Thank you.
I'll outline a couple of problems. Number one, there is a lack of urgency in terms of how Canada deals with this problem. This is nothing new. It's not something that happened this year or last year. It has been ongoing. I'll give you a very brief example: cryptocurrency. We all know about cryptocurrency. In 2014 there were statutory changes and four years later we're still waiting for the regulations. That is typical of what we see. I realize things don't happen instantly.
Number two is the balancing that takes place. If one looks at the paper prepared by Finance, one sees that it's well written, but it constantly talks about balancing crime control with, first, privacy, which we realize is important; second, undue burden on entities that are regulated; and third, public resources.
I would say that one has to realize that money laundering is all about organized crime. Organized crime is all about drugs, fentanyl, any number of commodities. It's about people dying on the streets. Just as you would not want your police to say, “Well, it's a domestic assault. We have a little balancing to do. We might not be able to come over to the house for a little while”, it's no different when you talk about money laundering. This is the way to deal with organized crime.
We have to be very careful when we balance. What we really have to do is apportion resources and do the best that we can with those resources, which leads me into the issue of enforcement. It is great to have a Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. It's great to create this framework and all the regulations, and FINTRAC and requiring entities to report, and accumulating lots of information and intelligence, but if there's no one doing anything with it, you're wasting a whole lot of government money and you're wasting a whole lot of the money of the entities that are being asked to report.
Although there are a number of agencies that receive intelligence from FINTRAC, there's really only one agency that is tasked with conducting complex money-laundering investigations, and that's the RCMP. Quite frankly, the RCMP left this field in 2012 and is just now getting back into it. We're seeing the implications of that in British Columbia. The RCMP, admittedly, is doing their best to recreate the units that were abolished, such as proceeds of crime sections, commercial crime sections, and so forth.
You have this framework and you're building on that framework and you're trying to cover off the loopholes. As I believe the attorney general mentioned, it's a bit of a whack-a-mole. You cover off one area and then you have to look at other weaknesses in the economy, but none of that will really get you anywhere unless there's someone dealing with enforcement.
In the money laundering strategy that the Department of Finance has it refers to the third pillar being disruption. I gather disruption includes various things, but part of it is enforcement and right now you're just not seeing enforcement.
I can go on at great length, but I'll stop there. That's about five or so minutes and I'll turn it over to my friend. Thank you.