Finance Committee on May 7th, 2024

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I just want to get clarification. I know that five members of the committee, including Mr. Ste-Marie from the Bloc, signed a letter that was submitted to the chair under Standing Order 106(4). It called for this meeting to be a study of the issues that have arisen with respect to money laundering. It's unclear to me, again, why we're back on the programming motion. As a signatory to that letter, I didn't request a meeting about the programming motion. I requested a meeting about money laundering. I think this whole discussion is out of order.

I would remind my colleagues that when a Standing Order 106(4) letter is signed, it is mandatory for the chair—not the vice-chair but the chair, who is Mr. Fonseca—to call a meeting. It's in the Standing Orders. I think any discussion of a programming motion is out of order. We should be discussing the Standing Order 106(4) request.

I'd like a ruling from the chair as to why we're not doing what members requested under the Standing Orders and why we're not respecting the Standing Orders.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I'd like to speak to that point of order, Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull, and then it's Mr. Chambers.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

My understanding is that the clerk provided an email that contained advice to the committee, which said that this committee would reconvene on meeting 142. That was the direct result of the previous meetings being suspended. That was the procedural advice based on procedural consistency with the House. It has nothing to do with anybody else.

I understand that the Conservatives didn't want to follow procedure, and that's why the committee overturned the ruling of the chair on that. I found it pretty disappointing the way we proceeded at the beginning of the meeting, because what wasn't made clear was the ruling of the chair based on the very clear advice given by the clerk. I would note that other clerks have made the same ruling in other committees where meetings had been suspended previously.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

On that point, Mr. Turnbull, as I mentioned before, any communications between me, as the acting chair, and the clerk are private. I can't confirm any claim that it's anything other than that, because those conversations are private.

I explained before the reasoning behind continuing with the Standing Order 106(4) request, which was asked for by this committee. In the experience I've had, when a Standing Order 106(4) request is brought forward by more than one party, which is what happened in this case, a meeting is called.

We discussed the Standing Order 106(4) request. In that discussion, Mr. Turnbull challenged the chair, and the ruling was overturned. After that, the discussion went back to the subamendment from the last meeting we had. Once Mr. Lawrence brought forward another motion to continue with the Standing Order 106(4) request, as far as I remember, there were four votes to continue from the Conservatives and the Bloc. It was voted down by the Liberals and the NDP. That is why we are where we are right now.

That's an answer both for you, Mr. Turnbull, and for Mr. Morantz.

Next I have Mr. Chambers on this point of order.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm saying the word “precedence” so that I can find this in future years in the Hansard transcript.

We have found a loophole in the Standing Orders such that any committee—if I understand the ruling correctly—at the end of every meeting could suspend the meeting to essentially frustrate a Standing Order 106(4) request from being called over the summer, as an example. You could call a meeting, but all of a sudden, you're back in the suspension.

I don't believe the intention of the Standing Order 106(4) rule is that it does not take precedence and that it is supposed to be subservient to a suspension. I don't believe that's the initial interpretation. If this is in fact true and a ruling is confirmed here today and perhaps has even been used in other committee meetings, in the future, all that committees will have to do is suspend every meeting before there's a break, and they'll never have to deal with the substantive nature of a Standing Order 106(4) request.

I apologize for intervening before my friend Mr. Davies, as I understand he's waited a long time to chat, but I felt I was required to put it on the record that future parliaments may use this power in a different way from how the government intends to use it today—or perhaps in the same way, but even more aggressively.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Thank you, Mr. Chambers.

Mr. Davies, you have the floor.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I had intended to speak to the point of order, so I'll briefly do that. Then I'll go back to the subamendment, Mr. Chair, if I may.

Mr. Chambers makes some good points. What I would add to this is that different consequences flow from a meeting being suspended versus being adjourned. When a meeting is suspended, there are advantages that members can take from that. For instance, when you come to the next meeting, you pick up where you left off, which, for some parties' purposes, may be advantageous. Second, you preserve the speaking order, which can be advantageous as well.

