Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to appear today.
My name is Anthony Quinn, and I'm the president of CARP, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. We represent more than 250,000 members across Canada and advocate on issues affecting older Canadians, including financial security, health care and freedom from age discrimination.
For older Canadians, fraud can be a life-altering event. When a senior loses money to a scam, they are often losing retirement savings accumulated over decades. The unique peril for senior victims is that they may have little or no opportunity to return to the workforce to earn that money back. For the vast majority of older Canadians, the consequences of fraud are permanent.
CARP recently surveyed our members, and over 8,000 replied. More than 82% reported that they had been targeted by a scam and nearly one in five reported having lost money to fraud. All available and reliable sources tell us that only between 5% and 10% of frauds are reported. We therefore believe the true scale of the problem is significantly larger than even our own polling reveals.
For the last decade or more, Canadians have been told to be more careful, and seniors have heeded that message. They have attended seminars, watched public service announcements, read bank brochures and learned to be skeptical of unsolicited texts, calls and emails.
Banks, telecom companies, digital platforms, governments and advocacy organizations like our own have encouraged Canadians to remain vigilant, yet fraud losses continue to rise. At some point, Parliament must ask whether the burden of prevention has been placed too heavily on the victims and too lightly on the institutions through which these scams are delivered.
From the perspective of an older Canadian who has lost a lifetime of savings, educational programs, corporate platitudes, public relations campaigns and reminders to be careful are not enough. Our message to this committee is that fraud prevention must become a system responsibility, not merely an individual responsibility. That means telecoms providers must do more to authenticate calls, prevent spoofing and block fraudulent texts before they reach Canadians. Digital platforms must also take greater responsibility for fraudulent advertisements, impersonation accounts, fake investment promotions and other scams distributed through their systems. Perhaps most importantly, financial institutions must strengthen their fraud detection and intervention before the money leaves the customer's account.
In this case, Parliament should be asking whether the incentives for prevention are properly aligned.
Let me give you just one example of a CARP member. Peter Squire is a 70-year-old retired market analyst from Winnipeg. He is not inexperienced or financially unsophisticated. Mr. Squire received what appeared to be a legitimate call from a senior investment professional. The documents sent to him carried bank branding. The phone number appeared legitimate. The proposal looked legitimate. He sought assistance from established financial institutions and proceeded with what he thought was a secure financial investment. Instead, nearly $650,000 of his retirement savings disappeared in a sophisticated fraud.
What struck me about Peter's story was that he did many of the things we tell Canadians to do—he asked questions, he dealt with recognized institutions and he sought professional assistance—yet he still became a victim. That's why CARP believes fraud prevention cannot rest primarily on individual vigilance. The systems through which these scams are delivered must do more to prevent them from succeeding in the first place.
There's another contrast that many seniors find difficult to understand. When approximately $20 million in gold was stolen from Toronto Pearson airport, there was an immediate, all-hands-on-deck response. Police agencies mobilized. Federal authorities became involved. Insurance companies activated recovery efforts. Security experts were deployed. International investigations were resourced and engaged. Canadian authorities worked with police agencies and partners in the United States, India and other countries. The story dominated national headlines. Resources were marshalled. Accountability was demanded. Recovery became a priority.
However, when a senior loses $650,000 in retirement savings to fraud, the response can feel very different. The victim is often told to call their bank, then the police and then the Canadian anti-fraud centre, and although they are met with sympathy, the typical response is, “I'm sorry, but there's not much we can do to help.”
Seniors in Canada are asking why Canada appears to be capable of mounting coordinated national and international responses when institutional assets are stolen, but when ordinary Canadians lose billions in the aggregate, not much happens. From the victim's perspective, their consequences are far more devastating. When institutions bear the cost of a loss, they tend to act in a more coordinated and more international response. CARP believes the system deserves prevention, accountability and consumer protection built into the infrastructure, rather than relying primarily on individual vigilance.
I would also note that CARP is engaged in a separate but related initiative concerning competition, transparency and the quality of investment advice available to Canadians through branch-based investment channels. Over the past year, we have raised these concerns directly with banks, regulators, the Competition Bureau and officials in the Department of Finance. We have appreciated the constructive dialogue we've had with the Minister of Finance's office. While it is distinct from today's discussion on fraud and scams, the underlying principle is similar. Canadians must have confidence that their financial system is working in their interests, that conflicts are properly managed and that consumers receive fair treatment and meaningful protection.
After a decade of rising fraud, increasing losses and missing opportunities to act, Canadian seniors are asking for protection and accountability. They are asking for financial and communication systems that are working as hard to prevent fraud against consumers as they are to prevent losses in the institutions themselves.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
