Evidence of meeting #3 for Industry and Technology in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was study.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.
Mr. Guglielmin, the floor is yours, followed by Mr. Bains.
Conservative
Michael Guglielmin Conservative Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks again to my colleague for introducing another important study to the industry and technology committee.
This is a critical study on the growing threat of financial fraud and scams in Canada. As we know, these crimes are not just financial. They devastate lives. They erode trust. They undermine our economy. This study is necessary to protect Canadians and strengthen our response. Financial scams are surging in this country. In 2024, victims lost more than $638 million—a 10% increase from the $578 million in 2023—with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre processing a record 108,878 reports in 2024.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Experts estimate that only 5% to 10% of frauds are actually reported, meaning that the real cost is likely in the billions. Reported losses since 2021 have now surpassed $2 billion. This year, as of June 30, 2025, we've already seen 24,411 reports processed, with 17,094 victims and $342 million in losses, trends that show there's no sign of slowing from 2024.
These scams come from phishing texts, text romance scams and AI-driven deepfakes. Criminals are finding new and increasingly creative ways to exploit people. I'll highlight for the committee one example from somebody I know personally, a man in his 70s. What ended up happening to him was that he got a virus on his computer. It told him to contact a number. The people he was in contact with spent the next seven to eight months convincing him that they worked for the FBI and that he should drain all his life savings and transfer them over to them.
In this case, they targeted an elderly individual who's by himself. Of course, people have been targeting the elderly, but we've also been seeing a rise in investment scams for 55 years and under, as reported.
To echo what's already been said here, it's a very important issue and one on which I think we can find bipartisan co-operation. It's very serious that we undertake it.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Thanks very much.
Mr. Bains, the floor is yours, followed by Monsieur Ste-Marie, who will be followed by Madam O'Rourke.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Richmond East—Steveston, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to echo my colleagues across from me on how important the study is.
We had the commissioner in last week. I had the opportunity to raise this. I heard from the Canadian Bankers Association on the issue of $638 million. We heard from the commissioner about how that is maybe just what's being reported.
I also have a story. My father-in-law was almost a victim of this, but my wife intervened. I also think that there's a large transnational component to this that we need to look at; we need to maybe include some of that language in here and make sure those agencies are also included.
There's the issue of the different applications and companies, like Meta and others, that probably should be included in this as well. Of course, I think they can be witnesses to this kind of study.
Look at the victims who are being targeted. We have an aging population. I think it's really important to see that those protections are in place.
I welcome this study. On our side, I hope we can support this, ensure some of the language around transnational threats is there, have other jurisdictions included in this and see how we can combat this.
Thank you.
Liberal
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette—Manawan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to add that, if the entire committee supports this motion, I will gladly join your ranks today.
Liberal
Liberal
Dominique O'Rourke Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you, Chair Carr.
My office has already issued a warning to the community about the prevalence of these types of scams. We see them happening on a quasi-daily basis. It's my understanding that police departments are overloaded with these.
I think we have an important role, both in raising awareness and in trying to find proactive ways.... A whole range of businesses and organizations can help to prevent these types of scams. Beyond the statistics, which are shocking, these have real impacts on people's daily lives in communities. This is wiping out people's retirement savings.
Also, it's not just about older people. I received a phone call one day in the middle of doing a whole bunch of things. A couple of minutes in, I realized what was going on and hung up, but it could have been anybody. We need all of the generations to be aware, so that they're talking to their parents, talking to one another and being proactive in preventing these types of scams.
To Mr. Ste-Marie's very good point, I think bullet one has a broad enough range of businesses and business types to make it not exclusively the jurisdiction of the finance committee. Ms. Dancho is talking about “banks, telecommunication companies and digital platforms”. Bullet three talks about “law enforcement capacity”, which is really critical.
I'll be happy to support this.
Again, this is what we're here for in committee: non-partisan, constructive work that's going to benefit Canadians.
Thank you very much for bringing the motion forward.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm glad to hear the broad support for this. I think Madam O'Rourke summed it up really well. I think that we can study, in a non-partisan way, things that we all agree need to be addressed. I appreciate her comments.
I did want to just mention that Mr. Bains raised an excellent point about the foreign aspect of this. It's a good point that's not listed explicitly, but I think we can have a friendly understanding that if there are witnesses who would clearly fall under the area of this study, I would be happy to include them and to see recommendations included on this, because that's an excellent point.
The last thing is more just a friendly public service announcement for our colleagues. I meant to mention this earlier. My constituency office recently got a call that showed “RBC Banking” as the caller ID, and it was not, in fact, RBC banking. That inspired some of this as well, in that it's to call on the telecommunications companies to explain what they can do to prevent that.
Thankfully, my staff were quite savvy. Their spidey senses tuned in that there was something going on, but they said that it was quite convincing otherwise.
Be forewarned at your offices. They're unfortunately not immune to this either.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate everyone's helpful comments on this.