I will point out that when the meeting was suspended last time, nobody objected. Sometimes parties want a meeting to be suspended for the purposes I just mentioned, and at other times it should be adjourned. I agree with him, though, that were a future government to abuse the distinction between those two, that would be cause for concern, and it would be up to the parties and Parliament to amend the Standing Orders to deal with such a situation. In my 15 years of Parliament, I have not seen any government of any stripe or any committee chair ever abuse this by suspending every meeting to prevent a Standing Order 106(4) request.

I'm going to speak briefly about why I took the position I did on the request, and it wasn't because I'm opposed to the substance of the motion to study money laundering. I think that is a good thing to study, which I'll talk about briefly in a moment.

Here's what I got when the Standing Order 106(4) request came in, which, by the way, I was not asked to sign, nor was I even aware of it going in. I looked into this, and this is the advice I received. The information sent by the committee directorate regarding finance's meeting on Friday says that as the committee has a meeting that is currently suspended, it cannot simply convene a new meeting on a 106(4) request. It must first deal with the business from the suspended meeting even if it is to simply set that business aside and move on to the 106(4) meeting. It goes on to say that in such a situation, the committee clerk would discuss with the chair in order for the chair to determine how best to proceed in the circumstances, and the clerk could suggest that the chair discuss with the vice-chairs about the approach for the meeting.

I think it's quite clear that we had to begin this meeting—because it had been suspended—with the business under consideration, but Mr. Chambers is correct, and I think this speaks to his point about how a future government could control this. If every meeting were to be suspended, it still is open to committee members at the next meeting of the suspended meeting to adjourn that debate and address the Standing Order 106(4) request. A government can't stop a that simply by suspending meetings. It will always be open to the majority of members at the committee to end the suspended meeting and begin a Standing Order 106(4) request, which we could have done today.

Let me just speak briefly about the merits of the subamendment, which I'm going to say for the moment is not restricted to Mr. Carney. The subamendment says to call the minister for an hour as well. When the Minister of Finance is called to this committee, that leaves it pretty wide open to talk about any issue one could put to the Minister of Finance. I've been listening carefully to people's points of order and what's relevant or not. Maybe the part about Mr. Carney might be relevant to Mr. Carney, but if the subamendment calls for having the minister come, I think there's much more latitude when speaking.

Here's why I have taken the positions that I have today. I agree that money laundering and terrorist financing sanctions and other measures are a critical issue that this committee should look at, but I want to point out, if we're all being completely frank here, that the Conservatives are engaged in a filibuster right now to prevent us from considering the BIA, the budget implementation act.

I want to read to you a bit of what's in the BIA.

Part 4, division 34, proposes amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, the Criminal Code, the Income Tax Act and Excise Tax Act to support stronger anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing compliance, enhance information sharing and continue to provide new tools for financial crime investigations, prosecutions and asset recovery. It goes on to describe that in detail.

The first area is on strengthening supervision and the anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing framework. Here it says that amendments proposed would enable the introduction of regulations to cover cheque-cashing businesses and factoring, leasing and financing companies. Coverage of these sectors under the legislation would ensure comprehensive and consistent coverage of businesses providing financial services in Canada. I'll skip the rest of it.

The next major heading is on enhancing the sharing of information and financial intelligence. Here it says that amendments are proposed to the legislation to enhance the ability of businesses with obligations under the Act to share information with each other. Information sharing between private sector entities can improve their risk mitigation practices and promote higher quality reporting to FINTRAC, Canada's AML-ATF regulator and financial intelligence unit. This, in turn, can lead to better intelligence in support of financial crime investigations and prosecutions. Amendments are also proposed to permit FINTRAC to disclose financial intelligence to provincial and territorial civil forfeiture offices to support their efforts to seize assets linked to unlawful activity, and also to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to administer the Citizenship Act. This would help ensure citizenship applicants do not pose national security or organized crime concerns.

