Thank you.
I very much agree with the substance of the motion. I agree with Mr. Hallan that this is an important issue. As he kindly pointed out, I raised this matter in the House yesterday. To my knowledge, it's the first time anyone has raised the issue of TD Bank's $3-billion fine in the House of Commons.
What I think is important to note, though, is that we've already scheduled a study on anti-money laundering in January. We did that after extensive discussions among everybody at this table, including the Conservatives, a few weeks ago. They prioritized the study on the CRA as the next study to come after this one.
For anybody who's watching, we've established the committee's business for the next three months. First are the pre-budget hearings, which we're doing now. Right after that, we would move into the CRA hearing, which is a study proposed by a Conservative colleague and, I believe, by Mr. Ste-Marie. We agreed to that. Then we agreed that before Christmas we wanted to try to issue a report highlighting and summarizing all of the excellent ideas we're hearing in the pre-budget hearings. Then we would get to anti-money laundering in the very first meeting when we come back in January.
At the time we discussed that, the TD money-laundering issue was already in the media. I'm not sure that the $3-billion fine had been announced yet, but it was certainly there. Anti-money laundering has been on our agenda and our radar as a very serious issue, as Mr. Hallan eloquently pointed out. The real question is this: Do we now want to revisit that and add time to this committee's meetings?
We sit Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30 to 5:30. Adding extra time to that is a disruption to the well-established schedule of this committee. As well, it was not a proposal made by anybody a couple of weeks ago.
Yes, I agree that we need to get to it. This is a very important issue. I think it's been with us a long time. I think some of the testimony today has indicated that this has been an entrenched problem. I think Mr. Hallan himself said it's been going on for nine years. It's been going on for longer than that, but it's been going on. I would say that this is a very important issue, but I don't think it's urgent. I think that we can deal with it when we begin the study in January.
I am concerned about starting to tack on ad hoc witnesses after regular pre-budget hearing committee meetings on this subject now, in October and in November, without the proper context, focus and concentration, and to then pick up evidence in February.
For example, the first witnesses I'd want to hear from are FINTRAC, OSFI and the law enforcement agencies to get an idea of the actual context in which this is occurring. I wouldn't want to call TD Bank first. It's the subject of the issue. I wouldn't know what to ask them yet. I want to be fully briefed and informed on what the legal and prosecutorial situation is. I learned more about it from Mr. Simser today than I've learned at all. I want to hear more of that.
I'd like to take an organized, concentrated, rational approach to this subject that would focus entirely on this issue, with no other distractions. The way to do that is to stick with what we've already agreed to, which is dealing with the anti-money laundering study that we've already scheduled for January.
In lieu of that, I would propose to let the Conservatives swap it with the CRA study that they decided they wanted before the anti-money laundering study. They could switch it. I'm happy to move anti-money laundering up, and we could deal with that immediately after we finish our pre-budget hearings, which will happen in a matter of a few weeks. I'm happy to do that if the Conservatives believe that it's a more important priority than their study on the CRA. However, I'm not in favour of adding an hour to these meetings.
My final point is that western alienation is a real thing. For those of us who live in British Columbia, sitting until 6:00 or 6:30 on a Thursday means that we don't go home Thursday night, which means that we go home Fridays. For those of you who come from central Canada or can get home, that doesn't matter to you. You can be home Thursday night, but we don't get home until Friday. If we turn around on Sunday, we don't get to spend as much time in our constituencies, and I want to be hearing from the people in my riding about what's important to them.
For that reason, I'm in favour of the substance of the motion. I think it's a great idea.
I want to thank Mr. Hallan for bringing it forward, but the scheduling of it I don't think is appropriate.