a broker of record, I was in part responsible for catching anybody who looks like a terrorist. I looked at her assistant and asked her, “Does she look like one?” She got upset. A few days later I was served with a $33,750 penalty—yes, a $33,750 penalty. After I complained about the fine, it was reduced to $27,000. Of course, my letter was very nice to them. Otherwise, if not, it would have gone up or had no reduction.
On the other hand, I had to be careful when I was mailing it so it wasn't received on Monday, because they might be upset that it was a Monday.
The name “money laundering and terrorist activities” was so scary that the Real Estate Council of Ontario, RECO, decided not to renew my broker's licence, and it was put on caution for four years. I lost my agents. I could not recruit any new agents. Eventually, I lost my business and the new house for my business; I lost my office.
My only question is for the government, which is responsible for executing the law. A police officer has to go through months and months of training in order to execute the law, knowing that any mistake made by them may destroy someone's life. There are government regulatory bodies to monitor them to correct any mistakes made by them. If the money laundering and terrorist activity law is important, which I think it is, what type of training is FINTRAC offering to its employees to give them the tools to destroy a lot of people's financial lives? Whether intentionally or unintentionally they do anything wrong, besides hiring a lawyer and spending a lot of money, which we don't know where to get, who can we take our complaints to? What type of training was FINTRAC giving to real estate brokerages to identify terrorists?
At the end, with all due respect to the members of the House and my dear and favourite Prime Minister Trudeau, I'm sure you will soon notify FINTRAC about the presence of Mahmoud Reza Khavari in Canada. The man has admitted to billions and billions of dollars in money laundering for the Iranian government, for harbouring terrorists in Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen, and the list goes on and on and on.
In fact, all these achievements for the most terrorist activities in the world are on YouTube for everyone to see. I'm sure, Mr. Chair, that you will soon direct FINTRAC to pursue the yearly demonstration by Hezbollah on Yonge Street and Finch Avenue in North York last year, where they were carrying black flags with Arabic words on them. Does that look familiar?
The major Canadian banks are the account holders of millions and billions of dollars of their money. I'm sure you will direct FINTRAC to check out the Iranian government officials who have dual citizenship in Canada. They are achieving money laundering to Canada from Dubai, Europe, and everywhere else. At the end, my dear Mr. Chair and the government, who is responsible for my losses now?
Thank you very much for giving me this time.