Finance Committee on Dec. 1st, 2025

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

Not to speak on their behalf, but I'm assuming that, if you had more prosecutors, more would go through the courts. That's just an assumption.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

It's certainly why the government made additional commitments, so that's great.

Is there any additional clarity you can give us on any other progress you referenced in your opening remarks but didn't get a chance to finish? I think you were going to refer to a number of other things, but maybe you could also take a second to go back.

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

I was almost at the end.

There has been a lot of progress in our partnerships internationally and domestically, where we're working more collaboratively with our partners, especially on cryptocurrencies. We hold a lot of training, and we have municipal, provincial and international partners that come for this training. That also builds up our network. Someone from the OPP or SQ, or someone who has come on our course, can reach back either to us or to someone who was on the course. We're building these networks of financial crime experts.

[The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan), Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Thank you.

Colleagues, we have enough time for one more round, so if you guys are all okay with it, I think we could do three minutes for each party.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan), Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

I hand it over to the Conservatives for three minutes. Go ahead, Ms. Cobena.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We got cut off in the last conversation, when we were talking about how we hold these bad actors accountable. Of course, the concern is.... You don't have the number of investigations or charges. These bad actors may just get a slap on the wrist, or maybe they get charged and there's a fine, and, well, “That's the cost of doing business,” because it is highly profitable to engage in financial crime and tax avoidance.

Can you please speak to how we hold these bad actors accountable?

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

From a law enforcement perspective, all the complaints we receive.... Obviously, we take them very seriously, and we investigate them to capacity and lay charges. In terms of what happens later—the court process and sentencing—that's outside our scope. However, I can reassure you that when we do receive complaints, we are investigating them to our fullest capability, and we are charging. Again, what happens later is out of our purview.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

If you could submit to the committee the statistics and the data, that would be great, just to get a sense of the problem.

Also, there has been an increase in financial crime. Can you speak to...? Why do you think this is the case? What's driving this increase?

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

I think part of it—and, Chad, you can jump in as well—is that everything is electronic now. Most people are banking electronically. Most people are on their phones and emails. We're more easily susceptible to being defrauded, just with the sheer amount of data and electronics we use on a daily basis. We have elderly now who might not necessarily know how to use these technologies. There's AI. There are deepfakes. We can talk about this for half a day, just about how you can be defrauded. I think it's just because of the technologies today and how they're easily accessible or exploitable.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you for that.

Based on your experience, what are the weaknesses in Canada's corporate, financial and reporting systems that are most commonly exploited by individuals or corporations using offshore tax havens for financial crime?

[S/Sgt Chad Babin]

Again, it's around beneficial ownership and transparency in trusts.

[The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan), Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Thank you.

Next, we have Mr. Sawatzky for three minutes.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Could you speak a bit more about the increase in AI deepfake scams? What are some of the most common methods used?

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

Some of the stuff we have seen includes the AI deepfakes where it's voice recognition. Your bank, let's say, has a voice recognition feature, and someone has your voice and uses that to authenticate. We've seen emails come through to a company, saying, “Hey, I'm so-and-so, the CEO. Can you please forward $50,000 to this company? They just did A, B and C for us.”

The technology of AI in terms of the deepfakes, the facial and the voice, is what we're seeing now. I don't know how that's going to morph. It might morph into something more complicated or more sophisticated, but that's what we're seeing on the surface right now.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you.

When it comes to text message scams, I know a lot of people get.... In fact, during this conversation, I got a text message scam saying, “We are hiring.” Where are these coming from? How can we start trying to stop these text messages from coming in?

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

That's a great question.

We are working with some of our telcos to find out how this is happening, how the numbers are being spoofed. Obviously, if you call back the number you received it from, you will get some person who answers, “Hello.” You say, “Hey, did you just call me?” and they say, “No, it wasn't me.” Obviously, their numbers are being spoofed.

We're trying to figure it out through our telcos. We think a lot of it is coming from overseas. Some might be domestic, but we're trying to figure that out in partnership with our telcos.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Can somebody who takes part in this scam be charged?

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

Yes, absolutely.

We'd have to investigate to see what came of it. Maybe this person is really hiring, and they got your résumé. That would be versus a situation like “Hey, click on this. It's going to take you to a site. We need to get into your computer because you have a virus.” The next thing you know, they have access to everything. It would be unique to each situation.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Would you need to have been scammed in order for them to get charged, or could they be charged just by sending something in hopes of scamming you?

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

We'd have to look at it. We'd have to delve into how.... I mean, spoofing a number on its own is something we'd look at as an offence—spoofing people's numbers, spamming, etc.

It's happening so often that the prioritization of these scams.... It's important to be able to protect our most vulnerable.

[The Vice-Chair (Jasraj Hallan), Conservative, Jasraj Singh Hallan]

Thank you. That's time.

Next, we have Mr. Garon for three minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Saghbini, we’re talking a lot about cryptocurrency and big international schemes—that’s a bit trendy—but there’s also telephone fraud and crimes being committed against seniors, for example. Recently, the Canadian Bankers Association, in co-operation with the RCMP and other organizations, launched an advertising campaign to raise awareness among everyone from phone operators to Internet service providers. They want everyone to be on guard to ensure that no fraud is committed. Personally, I’m in favour of this initiative. I even sponsored the French event on the Hill.

However, I don’t think we’re holding banks accountable enough. As you said, everyone has to do their part. When fraud happens, for example, if $5,000 is withdrawn three times on a Friday in the middle of the night, the bank turns against the citizen or the senior. That’s what happened to an entrepreneur in my riding: more money was withdrawn than she had in her account. Her bank went after her and told her she was responsible. That person was completely crushed by the bank.

What this kind of situation shows us is that banks need to be held accountable. If banks were partly responsible for these financial losses, perhaps they would put more preventive mechanisms in place.

Do you think that making banks more accountable could help reduce fraud? Ultimately, in more traditional fraud, the money has been withdrawn from an account at their bank.

[C/Supt Michael Saghbini]

I totally understand. In these cases, it's very important that it is reported to the police of jurisdiction in the area where your constituent or whoever is defrauded, because it becomes very important that they start an investigation in collaboration with the bank to see what exactly happened. It's always favourable to have the police response.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I completely agree with you. Beyond that, if regulations or legislation made banks more accountable for the banking activities that occur in an account, as is the case in the United Kingdom, do you think they would put more measures in place to prevent such fraud from being committed? If there were less fraud, there would be less need for the police. In life, we love police officers because they’re there to help us, but we always hope that, ideally, we won’t have to deal with them.