Evidence of meeting #16 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crime.
A video is available from Parliament.
C/Supt Michael Saghbini
There's a distinction there between the predicate offences and the money laundering and then just having your money in a tax haven. For us, having your money in a tax haven, on its own, is a CRA mandate. It's not a crime.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
I'm asking how often your department, as the senior national organization, is investigating these predicate offences, which could be any of a number of things.
C/Supt Michael Saghbini
We'd have to get you the statistics, if that's what you're looking for. We don't have them on hand. Then I think the important thing, to your question, if I may ask, is.... Were you talking about prosecutions versus charges?
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
I understand, but charges are what you do. That's why I'm asking you about charges.
C/Supt Michael Saghbini
Exactly.
We can come back with that. We don't have that statistic on hand.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
Okay. Let me ask about co-operation with the CRA. You are investigating predicate offences. You're leaving just the simple issue of people who are taking lawfully earned profits and not paying taxes on them to the CRA. That's the CRA's issue. However, you are dealing with cases where the profits are not legally gained.
In your co-operation, are you a net sender or recipient of information with the CRA? I presume you refer files to the CRA.
C/Supt Michael Saghbini
We do refer to the CRA. The CRA will refer something back, as well. Let's say, as an example, that they're looking a simple tax evasion, and then they come across criminality that comes with it. Then they'll refer it to us. It's a two-way street, then. We'll refer either way. Sometimes we collaborate together, and sometimes we work independent of each other.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
I have lots of questions and little time.
I want to ask about financial institutions. How do you characterize the level of co-operation you get?
Like Ms. Cobena, I have a working history in the finance sector, and it always seemed that the banks were reluctant to share information about what goes on in their own shop in fraud cases.
Do you find that you get co-operation from the banks? Is it getting better or worse?
C/Supt Michael Saghbini
We have great co-operation with the banks. Under the new IMLIP, the integrated money-laundering intelligence partnership, that was announced, we're working closely with the banks on information sharing. We're in the process of...information-sharing agreements with the banks to enhance our IMLIPS.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
You have agreements that are not executed yet, but you're working on them.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
Okay, I have one last question. This goes along with a question we had earlier about legislative steps. I think Mr. MacDonald asked about that.
One of the former finance ministers called for a review of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. It's overdue for review. It hasn't happened. It doesn't appear to have been picked up by the government currently, under the new minister.
How important is that, and what would you like to see from that review?
S/Sgt Chad Babin
Reviewing any legislation and keeping up to date is always important, and with that, in any review in our world, information sharing is always a key factor to look at.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan) Conservative Jasraj Singh Hallan
Thank you.
Next, we have Mr. Turnbull for five minutes.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thanks, Chair.
Chief Superintendent, I'll start with you. You mentioned in your opening remarks that some progress has been made with new laws and regulations.
I know the beneficial ownership registry is about to come into effect and be operational by the end of 2025, which is this year. That's coming very shortly. You had started to say when you ran out of time how that was one of the things you could cite as helping with these very complex cases.
Could you speak to how meaningful the beneficial ownership registry will be for your investigations?
C/Supt Michael Saghbini
Yes, absolutely, and thank you for the question.
It allows us to start unravelling, if you want to call it that, or peeling the onion in trying to figure out who is actually running these companies, as opposed to having it extremely layered.
Just having that registry on its own might seem like a simple tool, but it's simple and strong in allowing us to properly conduct our investigations.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Great.
I think there have been some additional federal resources dedicated to going after the “professional enablers”, as they're referred to. These are the lawyers, accountants, consultants and others who help people to set up these complex structures that end up avoiding or evading taxes.
Can you speak to whether there's been any progress on that front?
S/Sgt Chad Babin
Yes. We work with the CRA specifically through our IMLIT teams, our integrated money-laundering investigative teams. They're located across the country and in key areas. Their mandate is to investigate professional money launderers and enablers. They've been in existence for, I believe, about five years, and we've seen a lot of success through those units. Projet Collecteur is a good example of a file out of one of those units, the one that the chief superintendent spoke about.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Great. It sounds like those are two useful initiatives that are making some progress.
How about the whole-of-government, national anti-fraud strategy that we announced, and the financial crimes agency. Do you think that's going to aid you in being able to crack down on some of these complex financial crimes?
C/Supt Michael Saghbini
I think the financial crimes agency will be a way for us to work hand-in-hand by having potential expertise on the civilian side that could assist in certain complex investigations. From a fraud perspective, there's a lot that can be done. How many times a day do we all get email or text messages that are fraudulent?
Therefore, I think maybe having a kind of clearing house of sorts might be beneficial there, to allow this to be looked at, because I'm sure some of the people behind these things might be doing not just one fraud, but multiple frauds. This will allow us to put it together.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I know we've also committed to hiring another 1,000 RCMP officers and increasing resources for the federal prosecution service, which you mentioned earlier. I'm assuming those resources are going to aid in your investigations. As well, you mentioned earlier that you felt you were fairly adequately resourced in your unit, but can you talk about how those additional resources will aid in cracking down on tax evasion?
C/Supt Michael Saghbini
From what we've seen, out of the 1,000, there may be 150 coming to financial crime. We're not sure yet where those resources.... Once we see where they're going to come, we'll assess better where those resources will be going. It's important for us to look and take stock of where we need to augment ourselves.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
The federal prosecution service.... I assume that's going to help to prosecute some.... I know that other members were mentioning—