Another major heading is on improving tools to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. Here it says that amendments are proposed to the Criminal Code, the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act to strengthen investigative powers and support the operational effectiveness of Canada's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regime. Two amendments are proposed to the Criminal Code to support the enforcement of laws dealing with money laundering and associated crimes. First is a new order to keep an account open or active for a limited period of time to assist in the investigation of a suspected criminal offence. Financial service providers often close accounts suspected to be linked to criminal activity, which can hinder investigations into financial crimes. Second is a new repeating production order to enable law enforcement to obtain information regarding ongoing activity in an account believed to be linked to criminal activity on pre-established dates over a set period of time. This would provide law enforcement more consistent and timely information to support criminal investigations and would include robust safeguards to respect charter-protected rights.

I'll just stop there. Those are measures in the BIA on money laundering and anti-terrorist financing that are being held up by the Conservatives' filibustering. They put a Standing Order 106(4) motion in today that wasn't properly drafted, meaning that we had to first deal with the suspended meeting. However, we could deal with this next week. We could call witnesses from FINTRAC, TD Bank and the RCMP next week to talk about these provisions in the BIA, and we could work towards getting this bill passed to provide legislative measures to address the very concerning stories we saw in the media this week about TD Bank, the Royal Bank and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

I'm new to the committee, so please forgive me for any mistakes, but from my research, I'm pretty sure this committee has already started its mandatory statutory review of anti-terrorist financing laws or the money-laundering laws. I believe there was one meeting at which we heard from officials. I see Mr. Chambers nodding his head, so I look forward to his correcting me on that, but that's my information.

We have proposed that if we can get this budget passed by late May or maybe early June, we will have six or eight days of hearings for this committee in June, out of which I would be more than open to devoting at least two meetings to anti-money laundering or anti-terrorist financing. I've had discussions with everybody from all sides of the House, and I think everybody would agree to that, including those on the government side.

I think it's important to note for the record that I believe all of us want to get at these issues. We're in politics, so we can be a bit partisan, but I don't think it's correct or fair to assert that nobody is interested in this. I will say, however, that there is a clear pathway to getting at these issues, and that is by stopping the Conservative filibuster and getting to the BIA and the scheduling of hearings in June, to which we could be calling witnesses and hearing evidence on this right away.

On Mark Carney, I just want to say a couple of things.

I don't think it's unfair to say that the Conservatives have spoken extensively on why they want to call Mr. Carney. Some of their reasons are stronger than others, but what is absolutely clear—and they've put it on the record repeatedly—is Mr. Carney's potential political ambitions. I won't out the colleague who said this last time, but last meeting, a Conservative member spoke about how unfair it was to speculate on his motives. However, all I hear on this issue is speculation about Mr. Carney's motives. I don't think that's fair either. The point is that the basis upon which the request to call Mr. Carney has been made is not exclusively his thoughts or ideas on any matters under consideration. It's been repeatedly pointed out that he might be a potential future Liberal leader, and that's why they want to call him to committee.

Now, if we talk turkey here, the Conservatives don't just want to proceed with the business and call Mr. Carney as a witness, which they have every right to do. They could call him next week if we proceed with the BIA. They're worried that Mr. Carney won't come. He may or may not; I don't know. I do know that he testified before a Senate committee a week or two ago, so he's no stranger to coming to Parliament.

He may have different reasons, depending on the motivation. If he's being called to be grilled on his political ambitions, that may make him less interested in coming than if there's a bona fide interest in hearing his comments on, say, money laundering. The Conservatives said that they want to call him for money laundering because he has expressed that money laundering is troubling. Well, that's hardly insightful. Who wouldn't say that? I could probably call 55,000 Canadians who would say that money laundering is troubling. That's not a basis to call someone before this committee.

More importantly—and this is my main concern about this—I think it would create a very improper if not dangerous precedent—I'll get that word on the record too—for us to explicitly use the rare power of a parliamentary committee to issue a summons. Let me stop there. That's why the Conservatives want there to be a motion of this committee to call Mr. Carney. It's because if there's a motion passed by this committee and Mr. Carney doesn't come, we're in a position to potentially issue a summons. This is what I find to be a dangerous precedent. For a parliamentary committee to use its ancient and very rare power to summons—essentially subpoena—a private citizen to this committee to be grilled on his or her political views or political ambitions is, I find, an improper use of the power to summons.

