Thank you. That's a great question.
I don't speak for the RCMP, but what happened in or about 2012 or 2013 is that, with the rise of terrorist incidents in Canada and an awareness that we could be subject to terrorism at home, the RCMP moved a lot of resources in that direction. It also restructured its organized crime resources. It collapsed units that had existed for a long time, such as the commercial crime section and proceeds of crime. These units had been around commercial crime since the seventies—a lot of expertise and so forth. They essentially created organized crime teams, and they would attach a couple of specialists to each team, like a specialist in money laundering and fraud.
The problem with that is that you don't have that nucleus of people who can drive a file, so they end up being add-ons to, let's say, a drug investigation. Over time you lose that expertise. My understanding is that now, about five years down the road, white collar crime is starting to rise in terms of profile in the country, or at least in certain parts of the country. Again, I don't speak for the RCMP. Just by reading news reports, it's obvious that they are trying to recreate their expertise in that area. That is so critical, in terms of the work of dealing with proceeds of crime legislation.
I would just add—and this was a concern of mine right from the beginning in 1993, when you had the first proceeds of crime legislation—that it's the Department of Finance that is responsible for this legislation. There's nothing wrong with the Department of Finance. It's just that the Department of Finance does not deal with enforcement. That's the solicitor general. You have two ministries. It's great for finance to be dealing with the framework, but they have to be talking, and you have to make sure the solicitor general is engaged in the game as well. Both departments have to be talking for you to have a holistic approach to this problem.