Finance Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2022

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

But it is possible.

[Isabelle Jacques]

It is possible.

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

To my mind the order's fairly clear. There are some caveats, but it says, “for an assembly”, and the assemblies have now been disbanded. Have we stopped freezing bank accounts?

[Isabelle Jacques]

Yes, we have, as a matter of fact. I don't know if this information has been shared with the member of the committee. I may want to leave the RCMP to speak to this. I don't know if they're coming before you, but yesterday they did share a list of which financial institutions are unfreezing accounts as of yesterday. They started yesterday to unfreeze accounts.

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

Following up on that—and thank you for sharing that information—if you are an individual who wants your account unfrozen, whether it was frozen by mistake or in accordance with the act, who do you appeal to? Who do you talk to?

[Isabelle Jacques]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] individuals whose account has been frozen whether mistakenly—but I haven't heard of any such incidents—should contact directly their bank's customer service to do a first verification, and if the bank doesn't feel they've had a proper answer, they could reach out to the RCMP to validate some of the information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Lawrence. That's the time.

We are moving to the Liberals and MP Dzerowicz for six minutes, please.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being with us today on such short notice. Thank you so much for the important work you do.

I think that for those who are listening, we should just establish that when the Emergencies Act was invoked, we announced the declaration of a public order emergency under the Emergencies Act in light of the disruptions, the border blockades and the occupation of Ottawa's downtown core. Under that public order emergency, there were a series of measures around stopping the flow of money that might actually be funding any of these public order measures and events that were taking place across our country.

Perhaps I'll direct this to the Department of Finance. Can you give us a brief rundown of what the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act allows for and what gaps it has that the invocation of the Emergencies Act addresses?

[Isabelle Jacques]

Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the question.

We realized that there were gaps in the system as to what our colleagues at the Financial Transaction and Report Analysis Centre of Canada, FINTRAC, could capture. We realized that it didn't capture crowdfunding platforms—not all of them—or payment service providers, so when the order came into force, crowdfunding platforms and payment service providers had to register with FINTRAC and report any suspicious transactions to FINTRAC.

This was in order to help mitigate the fact that these platforms received illicit funds, and to increase the quality and quantity of intelligence received by FINTRAC. That also allowed to them make more information available to support investigations by law enforcement.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you. So just in layperson's terms, basically cryptocurrencies and crowdfunding platforms were not included under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, and so that was what was put in place by the emergency orders. Is that correct?

[Isabelle Jacques]

Cryptocurrencies were already covered, although what was not covered is the reporting by crowdfunding platforms and payment service providers.

My colleague, Julien Brazeau, may want to add to this question.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I don't see him there.

Can you confirm that making these powers permanent cannot be done unilaterally and would require legislation?

[Isabelle Jacques]

To make these permanent, we have two options. We can do it by way of legislation, which includes regulation. We can make them permanent by way of regulations.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

Can you also confirm that the powers are not retroactive and only began after the Emergencies Act was declared?

[Isabelle Jacques]

Yes, I can confirm that it is not retroactive. We received many questions from concerned individuals who thought it would retroactively apply, but it does not.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

We saw reports of truckers leaving the convoy voluntarily after being warned by their insurance companies that their insurance may be suspended. Was this the intent of the program, and do you have any further information on the success of these measures?

[Isabelle Jacques]

The intent of the program was to make people responsible and dissuade people from using money or their vehicles to participate in these illegal blockades.

I do not know if any trucker or individual had their insurance suspended. I think the goal was to ensure that people first left of their own volition.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

So you wouldn't know whether or not the fact that they could lose their insurance had an influence on them.

[Isabelle Jacques]

I certainly think it did. With a lot of these people who were involved, trucking is their livelihood. Understanding that your insurance could be suspended, I think, would be an incentive to stop the illegal behaviours.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

In my final minute, I'd like one clarification.

My understanding is that government has a limited role. Really, it's enabling this information to be shared with financial institutions and RCMP from FINTRAC in order for them to have a role to enforce.

[Isabelle Jacques]

I could not hear your question clearly. Would you mind repeating it?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Of course.

With these emergency measures in place, particularly as it relates to what we're currently talking about, the federal government has a limited role in terms of enforcement; it really is enabling RCMP and financial institutions to receive information from FINTRAC in order for them to enforce and take action.

[Isabelle Jacques]

That is correct. Privacy was, of course, at the fore and of concern. We want to respect the privacy of individuals and respect the Privacy Act, so the order allowed for information to flow from the RCMP and some institutions directly to the financial institutions, not through the Department of Finance. That is correct.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

Now we are moving to the Bloc and Monsieur Ste-Marie, for six minutes.