Foreign Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2023

[Annette Ryan]

Perhaps I can start.

In terms of the beneficial ownership of real property, I would point out—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

More specifically, I am asking about real estate.

[Annette Ryan]

Within real estate, I would point out that, as part of our record-keeping and our reporting requirements for the private sector, there is an onus on regulated entities to determine the beneficial ownership of corporate entities and, essentially, who is transacting with whom. That is an existing provision of our regime that applies to the real estate sector through various dimensions, be it the financial sector or the professionals involved in real estate, and it's supported by work that we do with various provincial regulators.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Are you satisfied with the information you are being provided on the beneficial ownership of Canadian real estate, or do you think there are gaps in that beneficial ownership structure?

[Annette Ryan]

I would say that we have worked very closely with British Columbia officials as they have established requirements for beneficial ownership information to be part of their real estate registry. We've similarly worked very closely with ISED colleagues as they have worked to establish—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

What about the province of Ontario, which is, by far and away, the country's largest real estate market? Where are we in collecting the beneficial ownership of Ontario real estate?

[Annette Ryan]

I would view that as being covered by my previous answer, but I'm happy to expand on—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

To my knowledge, there's no beneficial ownership collection of data in Ontario real estate, for example.

[Annette Ryan]

I would be of the view that British Columbia—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

No, I'm talking about Ontario.

[Annette Ryan]

—is further ahead than Ontario in that regard.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I guess my point is that we have a proposed federal beneficial ownership registry that doesn't cover real estate. In my view, that's a huge gap.

[Annette Ryan]

If I may, the logic would be that the federal registry would be approached in a way that would describe the beneficial ownership of corporations that in turn—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes. A corporation is incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act, which covers only about 430,000 corporate entities in Canada. It's estimated that there are some 4.3 million businesses in Canada, the vast majority of which are incorporated under the 10 provincial statutes.

While some provinces have introduced registries to cover those provincially incorporated entities, and some—as in the case of British Columbia—are moving towards including real estate as well in that, there are huge gaps in the federal system. The federal government could use the criminal head of power, which is accorded in the Constitution, to enforce a national registry that not only would include provincially incorporated entities—closing the gap with provinces, for example, like Alberta—but also would include real estate, through which the Cullen commission has concluded a lot of money is being laundered and, presumably, a lot of sanctions are being evaded.

I'll just put that as a point that I think needs to be considered by the committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

For the final question, we go to Dr. Fry.

Dr. Fry, you have five minutes.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Never mind the interesting questions to FINTRAC; I just want to go back to Bill C-8. I'm hearing that everyone works well together and that you are all coordinated, yet I hear some people say that they aren't able to do what they want to do and that only GAC can call meetings. What if, for instance, the RCMP finds that it is unable to do its job really well and something urgent has occurred? Can it call a meeting? That's a question I wanted to ask.

Second, and most important, when you're dealing with so many departments coming together to accomplish something, do you have clear objectives? Do you have an evaluation component to ask if you are getting where you want to go, and if you are effective and efficient? How do you evaluate whether you are actually achieving what you want to achieve? I think that is the biggest question when you have many departments working together.

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

On whether we can call a meeting, the answer is quite simple; it's yes. Madame Langlois was here earlier, and I must have talked to her two or three times just this week. We know who the partners are. We know who the individuals are in the departments dealing with sanctions, and everybody has open communication and can call meetings on any subject as needed.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I still haven't received my answer. Do you have clearly defined goals? Are you able to see whether you're efficient and effective? Are you making a difference? I asked the question earlier on, but I didn't have enough time. What have we learned from the Magnitsky sanctions? Have we learned anything? Did we do it right? Did we get the process okay? Did we evaluate our results? What can we do differently?

If we're not learning from what we've done, whether we've made mistakes or not, we're just going to be spinning our wheels.

Can somebody answer that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. St Marseille, do you want to add something? It seems as if you have something to say.

[Richard St Marseille]

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

With respect to the immigration consequences of sanctions, the objective is clear: it's to prevent inadmissible people from travelling to Canada in the first place, and if they do arrive in Canada, to effect their removal.

We have evidence that the Magnitsky sanctions approach, which is slightly different from what existed for multilateral sanctions prior to the Magnitsky act, has been quite effective. All identified occurrences of sanctioned individuals have been stopped abroad through the refusal of visas. We don't have any recorded incidents of anyone arriving in Canada requiring removal, which was the objective of the Magnitsky approach. That's why, in Bill S-8, the government is proposing to align the remaining sanctions provisions with how they're handled in the Magnitsky act.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

You're saying that you have learned lessons and that you're applying them in Bill C-8. Is that what you're saying?

[Richard St Marseille]

For immigration, it's Bill S-8, but yes.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

It's Bill S-8. I'm sorry about that.

I think that's it, Mr. Chair. I don't have any other questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Dr. Fry.

At this point, I will thank all of our many witnesses who have appeared before us today. I'm very grateful for your time and your expertise.

Just to remind everyone, the next meeting, again, will be on the sanctions regime. Please remember to send in your proposed witness names for the Wagner Group study by end of day next Tuesday.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Just before you hit the gavel, could we, at the next meeting, talk about our work plan for this committee? I think we have work that we're going to have to do. I just want to put on notice that we have at least five or 10 minutes to talk about how we, maybe, need more than three meetings.