Thank you, Chair, and thanks to you all for attending today and helping to lead us through some of the decision points of our study.
What we've heard from a variety of witnesses to date is that monitoring and compliance of sanctions and detection of violations and enforcement of sanctions comes down to the responsibilities of quite a number of Canadian government departments and agencies, the resource capacities of those departments and agencies, and the willingness of those departments and agencies to prioritize sanctions enforcement or investigation.
I would like to refer you to some testimony we had on October 26 from John Boscariol, who's a partner and leader of the international trade and investment section of the McCarthy Tétrault law group.
I paraphrase, but he testified that the United States represents the high-water mark in sanctions detection, enforcement, and compliance, and that the Canadian system is broken. He said that lacking a consolidated list it is very difficult for commercial banks, commercial operations in Canada, to know who they are dealing with, or whether they are dealing with people at some risk of violation of sanctions. He said Global Affairs refuses to provide advice. There's a lack of advice or expertise when it is sought by the legal representatives of Canadian firms that honestly want to comply and avoid any compromise of our sanctions regime.
Could you respond to Mr. Boscariol's testimony?