With great respect to my colleagues in the Conservative Party, they could not be clearer that that's why they want to call him. What's next? If I don't like the political prospects of the person who wants to run for the Conservatives in my riding and I want to use my power as a parliamentarian to haul that person before this committee so I can grill them on their political ambitions, that is improper, in my view. Worse, it's dangerous. Again, you can go back to the record and read any number of interventions from the Conservatives—even today—showing that that's why they want to call Mr. Carney.

Now, if Mr. Carney was the current Bank of Canada governor, if he was currently in the position, there might be a basis for calling him to this committee. However, he's a private citizen now. He has every right to talk to the media and talk to any economic club to express his views like every Canadian does. These are the basic fundamental charter rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association. You shouldn't have to risk being hauled before a parliamentary committee to be grilled on your views for partisan purposes. Unfortunately, again with great respect to my Conservative colleagues, that's exactly what they want to do. They said it themselves. That's why I am resistant to this.

It would be easy to pass a motion to call Mr. Carney as a witness. However, having knowledge that this bona fide request is contaminated by overtly partisan reasons makes me absolutely opposed to misusing the power of our committee for that purpose. I would say that to any government of any hue. If the Liberals were trying to call a potential Conservative leader here and said they wanted to bring him before Parliament because he might be the next Conservative leader of this country, that is the politicization of the finance committee. It's worthy of a third world dictatorship. It's banana-republic politics, in my view.

That's why I wanted to put on the record why I've taken the position I have today. We must follow proper procedure at this committee. That's why the suspended meeting meant that we had to start this meeting with the suspended business. It also meant that we could have moved to the Standing Order 106(4) request. It would have been improper to begin with that, but we could have suspended and gone to the Standing Order 106(4) subject matter if we'd wanted to.

I find that to be disingenuous, because everybody here knows that we could be talking about these very subjects next week, but the Conservatives are blocking that. We could be scheduling this in June, so I don't believe the Standing Order 106(4) request to get to money laundering this week is entirely sincere. Certainly, it cannot be said by anybody on this committee that the Liberals and the NDP, or anybody else for that matter, are not interested in dealing with money laundering or anti-terrorist financing, because we have taken the position we have today. I want us to be dealing with that very issue on Tuesday. However, we can't unless the Conservatives release their filibuster.

My understanding is that when we come to the finance committee next week, the fifth last week of Parliament, we're going to face a filibuster. There will be endless talking about all matters under the sun, such as the price of tea in China and the mating rituals of the wombat. We're going to talk about everything except the BIA, which includes anti-terrorist financing and money laundering provisions. Those are the facts.

Again, for Mr. Carney, I've already said my piece. I have never met Mr. Carney, and I have no track or trade with Mr. Carney. I wish him all the best as a private citizen. However, it doesn't matter to me what his views are. I'm a New Democrat. His potential participation in other parties is of no interest to me. If I felt that he had relevant evidence for the BIA, I would be happy to call him as a witness, but I do not see a basis for taking the very unusual step of issuing a summons to call him before this committee to be grilled for partisan purposes. I just don't think that's appropriate.

I respect each and every one of my colleagues, and I have been very impressed in my three weeks on this committee by the degree of knowledge, commitment and, I think, bona fide interest. We have different views on financial matters, and that's what makes a democracy a vibrant and interesting place.

There are good ideas on all sides, but what I don't think is appropriate is for us to be holding up and stalling the business of the finance committee at a critical time in May, when we have a budget to discuss. I don't think that is appropriate, especially holding up the business because one party wants to grill a particular private citizen on his potentially partisan, political interests. I don't think that's an appropriate use of the filibuster.