Conservative
Michael Guglielmin Conservative Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
I have one more point in response to Ms. O'Rourke, who triggered something that I want to put on the public record, and that goes to the investment scams. Beyond individual losses, like the $310 million mentioned before, there's been a huge uptick in investment scams. I believe 23% of Canadians say they were approached by fraudulent investment scams last year, which is a 5% rise, and then there's the 46% of Canadians who spot dubious opportunities for investments on social media. Beyond the calling and even the sophisticated ways caller ID is used, as Ms. Dancho just mentioned, the online world is very intrusive to people.
I've even seen ads on YouTube from our Prime Minister, offering investment advice.
Conservative
Michael Guglielmin Conservative Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
It's a widespread problem for sure, and it's something we can highlight to the public that we are taking seriously. Part of the issue with the economy is consumer confidence and investor confidence. If we can take measures to demonstrate that we're acting in a very constructive and serious way, I think we can inspire some of that public trust back.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Thank you, colleagues.
I'm certainly hearing a consensus build.
Mr. Ste‑Marie, are you now in favour of the motion? You're nodding yes.
In that case, without any opposition, looking around as we've done a few times this morning, I see unanimous support for the motion.
(Motion agreed to)
Colleagues, unless some of you have a surprise up your sleeve, I think that was all in terms of what was intended this morning, which means I would like to get to a couple of other things quickly, if I may.
One is that I have to bring forward a motion for the committee to adopt our budget for the briefing sessions that we have with the CRTC and the Competition Bureau. These were sent to everybody, and I'm looking around the table just to see if there's any opposition to the adoption of the budgetary motions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Colleagues, the next big thing that we have to figure out is how we want to schedule the concurrent studies that we have now adopted. These are the study that Madam Dancho put forward last week that we adopted and the study that Mr. Bardeesy put forward.
What I'm going to do is suspend very briefly, and here's why: I would like the representatives from each party to speak over here with the clerk and the analysts, so that we're all on the same page in terms of finding out what's going to be the most effective and efficient way of scheduling this. We can see if we can come to a very quick agreement, which I imagine we will, and then we will come back publicly here and have a general consensus, I hope, about what that schedule looks like.
To summarize, I'm going to suspend. We're going to talk to the analysts, the clerk and the reps from each party to determine what the schedule of this concurrent study is going to look like.
The last thing I will say is that, now that we have substantial orders of business in front of us and a path forward, please make sure as soon as possible that you're starting to get your witness lists with contact information in to the clerk and the analysts. It's very difficult. What often happens is that we have a meeting on a Wednesday, and we have five people whose names are there, but four of them aren't available. We want to make sure we have a really solid, critical mass of people ready to go, so that we have that manoeuvrability when necessary.
I'm going to very quickly suspend. We'll try to get some agreement on a schedule for these two studies, and we will report back very soon.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
I call the meeting back to order.
Here's the plan moving forward. The first hour on Wednesday this week, as we agreed upon previously, will be for the CRTC officials to come and talk about their mandate and some specific decisions that I know members are eager to discuss.
As far as the schedule moving forward is concerned, it's going to look like this. We're going to have a rotating schedule of the two studies we passed motions for, on productivity and industrial defence policy. This will be dependent upon the availability of witnesses. For example, if one study is not able to accommodate the witnesses who would be needed for an effective or efficient meeting, we won't burn that meeting; we'll go back to the other study, assuming we have enough witnesses, so that we keep the ball rolling.
The consequence, if you will, of running concurrent studies is that it will take the analysts more time to provide a draft report to the committee. We should anticipate that we will not get draft reports until about December, so please temper your expectations in terms of getting reports back to the House on either of those two studies prior to the House rising in December. It's simply not possible when we're doing two studies concurrently.
Which study we begin on Wednesday in the second hour, as I mentioned a moment ago, will be dependent upon the availability of witnesses, but there was agreement among party representatives that that is okay.
There is also agreement—we have not passed a specific timeline, but I want to state this publicly on the record—that when we have concluded the two studies before us, we will move to Monsieur Ste-Marie's motion on AI, notwithstanding legislation that is presented to us or something else that requires our immediate attention as a committee. The plan is that, should members put forward new motions for study from this point forward, we are honouring Monsieur Ste-Marie's study as being the third in the queue. As I said, this is assuming that we don't have any other urgent legislative or political matters before us.
I don't think this is going to require any type of formal vote. I'm just looking around the table to ensure that there's no further commentary on any of this. Okay.
Before adjourning, colleagues, I want to comment quickly on one thing for the four Canadians who are watching the live feed of the industry committee right now. It is really important to note how well we have started here in building consensus. Members of parties are elected by their people to come to Ottawa and advocate, but working so cordially, productively, effectively and efficiently together in order to ensure that these interests that matter wholesale to Canadians across a variety of topics can be elevated to the floor of our discussion here at industry, I think, is really important. I want to provide my gratitude and thanks to the representatives of all parties and all members for their willingness to work together quite promptly to make sure that we have some important business before us.
With that, colleagues, the meeting is adjourned. I'll see you in a few days.