Finance Committee on March 17th, 2022

[Michael Hatch]

Yes. Thank you.

Very briefly, some of those technical questions with regard to joint accounts and other types of accounts were raised in the briefing session on the Friday with Finance. They did a good job of answering them. While answers were not provided in writing, they were provided verbally.

Ultimately, the fact that only 10 accounts across our entire sector were frozen speaks to the fact that this was obviously very targeted. The freezing of accounts is a very serious matter that our members take very seriously. It was intended to be targeted by the government and by our members.

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

Very well. Thank you.

I'm out of time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Ste-Marie.

We're moving to the NDP and MP Blaikie. You will be our last committee member to ask questions in this session.

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

Thank you very much.

I'd like to go back to Ms. Wilford.

I'm curious. Coming out of this experience we have lived here in Canada and the use of the Emergencies Act, have you identified any shortcomings in the Canadian regulatory framework, at least from your perspective? Are there any recommendations that you would have for us to consider as a committee, or recommendations that you think we should consider making to the government concerning your industry?

This is particularly when issues like the kind we saw—national security issues and others—come to light and the government develops concerns. Are there any regulations or directions that you think we should consider recommending to the government?

[Juan Benitez]

Thank you.

I'll start with that question.

Mr. Chair, at GoFundMe we're experts in social fundraising. We are not public policy experts. We would welcome the opportunity to contribute our expertise about what we observe on our platform, our policies and our procedures and how we police our platform and regulate it, as we talked about today, and on how that can influence the regulation. We believe that would be a collaborative discussion, given that we would need to work more closely with all of you, who are the public policy experts.

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

Are there no concerns for you coming out of Canadians' experience and how it happened?

[Juan Benitez]

Certainly we are continually evolving our platform, our policies, our tools and our procedures. I believe we improve month by month—and we need to because the use of platforms and the Internet and collaboration, and, frankly, the crises in the world that cause people to look to assist communities and to help others via GoFundMe are always evolving and changing.

In this case, we look back at the timeline of the events, the complexity of the fundraiser, the rapid evolution of the fundraiser organizer and the people involved, and we feel comfortable about our actions. We believe that our proactive engagement with local law enforcement was appropriate. With our termination of the fundraiser 10 or 11 days before the Emergencies Act was invoked, we feel comfortable with our actions in all of that. We believe that our policies and procedures stood this test, and we'll continue to evolve and improve them over time.

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

And you have no concern about competing with other actors in this space who don't share the same standards?

[Kim Wilford]

I would just say that as the most recognized platform, we're the most responsible one. We operate within the law and, in many cases, above the law. We hope that's one reason among many that we stand out and that people around the world use us to come together and help each other.

As my colleague said, as you look to figure out ways to address what occurred, we would welcome the opportunity to collaborate with you and discuss different sorts of regulations or controls that can be put in place to ensure that we continue to provide the safest and most secure environment for our users and everyone who wants to come together to help each other in the world.

We want to make sure that we don't thwart the good that happens. I think that's been recognized just in the outpouring of support we see for Ukraine. We saw it for Afghanistan. We see it for climate disasters that occur all over the world. Online fundraising is actually a really beautiful thing, and there is a ton of a regulations already in place to protect the users. Certainly if the government and this committee wished to have further collaboration, we would welcome that opportunity.

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

Thank you very much for your testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you for that.

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

On behalf of all the members of the committee, the clerk, the interpreters and the staff, we want to thank our excellent witnesses. Thank you for your remarks, your testimony and your answers to our many questions to help inform our Emergencies Act study.

Thank you, everyone, also for joining us here on St. Patrick's Day and Flavio Volpe's birthday.

[Flavio Volpe]

Thank you.

[Martha Durdin]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Michael Hatch]

Thank you.

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

Happy birthday!

[Kim Wilford]

Thank you, everyone, and happy birthday!

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Members, I will now suspend to go into the in camera portion of the meeting. Members will need to leave this Zoom meeting and join the second Zoom meeting with a different link. Both links can be found on the email the clerk sent earlier today.

I'm looking to see if there are any questions from members before we suspend and move to our in camera session.

No?

Okay.

I will see you on the other side.

[Proceedings continue in camera]