House of Commons Hansard #90 of the 36th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was report.

Topics

Crab FisheriesOral Question Period

2:55 p.m.

NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

Mr. Speaker, last month, more than 1,000 fish plant workers on the Acadian peninsula were forced not to report for work. The reason was that the crab fishers were not prepared to negotiate in good faith in connection with the solidarity fund to compensate for the black hole created by this government's employment insurance reform.

My question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Would he give some thought to giving the fish plant workers quotas on the amount of crab taken by the coastal fishers, in order to stabilize the solidarity fund and share the resource within the community?

Crab FisheriesOral Question Period

2:55 p.m.

Vancouver South—Burnaby B.C.

Liberal

Herb Dhaliwal LiberalMinister of Fisheries and Oceans

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not aware of this particular situation but I will take it under advisement. As hon. members know, snow crab quotas are issued and there is a plan on a yearly basis renewed. I will certainly look into this matter and get back to the hon. member.

National DefenceOral Question Period

2:55 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Mark Muise Progressive Conservative West Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, the minister keeps missing the point. We know that the Sea Kings have a good maintenance regime and the ground crews are at the top of their profession, but that is no longer enough.

Take for instance the Iroquois helo detachment commander's report of March 1999 which indicates 35.5% of all missions were cancelled due to aircraft problems.

Will the minister go to the Prime Minister and tell him to make a decision or face tragedy?

National DefenceOral Question Period

2:55 p.m.

York Centre Ontario

Liberal

Art Eggleton LiberalMinister of National Defence

Mr. Speaker, it is true that the Sea Kings do not fly as much as we would like them to fly. That is why we need to replace them quite obviously. I think the member is making the point that the reason they do not fly is because we will not put them up unless they are safe to put up. The safety of our personnel is of utmost importance. We want to make sure if that aircraft goes up it will be safe to fly and it will be able to complete its mission.

Meanwhile we are not standing still on the replacement of the Sea King. The file is moving and we are moving toward its replacement.

Foreign AffairsOral Question Period

2:55 p.m.

Liberal

Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Co-operation.

Over 150 million school age children in developing countries especially have no access to basic education and millions are operating in substandard systems.

Last week Canada was represented by the minister at the World Education Forum in Senegal.

What action can be expected and having gone to this conference, what is Canada's involvement in this issue?

Foreign AffairsOral Question Period

3 p.m.

Beaches—East York Ontario

Liberal

Maria Minna LiberalMinister for International Cooperation

Mr. Speaker, first, I am very proud of the lead role that Canada played at the forum, including the drafting of the final strategy which calls for action on the ground.

One of the first things we are doing is calling for all the developing countries to make education one of their major priorities, including transparency in their budgets. Canada is committed to working with any country that makes education one of its major priorities.

I announced several projects while I was there. One of them was for $50 million to Senegal which has made a major commitment to education for all children, especially girls.

Business Of The HouseOral Question Period

3 p.m.

Reform

Chuck Strahl Reform Fraser Valley, BC

Madam Speaker, the question today is not who is going to win the Stanley Cup. We will wait for that.

I do have a question for the hon. House leader. Specifically, what kind of business does he plan, funny business or otherwise, over the next couple of days? I also want to know whether or not the ever mercurial changes to the standing orders, which keep getting sent to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, will actually come to a conclusion or will we keep debating that for the rest of this parliament.

Business Of The HouseOral Question Period

3 p.m.

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, I regret to inform the House that the Ottawa Senators are no longer in the running for the Stanley Cup, but I am sure they will do it very eloquently next year.

However, while we are waiting for the Senators to come back and win the Stanley Cup, I would like to inform the House about upcoming business.

Bill C-22, the money laundering bill, is currently before the House. When we have finished with this bill, if we have not already, we will then call Bill C-25, the Income Tax Amendments Act, 1999, followed by Bill C-27, the parks legislation.

When second reading of that bill is completed, we will call Bill C-5, respecting tourism, followed by Bill C-24, the excise tax amendments. We will then consider Bill C-31, the immigration bill, and Bill C-16, concerning citizenship.

On Monday we shall consider Bill C-11, the Devco legislation.

Starting on Tuesday we shall return to the listed bills.

If we have not reached Bill C-27 before Wednesday, we shall start with Bill C-27 on that day. Similarly, if Bill C-31 has not been completed by Thursday, we shall put it first on that day.

This completes my report, other than wishing the Ottawa Senators very best wishes for a Stanley Cup next year.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-22, an act to facilitate combatting the laundering of proceeds of crime, to establish the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada and to amend and repeal certain acts, be read the third time and passed.

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

May 4th, 2000 / 3:05 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

The hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia has 22 minutes left in debate.

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:05 p.m.

Reform

Jim Abbott Reform Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Madam Speaker, as you said I am resuming debate. In the first half we had a few choice words about the way the government proceeded to bring Bill C-22 to the House and, indeed, the debacle that we have seen in that whole procedure, to the point where we had to shut down debate yesterday.

Let us now turn to the bill itself. I received a research paper from the Library of Parliament which gives a very good explanation of Bill C-22. It received first reading in the House of Commons on December 15, 1999. The broad purpose of the bill is to remedy shortcomings in Canada's anti-money laundering legislation, as identified by the G-7's Financial Action Task Force, FATF, on Money Laundering in its 1997-98 report.

