Thank you for the question.
No, I haven't seen Mr. Manchester's comments. However, with all due respect, he doesn't work within the system. That's his point of view.
As far as I know, the emergency measures were implemented for a limited amount of time, not for an indefinite period. The banks received information pursuant to the established process, meaning the use of the Emergencies Act in a very limited way and for a very specific reason. I'm sure that the banks won't store those names and send us reports later.
In any event, if a bank said that it was sending us a suspicious transaction report because it received a name from the RCMP, I wouldn't accept that information and I wouldn't give it to the RCMP. The police aren't allowed to direct a bank to provide information to FINTRAC. We also aren't allowed to ask the bank to give us a suspicious transaction report on someone. This information would be thrown out in court as inadmissible evidence. We can't ask a bank to do something that we can't legally do. Neither the RCMP nor any other police force is allowed to direct a bank to send suspicious transaction reports to FINTRAC for intelligence purposes, in order to gather evidence and lay charges.
The banks have no reason to keep either the information or the names. If there were suspicious people or people with a history that suggested involvement in terrorist financing or money laundering, they would already be identified by the financial institutions.