We've all done it. There are appropriate uses of a filibuster, like if there's a very important matter of principle or there's an important political narrative, but it doesn't resonate with me that holding up the entire budget of Canada so that we can have a three-hour grilling session with Mark Carney is appropriate. I really hope we can get to the business of the people, battle out the budget and grill it, criticize it and praise it—it probably deserves all of those things—in the next couple of weeks. Then we'll have a democratic vote on whether it passes or not. That's what I sincerely hope this committee can get back to next week.

Thank you all, and thank you all for not interrupting me with points of order.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Mr. Davies, before I move on, you brought up a point of order before about the Liberal-NDP government, and the clerk graciously looked into it. I'd just like to point to the ruling that was recently made on March 29, 2022. It pointed back to a ruling that was made by Speaker Milliken on September 24, 2001, on the same basis of what you asked about. The Speaker noted:

...Speaker Milliken, dealing with the question of the identification of parties, specified at page 5491 of Debates:

...these are matters that the House has always left entirely to the discretion of MPs. They identify themselves as individuals and are free to identify themselves as a group. Their spokespersons are theirs to select. Neither the Speaker nor other members has a say in such matters.

It is clear to the Chair that there is no change in the status or designation of the members of the New Democratic Party, nor in that of their officers, as a result of this agreement.

Thank you, Clerk, for looking into that.

Next on the speaking list I have Mr. Morantz.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

At the outset, I want to correct Mr. Davies on one thing. Nothing in my subamendment calls for the committee to issue a subpoena for Mr. Carney. He said that several times, but that's just not accurate, and I think for the record it needs to be clear.

There's another thing I want to say with respect to Mr. Davies. I'm somewhat surprised to hear what he's saying today, because just a couple of weeks ago in committee, he said, “I want to be clear on the record: I look forward to Mr. Carney's coming to this committee at the appropriate time in the appropriate study, which can happen in the next two months.” I don't know if his position has changed from two weeks ago. Maybe it will be different next week or whenever we finally get to vote on the subamendment. It is odd to hear him change his position depending on where the politics are most advantageous for his party.

Speaking directly to the subamendment, I want to start with the issue of bringing in the Minister of Finance. One of the reasons it's really important to have the Minister of Finance at committee is that the Minister of Finance wrote a letter to the committee chair on October 6 that had to do with the five-year review of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. The appearance of the finance minister would be directly relevant to discussing the issue of money laundering in Canada.

This is a request from the Minister of Finance in a letter to Chair Fonseca:

The last review of the [act] was completed in November 2018....

I am requesting that the Standing Committee on Finance conduct the review.

After conducting the review, the Committee would be required to submit a report to Parliament recommending any changes to the PCMLTFA or its administration. I suggest the review of the PCMLTFA be initiated this fall and completed by winter 2023-24.

Obviously, “this fall” was last fall. That has passed and the committee hasn't done anything. We've essentially ignored her request. No study has commenced. For Mr. Davies's clarification, the meeting we did have was on a motion, which I believe was brought forward by my colleague Mr. Chambers, to at least do some groundwork in advance and in anticipation of conducting the study.

The appearance of the finance minister is directly relevant to the issue of money laundering, and the issue of money laundering is very serious. We've had many banks fined across the country. We've had reports that money laundering in Canada has increased home prices by 7.5% because of the increased demand generated by people trying to launder money through home acquisitions. I think earlier last fall, before Mr. Davies joined the committee, we talked about Sam Cooper's article, where he identified the issue of HSBC accepting fraudulent income verification letters from foreign students in order to get loans and launder money through housing. It is a really serious problem. We have banks being fined in the United States and in Canada for not adhering to the rules set out by FINTRAC on how they're supposed to manage their money laundering.

What was supposed to happen today was that we were supposed to have a meeting about this. We followed all the rules. Someone said earlier that the Standing Order 106(4) letter wasn't done properly. It was done exactly properly. The people who signed it needed to sign it. It was worded properly, but here we are at this point.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to me that Liberal members of the committee don't want to talk about money laundering. Their record is abysmal. After nine years in office, the problem has gotten so much worse. Canada's enforcement of money laundering is being noticed internationally. We have other countries, the United States in particular, whose fines have been much more aggressive than fines here in Canada. The problem has only gotten worse and worse.

