Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to take part in this debate on the third reading of Bill C-22. I can see that all my colleagues and the pages are eager to hear my remarks and are deeply interested in this debate, which has a major impact on Canadians and Quebecers.
First of all, I cannot help but deplore, once again, the fact that the committee had to rush its examination of the bill.
We heard the last witnesses on Wednesday night at 5 p.m. or 5.30 p.m., and we had to sit the next morning at 9 a.m. to begin the clause by clause review of the bill. It is easy to understand that, after hearing interesting evidence, very intelligent and well documented evidence, members should have been given a little time to weigh this evidence and come up with amendments.
Unfortunately, this was just before our two week recess. We had some time to digest all of this, and we came up with amendments that passed. I hope this will serve us a lesson to ensure that, if we really want to give witnesses who appeared the credit, I would say, that they deserve, the least the hon. members could do is take the time to assimilate and to re-read their testimonies. The quality of witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance concerning Bill C-22 was particularly impressive.
I would be remiss if I did not tell members of the House that the Bloc Quebecois has probably the most intelligent, balanced, concrete and imaginative anti-crime agenda of all political parties represented in the House. It is an anti-crime agenda that does not fall into populism, into demagogy, and I think we can see the result with Bill C-22.
I would remind hon. members that the 1997 election platform of the Bloc Quebecois—I know this is almost bedtime reading to you, Madam Speaker—provided for and clearly asked for such a measure to fight money laundering.
Indeed, as early as 1997, even before the federal government introduced Bill C-22 and its doomed predecessor, Bill C-81, the Bloc Quebecois was already working on this issue, holding numerous intensive meetings with different crime fighting agencies. This is only one example. We could give others.
For instance, I introduced a bill to take $1,000 bills out of circulation. The federal government decided to listen to the Bloc Quebecois and to take them out of circulation to fight money laundering.
We spent a full opposition day trying to get all the parliamentarians in this House to agree to have the Standing Committee on Justice look into the problem of organized crime in Canada. It is a third victory for the Bloc Quebecois.
These three victories are quite impressive. I would be remiss—and I am pretty sure that all the members would hold it against me—if I overlooked the relentless campaign against organized crime that the member for Bagot is engaged in, despite all the risks involved, particularly in his region where farmers live in fear, terrorized by criminal groups who grow marijuana in their corn fields and other fields. It deserves the support of all members of the House.
Those were four specific actions taken by the Bloc, and we claimed victory on three of them. Of course, when we hear the clever and convincing arguments brought forward by the Bloc Quebecois, it is hard to imagine that the House would decide not to follow the lead of the Bloc on this matter.
Coming back to Bill C-22 per se, and I repeat that it was an original idea of the Bloc, it is important to mention that it is indeed an obligation, as the parliamentary secretary for the minister of Finance said, an international obligation for Canada to fight this worldwide phenomenon known as money laundering. Canada meets its obligations in this regard.
On the whole, this is a good bill. The amendments proposed, again, by the Bloc Quebecois bring some pretty major improvements to the bill. I see a number of people agreeing with that. The regulative jurisdiction is one of the main problems of this bill. It was extremely broad, and one can understand the logic of all that.
The centre that will be created under this bill will have to be flexible. Indeed, considering the ever changing new technology, it will have to be able to adjust very quickly. This is why the regulatory power is very broad.
We wanted to ensure that not only would the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act apply, but also that parliamentarians would be properly informed about the centre's operations. This is why I moved Motion No. 8, which was carried with an amendment, but which still ensures that the policies and benchmarks set by the centre are known by members of the House, who are ultimately accountable to the public.
This bill deals, among other things, with the issue of privacy. Given today's technology, that issue can raise some concerns and this is understandable. It is therefore important to give elected members of the House, who are the only ones accountable to the public, at least an opportunity to understand and the authority to ask what is going on in a centre that could potentially have excessive powers.
I congratulate the House, and particularly the Bloc Quebecois, which promoted the idea of fighting money laundering and of reporting suspicious transactions over $10,000. This great victory for the Bloc Quebecois is made even sweeter by the fact that several of our amendments were accepted by the House, and for good reason.
Again, the House showed great wisdom in supporting the amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois. I congratulate the House, and particularly the Bloc Quebecois for its excellent work in the fight against crime.