Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise today to speak to this matter. Certainly the debate in itself will send a message to organized criminal elements that their behaviour and activities will not be tolerated for the reasons which have been elaborated and which I will continue to elaborate.
I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Scarborough East.
I would like to take a bit of a different tack in my address. I would like to address some of the key international activities of the federal government in addressing organized crime.
As members on both sides of the House will appreciate, international co-operation in combating organized crime is very vital. Canada, like other countries, is faced with responding to an increased movement of goods and people as our economy globalizes. At the same time, increased use of telecommunications and finance in everyday affairs shrinks our world.
To be sure, criminals are quick to try to capitalize on the opportunity that globalization and technological change present. Canadian ministers and officials are required regularly to attend meetings or conferences where key discussions and negotiations occur and where decisions are taken as to how to combat organized crime. It is a very complex issue. The objective is always to support a co-ordinated international approach to deal with this problem while recognizing that the sovereign interest of states must be respected.
An important recent meeting was the 1994 UN ministerial conference on organized transnational crime held in Naples. At that session a political declaration and global plan of action on organized crime was produced. This document has served as a framework for future multilateral activity in this area, some of which I will now describe.
At the Halifax summit of 1995, on the initiative of the Canadian government, the G-8 heads of state created an experts group on transnational organized crime, now called the Lyon Group. The Lyon Group has produced 40 recommendations on fostering closer co-operative legal assistance, law enforcement and other efforts to address the problem. This was followed by a meeting of G-8 justice and interior ministers on high tech crime in December 1997, a video conference of the G-8 ministers of justice and interior in December 1998, and most recently a meeting of G-8 ministers in Moscow on October 19 and 20 of this year where discussions focused on financial crime, high tech crime and illegal immigration.
The relationship between the Canadian and the United States governments and their agencies in combating organized crime is very important given the economic and cultural ties that we and our neighbours share. We share the same North American space and many of the same interests in combating transborder and transnational crime.
In February 1997, on the initiative of the Solicitor General of Canada and the Attorney General of the United States, it was agreed that Canada and the United States would form the Canada-United States cross-border crime forum. This agreement was reinforced by the commitment of the Prime Minister and President Clinton in April 1997 to form a bi-national body on criminal justice issues.
The Canadian group is comprised of officials from the Department of the Solicitor General, which co-chairs the forum with the U.S. Justice Department, the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Correctional Service Canada, Revenue Canada, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Citizenship and Immigration, Foreign Affairs, the Department of Finance, as well as representatives from provincial governments, including Quebec, and our police forces.
The U.S. group is comprised of U.S. attorneys, officials from the FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Marshalls Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, U.S. Customs, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service and regional and state officials.
The first full meeting of the cross-border crime forum took place in Ottawa in October 1997. The forum met again in Washington on May 21, 1998. The most recent meeting of the forum was in June of this year in Prince Edward Island.
The forum provides a regular opportunity for officials from Canada and the United States to discuss transnational crime problems and strategies to improve operational and policy co-operation and co-ordination. The work of officials through the forum's subgroups on intelligence, enforcement, prosecutions and telemarketing fraud is ongoing.
Bi-national strategies and threat assessments have been developed and continue to be refined. Officials are also evaluating current priorities and examining practices and legislation on both sides of the border to support co-operation at the national level, as well as regionally and locally in communities where border crime is a serious public safety concern.
The next meeting of the forum is to take place in May or June 2000 in the United States.
Still looking at the Americas, the Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions participated on behalf of the solicitor general at a ministerial level conference on money laundering held in Buenos Aires in December 1995. The conference produced an action plan on how to deal with money laundering in the Americas in terms of strengthening law enforcement, regulatory and legal measures. The action plan is an important marker for efforts in this hemisphere to combat organized crime.
I would also note Canada's activities in the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission, or CICAD as it is known by its Spanish acronym, of the Organization of American States. The focus of the commission is to address drug abuse and trafficking within the Americas, as well as related activities such as money laundering.
The Deputy Solicitor General of Canada was elected chair of CICAD's multilateral evaluation and monitoring working group at the May 1998 meeting of CICAD in Washington, D.C. This working group has developed a framework to evaluate member states' anti-drug efforts, which was completed at a meeting held August 31 to September 2 of this year.
Canada, as a member of the G-7 countries, was a founding member of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, the FATF. This task force was created at the G-7 summit held in Paris in 1989 to consider whatever measures were deemed necessary to eliminate money laundering and to develop international standards in this area.
The FATF released a report including 40 recommendations to fight money laundering, which are now considered model measures to be taken at the national and the international levels to put a stop to money laundering.
These recommendations were reviewed in 1996 to reflect the new patterns and the countermeasures taken in this area, like money laundering on the Internet.
The FATF now brings together 28 member states representing the main financial centres of the world.
Canada is also a collaborative and supportive member of the CFATF, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, a sister organization of the FATF.
The group members are committed to promoting and implementing the 40 FATF recommendations.
I mentioned the United Nations in my earlier comments. Canada is an active participant on crime issues in the United Nations and its specialized commissions, in particular the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
A convention on transnational organized crime is being negotiated now in the UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Commission. The work on this convention will have an impact on Canada's domestic policies and programs. Canada must be ready to meet its obligations and governments must take account of this.
At the same time, the convention will provide general tools for law enforcement and legal assistance among countries at the international level. It is expected that the convention will be adopted by the Millennium United Nations General Assembly in the year 2000.
A comprehensive and co-ordinated approach to combating organized crime nationally is essential to make Canada an effective international partner.
The main objectives of Canada's international activities are to promote Canadian values and policies while building a strong network for practical co-operation.
In this exercise, it is important that the federal government works in partnership with the provinces and territories, and with the communities across the country. We must ensure that our domestic arrangements and our international arrangements are compatible and support each other.