Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome this afternoon, Minister.
We've probably heard from over a hundred witnesses here on this study that we've been doing, and a number of agencies have come in. I have to say that on our travels to New York and Toronto, and for those who travelled to London, the feedback was definitely.... Listening to and hearing from the agencies outside of our wonderful country and the granularity that they provided was a really positive thing for us. The information, the granularity, that was provided was very welcome, whether it was FinCEN, the Department of Justice, the Treasury, or the New York State Office of the Attorney General, and I think it will make our report even better. I sometimes wish we received that sort of granularity from our own agencies, but nonetheless we have heard from a lot of people.
The one question I have has to do with the article that came out in The Hill Times: “Feds float idea of beneficial ownership registry as House Finance Committee reviews anti-money laundering law”. Part of that article stated that Canada was viewed as “behind on corporate transparency”.
Through your leadership in sitting down with the provinces in December 2017, we came to an agreement to strengthen beneficial ownership transparency. Minister, my question is this: how are we doing in Canada, and what measures are we undertaking to take the veil off the view that Canada is behind on corporate transparency?