The banks generally speaking would see potential or suspected financial abuse in the branches. It could be a client coming in with a caregiver or whoever and there being some kind of suspicious transaction. Right now, the first step of the bank would be to try to take that client aside so that they get them away from the suspected abuser, so that they can determine what the client wants to do. But in some cases that's not possible, and so we just have a suspicion.
Many times the amount of money may not be large in that instance, and that instance may not be fraud. We are constrained in being able to approach the police or the public guardian and trustee to ask for their assistance, because there is not a contravention of the law or fraud.
What we're looking for, and what Bill S-4 is giving us, is the ability to then escalate this matter and have it investigated further—because within the banks there is an escalation process—so that we can assess whether there is somebody else out there we can contact who would be able to help our customer avoid the abuse. It may be a parent, a sibling, or someone like that. We would assess and try to determine to the best of our ability whether that person is involved in the abuse—we recognize that in many cases it's a family member—and we would do our utmost to determine that the person we're contacting is not involved in the abuse.
That is where Bill S-4 would help.