Finance Committee on Jan. 26th, 2026

[Kïrsten Fraser]

Yes.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Okay. Are there gaps remaining? Are we completely up to date, particularly with security? Are there lingering issues that still need to be addressed?

[Kïrsten Fraser]

I guess the benefit of being a fast follower is that we've had the opportunity to look at what other jurisdictions have done, particularly with respect to security. I feel fairly confident in saying that the aspects outlined in the legislation are aligned with what our colleagues have done who have open banking or consumer-driven banking frameworks in place.

It's an interesting question. When you look across jurisdictions that have open banking, typically you would see that it's what we would call broad but not very deep. In Canada we have a number of types of accounts that range from almost anything you can think of in terms of the type of banking account you have, but in the first phase we'll have “read only”. That's not a very deep framework. Then, in other jurisdictions, you'll have a much narrower scope, in terms of just having chequing or savings accounts, but more depth in terms of the functionality—the ability to initiate a payment, for example.

As I noted, the government is committed to introducing legislation that would facilitate the introduction of the second phase of open banking, which would allow action initiation, or “write access”. Again, this would put us on par with and/or ahead of our colleagues in other jurisdictions with open banking systems.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Are there any implications here for the Bank of Canada [Technical difficulty—Editor] relating to that?

[Kïrsten Fraser]

Relating to...?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

The Bank of Canada....

[Kïrsten Fraser]

The oversight administration has been transferred to the Bank of Canada. This is contained in the legislation. It was done with a view to having an efficient and expedited process to implementation.

It's also logical from the perspective that the bank is already overseeing the RPAA, which deals with payment providers, with payment services providers. The government has announced its intention to move forward with a payment-enabled system of consumer-driven banking. From an efficiency and a logical alignment perspective, that's why the decision was made to transfer to the Bank of Canada.

There's also a question of efficiency for the entities. From a perspective of talking about competition, having both frameworks where there will be a lot of similarities in terms of the participants being overseen by the same entity brings a lot of the efficiencies in terms of the ability to get these entities into the various frameworks that they would be participating in.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos. That concludes your time.

Colleagues, we have gone through the speakers list for this round, but we still have a bit of time left. Would we like to do another round of three minutes each?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Sure. Okay.

That being said, is there someone from the Conservatives who would like to go?

Mr. Strauss, you have three minutes.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm still really interested in the thinking behind the stablecoin act. By my limited reading of the act...what if I said, “My name is Matt; I want to issue Mattcoin, and everyone at this table should give me $1,000. I will keep it in a safe, and the location of the safe is secret”? Would I then apply to the Bank of Canada to get the imprimatur of the bank that I'm now a regulated stablecoin under this act?

[Gloria Wong]

I'll start by indicating that the location of the reserve assets will be determined in regulation. Currently, the regulations require issuers to hold assets at least on a one-to-one basis, but there is regulation-making power in the legislation for the government to prescribe how those assets will be held. Also, each share will be subject to disclosure requirements. There will be a level of transparency that an issuer is required to provide in order for the stablecoin to be in compliance with the act.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Are you not at this time able to tell me what the location of the assets might have to be? I'm curious. Is it possible that I can say it's gold bars in Switzerland, or will it have to be deposits at an existing Canadian bank?

[Gloria Wong]

Yes, there is a desire.... In looking at international frameworks, assets are usually required to be held in high-quality liquid assets, simply to facilitate redemption, because the act also requires timely redemption on the part of issuers. In order to secure the one-to-one peg, it would be a lot riskier for issuers to put assets—or the backing assets—in investments that are not as liquid or as easily redeemed or liquidated. That is one objective of the framework, and the regulation will provide further details to ensure that issuers are actually able to liquidate the reserve assets on demand.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

My understanding is that there are already hundreds of billions of dollars in stablecoins. I understand that a large part of that market is a stablecoin called Tether. I can't recall the name of the second one. Are they currently regulated? If so, by whom? Do you anticipate that they would be applying for regulation with the Bank of Canada?

[Gloria Wong]

Our understanding is that Circle is either seeking or has sought to file a prospectus under the provincial securities law. Currently...the Canadian Securities Administrators have issued interim guidance detailing what's required for a stablecoin to be listed on a crypto trading platform.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Okay. If I purchase a stablecoin that eventually goes through this application process and then has the imprimatur of the Bank of Canada on it, is it your intention or the intention of this act that my holdings will be insured the way my bank deposits are?

[Gloria Wong]

No. It actually makes it clear that stablecoins are not subject to CDIC insurance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Strauss. That concludes your three minutes.

Monsieur Garon, you have three minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Division 22 of part 5 concerns the Canada Development Investment Corporation Act. We will have to study this in committee, but the act is being amended in a way that seems to allow the government to own the Trans Mountain pipeline for a longer period of time.

I would like someone to explain to me what the new effects of this legislative change will be on federal government ownership of Trans Mountain.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Is there anyone who can answer that question?

Mr. McDonald, the floor is yours.

[Riley McDonald, Economist, Asset Management, Department of Finance]

Thank you for the question. To be more precise, I will answer in English.

The purpose of the proposed CDEV act—as I'll call it for short—doesn't pertain specifically to the Trans Mountain Corporation. The rationale behind introducing it through the BIA is that CDEV is an enterprise Crown corporation that has been in operation for decades now. It was incorporated in 1982.

The fact that it doesn't have its own enabling legislation makes it anomalous among other enterprise Crown corporations under the federal government's umbrella, such as Export Development Canada, the Business Development Bank of Canada—

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

I'll clarify my question, because time is a scarce commodity here.

What you're telling me is that it has no effect on the ground. It is simply a legislative update purely for the sake of consistency.

[Riley McDonald]

Yes. The intention is not to change the mandate, operational structure or governance structure of CDEV but to present a legislative framework for it that currently doesn't exist. CDEV operates under the Canada Business Corporations Act and part X of the Financial Administration Act. That's the purpose behind this.