Industry and Technology Committee on June 11th, 2026

[Colin Smith]

As for the ads themselves, we report these ads daily. It's an incredibly manual and time-intensive process, where we scan for new ads using our trademark or our brand name, and we report them to the social media platforms. We've had to then build a more sophisticated infrastructure on the back end.

Since we can't prevent the ads from showing up, what we've tried to do and where we have control is in seeing which clients are making which investments on our platform and how those stocks are being talked about either on social media or in the news. After combining those different signals together, we are able to place warnings to clients before they buy into something like a potential scam.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

When you talk about the things that you can control, is there anyone who has control over those fraudulent ads and whether or not they're going to appear? Is it the telcos? Who's in the best place to be able to prevent that?

[Colin Smith]

That would be the social media platforms.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

What do you think the most effective way would be for us, using our federal telecommunications power, to bring all the parties together and, in a compulsory way, address some of the issues that Mr. Quinn brought up and some of the things that you're seeing in terms of losses?

[Colin Smith]

First and foremost, requiring the social media platforms to verify that all advertisers of financial services are legitimate and are verified advertisers would go a long way. What we see is that these ads are spun up by many different accounts very rapidly, all of which are using something like Wealthsimple's logo or brand name, but are not associated with us in any way.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

We see the government moving in a number of different bills, which are sometimes hard to follow, to try to deal with some of the things online. Is there anything in any current legislation that really helps get at the heart of this problem?

[Colin Smith]

Not that I'm aware of.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Ms. Kronis.

Ms. O'Rourke, I believe you intend to split a bit of your time with Mr. Ma, so I'll let the two of you sort that out.

The floor is yours, between the two of you, for five minutes.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Chair Carr.

Mr. Smith, it is terrific to hear about your spell breakers group and your proactive measures.

I want to circle back. You said that you identified 1,500 fraudulent investment ads in one day on the same platform. You reported them, and it takes on average four days to take those down. It's stunning, because Meta can block any news story from being posted at all, so it's quite shocking for this committee to hear.

You are a regulated, legitimate fintech. You are digital first, so I'm guessing you have to prove you're a legitimate platform in order to advertise there. What should the threshold for advertisers be to prove that they're legitimate?

[Colin Smith]

The threshold should be the same as for other verified ads on other platforms, which is that for any advertising platform, you know who's paying for the ad and that should be the same as the brand name that's featured in the ads, particularly in places like financial services.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

For an industrial-sized company like that, should they have the tools to do that?

[Colin Smith]

They do this in other jurisdictions, yes.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's beautiful. Thank you.

I'll cede my time to Mr. Ma.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Smith, you spoke earlier about the platforms needing to verify ads, and you also just mentioned that payments are one way of doing that.

Why do you think platforms such as Meta take four days to take them down, when they can take down news articles within an hour or so?

[Colin Smith]

I guess I would be speculating that it's because they make money on these ads. It's like anything in this space. You have to balance that.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Quinn.

You mentioned in your opening remarks that financial institutions should do more regarding fraud prevention. Can you also speak, then, to what roles these social media platforms should be playing more often to help prevent frauds?

[Anthony Quinn]

The focus I put on financial institutions was specifically because that is the means through which money is being transferred. The introduction to the scam is perhaps happening through a Facebook ad, where someone is posing as Wealthsimple or as the Prime Minister touting a “too good to be true” investment opportunity. When the financial transaction is occurring, as in our members' case, the money is taken out of that individual's or senior's bank account, which is held with a trusted financial institution, and the bank's resources are being utilized to move that money.

That's why I was focused more on the financial institutions rather than the advertisers or the purporters of the message, but we have no less concern about that than we have with the financial institutions.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Along that line, can you speak to the importance of public awareness, as we heard earlier from the RCMP, in terms of combatting financial fraud and scams for, especially, seniors and retired people?

[Anthony Quinn]

There's no doubt that awareness and education are important and likely the easiest to accomplish. That's why Canada has relied primarily on education over the last decade, but frauds and scams have been continuing to increase even as education has increased. CARP believes we now have to focus on the financial institutions and the telcos and hold them to a higher degree of responsibility to ensure that they are doing everything in their power, hopefully with the pressure of Parliament, to protect Canadians from frauds and scams.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Along that line, Mr. Quinn, CARP sent a letter to the government in which you advocated for enhanced federal coordination and enforcement capacity in addition to stronger actions to hold banks accountable. How do the upcoming measures to fight financial fraud, such as the anti-fraud strategy, the Bank Act amendments and the financial crimes agency, demonstrate meaningful progress in protecting seniors and retired people from financial fraud and scams?

[Anthony Quinn]

I would say that those provide great signals that the government is starting to pay attention and take action, but we have yet to see the fruit of many of those natal programs. I would like those to have greater strength in prosecution. Many of the criminals are hiding behind the theft of under $5,000 or other slap-on-the-wrist crimes and are still stealing millions of dollars annually. Criminal along with institutional protections are two things that CARP is asking the government to take action on.

The third thing, I would add, is just the inability of police to go across jurisdictions in chasing these criminals domestically. We know how difficult it is to go across international borders, but even within Canada, police and victims are reporting to us that a criminal in Vancouver is stealing from a victim in Saint John. The police aren't able to take action despite knowing who, where and why the crime took place.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks, Mr. Ma.

Mr. Ste-Marie, you have the floor for one minute and thirty seconds.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Smith, currently, in cases of fraud where someone makes an unauthorized transaction, it is the financial institution that is expected to pay.

In the context of an open banking system, there is a risk that the financial institution and the exchange platform will pass the buck back and forth, or that the fintech company may not have the means to pay. How, then, can we ensure that the consumer is not left holding the bag?