These institutions, both FINTRAC and the Canadian Anti‑Fraud Centre, have a role to play. These are law enforcement agencies. Desjardins interacts with both on a daily basis. Law enforcement agencies can send us requests to carry out investigations. Depending on the reporting thresholds, we provide FINTRAC with information on hundreds of thousands of transactions each year. Unfortunately, we often send information—reports—to FINTRAC, only to receive a direct request from a law enforcement agency investigating the same case. This means that organizations on both sides of the information‑sharing process stand to benefit.
Regarding the agency, we would like to see the investigations lead to arrests. This aligns with the Financial Action Task Force's recommendations, published five years ago, and likely with the next report scheduled for release. We want to ensure that the system effectively combats both fraud and financial crime—these areas may overlap—in order to achieve the concrete result of an arrest and a conviction. Prevention is useful. However, certain situations reach a point of no return that requires investigations and, unfortunately, formal charges.
This is where we would potentially like to see the agency or another organization step in. Investigations into financial crimes require a level of expertise that not every law enforcement agency in Canada possesses.