This meeting was supposed to be about that. We issued a Standing Order 106(4) request, yet here we are. We have the NDP again carrying water for the Liberals. For the life of me, I don't understand why. I don't understand why they would hand this to the Liberals on a silver platter and put up with the political price they're going to pay for trying to stall this important meeting about money laundering in Canada—money laundering that creates chaos and crime in our streets. They are propping up a Prime Minister who is simply not worth the cost of that chaos and crime. The Conservatives are here today trying to do something about it, and Liberal members are blocking it.

We have other examples. If the Minister of Finance comes to the committee, I'd like to talk to her about this letter and ask her if she's disappointed that Liberal members of the committee won't support Mr. Chambers's motion, which is actually about—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair. Mr. Chambers never moved a motion. I don't know what Mr. Morantz is talking about. We had only a few utterances from Mr. Chambers, and obviously we knew that the meeting was supposed to start as a continuation of the previous meeting. I'm sorry that Mr. Morantz hasn't gotten his way. Following procedure is not within his general values and ethics, but it's strange.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Mr. Turnbull, this is not a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Morantz.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I have a point of order. Before I get the floor back, is it parliamentary for a member to question another member's ethics?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Chair, on that point of order, of course, in Parliament you can't do indirectly what you can't do directly. You can't call someone a liar or say that they are lying. Calling on someone's ethics is, in my view, analogous to that. Quite frankly, it undermines the collaboration within this committee.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

On that point of order, Chair....

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

My intervention was based on the interpretation I have that Mr. Morantz doesn't want to follow the procedural rules of the committee. Perhaps he interprets them differently, but the advice of the clerk was sent around to committee members in an email, and I'm glad to see that we upheld the procedural requirements and procedural rules of the House of Commons.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

I didn't hear too many points of order on that. I let it go on, but I will say that I hope we continue to stay on topic.

I'll turn it back over to Mr. Morantz.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chair, with Mr. Morantz's indulgence, I have a point of clarification that might help us all. I'm looking at a notice of meeting from February 8, 2024, which reads, “Statutory Review of the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act”. There are three Department of Finance officials there. For my own benefit and for others, that may not be adequate, but did we not have one meeting with officials? Did that meeting occur or didn't it?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

On that point of clarification, Mr. Chair, my understanding—and perhaps the clerk could confirm this—is that the committee has not agreed to undertake any study of the proceeds of crime and money laundering act, as in no motion has been adopted by the committee to review that act.

What I believe occurred in February was that we invited individuals to a meeting to discuss money laundering that we may decide to incorporate into a future study if the committee decides to embark upon a study of the proceeds of crime and money laundering act or to fulfill the statutory obligation to do so. However, the committee has not decided to embark on the statutory obligation to study that act, as we have not agreed to accept the Minister of Finance's request, because we have not adopted a motion as such.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If I might, I'm reading from the transcript—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Mr. Davies, wait.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Chair, do I have the floor? Are we still on a point of order? What are we doing?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Colleagues, I will just say to wait to be recognized before you speak.

I want to clear up some of the points that have been brought up.

Yes, officials were here to talk about money laundering once. That's correct, Mr. Davies.

Mr. Chambers, you're also correct in the sense that no motion has been passed as of yet with regard to money laundering. I thought that's what the Standing Order 106(4) request today was for, but obviously it was overturned when Mr. Chambers was trying to bring forward a motion on money laundering.

That's where we're at now. I hope that clears up the points that have been brought up.

I'll turn it back over to Mr. Morantz.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the issue of the finance minister appearing at committee and her letter to the committee asking for the study, Conservatives have been trying to do their part. We did have that one meeting, because Mr. Chambers acted on it. Mr. Chambers did try to introduce the motion. It is on notice, so I think it would be appropriate to at least read Mr. Chambers's motion into the record so that Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Davies will both be aware of it. I'm going to do that right now. It says:

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and with regard to section 72 of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, the committee undertake a study to review the Act and the current situation regarding money laundering and terrorist financing—