Mr. Chair and fellow committee members, thank you for inviting me to speak today.
My name is Sasha Caldera, and I am the beneficial ownership transparency campaign manager at Publish What You Pay Canada. Publish What You Pay Canada is part of the global “publish what you pay” movement of civil society organizations working to make oil, gas and mineral governance open, accountable and responsive to all people. For the past five and a half years, I've been leading a coalition of three civil society organizations to advocate for a public beneficial ownership registry with our partners Transparency International Canada and Canadians for Tax Fairness.
Bill C-42 will deliver a critical blow to criminals who desire to take advantage of corporations governed under the CBCA. We applaud Minister Champagne's commitment to ensuring that Canada's beneficial ownership registry is publicly accessible, free of cost, searchable and scalable with provinces and territories.
As Canada is a G7 country with an advanced service economy and an AAA credit rating, experts estimate that approximately $45 billion to $113 billion is laundered annually into the country. Canada's publicly accessible registry is in line with the G20 and Five Eyes countries that are deploying these tools as part of national security strategies to prevent corrupt foreign officials from hiding dirty money in liberal democracies. Currently, 108 countries around the world have made commitments to implement publicly accessible registries.
Bill C-42 is a positive step, and we recommend the following legislative amendments to strengthen the deterrence capability of Canada's registry.
First, allow anyone to have the ability to search by country of residence and name of corporation.
Second, ensure all publicly accessible data fields are searchable.
Third, forbid post office boxes to act as the service address.
Fourth, add hybrid offences to subsection 21.1(1) or 21.31(1) of the CBCA.
Finally, require beneficial owners to submit non-expired, government-issued photo ID numbers to corporations for safekeeping and future ID verification.
These amendments will improve the searchability of the registry, penalize sophisticated offenders who have the financial resources to absorb current offences and add mechanisms to prevent beneficial owners from knowingly abusing the PO box system or providing false information to corporations.
We are pleased to hear there are efforts on behalf of Minister Champagne and Minister Freeland to reach out to provinces and territories. To bring provinces on board, we recommend the federal government strike an agreement with provinces and territories that allows provincially registered corporations to send beneficial ownership information directly to the federal registry. Provinces would need to pass legislation in their own business acts, yet this harmonization approach was used during the first beneficial ownership agreement in 2017.
The federal government can also suggest that provinces can choose to implement their own beneficial ownership registries using the same design parameters and with the beneficial ownership open-data standard to ensure they are interoperable with the federal government. Through a flexible approach, smaller provinces would not have to devote resources to upgrading their own business registries, while larger provinces can follow the lead of early adopters like British Columbia and Quebec.
As someone who was born and raised in Richmond, British Columbia, I think this registry will mean a lot for my hometown and the province of B.C. Richmond is one of the entry points for money laundering in Canada, and the harm to the province has been well documented by the B.C. Cullen commission. From the fentanyl crisis and increased gang violence in broad daylight to underground casinos and artificially inflated real estate, my hometown has changed.
The impact of Bill C-42 will be felt beyond Canada's borders. Should Canada pass this legislation, this registry will be cheered on by communities around the world that are relying on these tools to track down officials who are looting tax dollars from national treasuries or stealing vital foreign-aid dollars for personal gain. This registry will be a game-changer in the global fight against tax evasion, organized crime, corruption, bribery and terrorist financing. I am proud to see Canada taking this decisive step today.
Thank you so much for your time, and I am happy to take your questions.