Finance Committee on Feb. 24th, 2022

[Barry MacKillop]

Thank you for the question.

You referred to the data leaks. However, we certainly don't use that data. We haven't received a list of people who donated to the cause. Unfortunately, crowdfunding platforms are available to everyone, so anyone in the world can access them.

We've had discussions with Stripe. Certainly individuals from around the world donated money to support the cause before it was declared illegal. People all over the world are unhappy and fed up with COVID‑19. I think that some people thought at first that this was a protest against COVID‑19 and just wanted to support the cause by giving small amounts of money. It was their own money. This wasn't money laundering. I don't believe that they thought that they were funding terrorist activity.

Normally, we wouldn't have seen any of this. Crowdfunding platforms won't release the names of all donors to us. This falls outside the scope of the legislation governing us, unless it relates to money laundering or terrorist financing.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

We know that there's a great deal of illicit money in the world and that it's often hidden in tax havens.

When large and suspicious sums of money are donated by foreign groups on crowdfunding platforms such as GiveSendGo or GoFundMe, do your current tools enable you to obtain information about these transactions?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It has to be a very short answer, please.

[Barry MacKillop]

Thank you for the question.

No, we don't have the investigative authority. This means that we can't ask for information from the reporting entities.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Even though these reporting entities are required to register—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Chatel. That's your time.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We are now moving to the Bloc.

Monsieur Ste-Marie, you have two and a half minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Les Affaires recently published an article from The Canadian Press in which Mr. Manchester, managing director of financial intelligence training at ManchesterCF, was interviewed. Mr. Manchester is concerned that the Emergencies Act and the resulting action have set a precedent. I'd like to hear your thoughts on his statements.

We know that the RCMP has been sending lists of people to financial institutions, which worries Mr. Manchester. He said that the banks could continue to track individuals who have been flagged by the RCMP. In addition, the names of these individuals could end up in third‑party private sector databases used by financial institutions to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Barry MacKillop]

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.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

That is the time.

We're moving to the NDP.

We have MP Blaikie for two and a half minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you.

I want to follow up on that.

I was listening without translation, as I normally do. I'm usually pretty confident in my French, but what I took from your testimony was that it was just an explanation of some of the reasons Canadians should feel reassured that whatever information was transmitted in this process wouldn't leave a lasting impression on their record in the private sector.

I'm wondering if you could take a little bit more time to explain that, so members of the committee, including, or perhaps especially, me, feel they have a strong command of your comments in response to Monsieur Ste-Marie.

[Barry MacKillop]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Chair, I hope it's not because the quality of my French was not up to par that it was unclear.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

It was not at all.

[Barry MacKillop]

Really, the Emergencies Act was time limited, and it was for a specific event.

For example, the information on the designated people that was given to the banks, the financial institutions and others, had to do with the funding related to the illegal blockades, to ensure that the funding that was received or disbursed was stopped.

Once this emergency measure is revoked, as it has been, the banks cannot use that information, for example, to submit an STR to me, to say, “Hey, we got this name from the RCMP. Looking backwards, yes, the person is a criminal, so we're going to give you this.” If they gave that to me and said, “The RCMP gave me this name, so this is my threshold for reporting to you”, that would not be something that I would be comfortable disclosing back to the RCMP, because it's not something that the RCMP—and I use “RCMP” as a generic term for law enforcement here—or law enforcement can go to a bank about and direct it to send an STR to FINTRAC on any particular individual. There are legal requirements. If the RCMP or any law enforcement wants that information, they need production orders. They need warrants from the court. They cannot simply walk in and say, “Please submit an STR on Barry MacKillop to FINTRAC” so that they can then give that to me as intelligence and I can get a production order and charge someone.

I'm not a constitutional expert or a lawyer, but that is contrary to how our court system works. There is an independence. The threshold is met. The banking system or the financial institutions would submit reports to us on people whose transactions they believe or they suspect would be relevant to money-laundering or terrorist-financing activities.

The fact that they were either supporting or disbursing the funds related to an illegal blockade has nothing to do with money laundering or terrorist financing. We would not get a suspicious transaction report, and I do not believe that the intent or the reality would be that the banks would keep the list of these names once the process had been undertaken to unfreeze the accounts, as Madame Jacques was mentioning the other day. These accounts will be unfrozen. There's no lasting black mark on these individuals. They simply could not use that money, or whatever it was that they had, to support the illegal blockade, as per the Emergencies Act when it was in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

I hope I get this one right: We have the Conservatives next and it's MP Lawrence's time—yes?

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

You got it, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

All right. There you go.

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

Thank you.

Mr. MacKillop, I just want to confirm something arising from my last questions. Just to be clear, I imagine you were working around the clock to implement the Emergencies Act at your department, but despite your best efforts, nothing that gave you additional authorization or that gave FINTRAC additional authorization helped at all in ending the illegal protest [Technical difficulty--Editor]

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I couldn't hear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes. I wasn't sure if it was my system.

MP Lawrence, I think we lost the last 10 or 15 seconds of your question.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

We lost the whole question.

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

Oh, that's a shame.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Could you could go over it again, please?