This is a quote from that report:

The only major weakness is the inability to effectively and efficiently respond to requests for assistance in relation to restraint and forfeiture. The use of domestic money laundering proceedings to seize, restrain, (and) forfeit the proceeds of offences committed in other countries is recognized as sometimes ineffective, and legislation to allow Canada to enforce foreign forfeiture requests directly should be introduced.

In addition, the FATF recommended that reporting requirements in Canada be made mandatory, rather than voluntary, as is currently the case, and that a “financial intelligence unit” be established “to deal with the collection, management and analysis and dissemination of suspicious transactions, reports and other relevant intelligence data”.

What does this mean to the ordinary citizen either watching these proceedings on televisions or reading these proceedings in Hansard ? First, this activity is a criminal activity. It basically undermines Canada's financial and social systems by increasing the power and influence of illegal business.

Experts estimate that some $300 billion to $500 billion in criminally derived funds enter the international markets annually. In Canada alone the estimates range from $5 billion to $17 billion. The fact that they range from $5 billion to $17 billion gives me cause for concern. That being such a broad spread, it is very clear that even our law enforcement officials have not really been able to quantify this problem.

There are many ways to launder money, including through financial institutions, foreign exchange dealers, significant cash purchases, brokerage houses, foreign tax havens and cross-border transfers. The methods of laundering money are becoming more and more sophisticated, as I indicated in my remarks before question period. Indeed, many of the transactions are so immensely complex that there is no possible way, other than with the power of the most high powered computer programmed to do this, that we could actually conduct the kind of transactions that are currently being undertaken by criminal activity.

If Canada is viewed, real or otherwise—and I think it is real—as having weak controls, we become a haven for organized crime and money laundering.

In the second reading of this, I drew to the attention of the House the situation with YBM Magnex, which turned out to be a money laundering operation for the Russian mafia, and the fact that there were many prominent Canadians, names people would know, who ended up being sucked into that vortex. Six hundred million dollars disappeared as a result of YBM Magnex being a money laundering operation and getting by the Ontario Securities Commission and other organizations like that.

If we look at the situation of the $6 billion Bre-X debacle and put the YBM Magnex on the back side of that, we can see why people around the world are deeply concerned about the lax attitude that Canada has displayed in this very important area.

As I also indicated prior to question period, it is not just the issue of organized crime. There are also violent street gangs in Toronto and Montreal that are channelling criminal profits to tamil terrorists waging a bloody fight for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka.

According to an RCMP intelligence report that was reported in the Ottawa Citizen on March 27 this year, it said that an extensive probe by the Mounties found strong connections between outlaw gangs and the liberation tigers of tamil eelam, one of the world's most dangerous groups. “There is clear evidence to support the relationship and that the money involved is being funnelled to the LTTE for extremist purposes in Sri Lanka”, says the newly classified report obtained through access to information.

Many people who come Canada as legitimate landed immigrants are here to help us build our great nation. These people come to this country looking at it as being a law-abiding country where they can live in peace and harmony with their neighbours. They come to this country looking at the opportunities that they have to advance the fortunes of their own families. They come to this country as a haven of peace. However, because of the laxity of this government and its slowness to bring either dollar resources or necessary legislation like this piece of legislation into effect, law enforcement is unable to protect those very people who come to this country to help us build this great nation.

Shame on the government, particularly for its delay in bringing this legislation to the House of Commons, if only for that reason.

The RCMP implicate the tamil criminal groups in a staggering variety of activities, including extortion, home invasion, attempted murder, theft, importation and sale of brown heroine, arms trafficking, production and sale of counterfeit passports, migrant smuggling, bank and casino fraud and money laundering. This is from an RCMP security intelligence report.

The report goes on to say that the activity is escalating and will likely become more difficult for police. It also says that there are other armed conflicts and hot spots in the world where there are allegations of smuggling profits that finance military operations.

This is why we, as Canadians, whether we are recently landed immigrants or our families have been here for a long time, should care about this piece of legislation. Money laundering feeds armed conflicts and illegal activities that threaten everything from our families to our society, our national and international economies and perhaps even world peace.

The act establishes a financial transactions and reports analysis centre to receive the reports. Under normal circumstances, as a Canadian Alliance MP, I would be opposed to the enactment of any legislation that would set up yet another analysis centre or another way to have more bureaucrats. However, in this particular instance, the independence of the financial transactions and reports analysis centre is absolutely critical because of the level of expertise to track these transactions that were described earlier.

The level of expertise to analyze the reports as they come out of the data that will be collected is very specialized. However there is the whole problem of personal security, the security all Canadians have from unreasonable search and seizure and big brother overlooking our shoulders.

In this instance what we are doing under this bill is to establish the financial transactions report analysis centre totally apart from our enforcement agencies so that all transactions will end up going through a highly sophisticated microscopic sieve. From that sieve and from the entrails that come out of the money flowing through it, skilled analysis will say that we should be looking at this track of money or that track of money.

The way this will work, as I understand the legislation, is that then there would be a report to law enforcement agencies to say here is something they might want to take a look at. That is it. The idea then is that the law enforcement agencies would say that they already are looking at a particular terrorist group or a particular group of organized crime and that the preliminary information, this heads-up that the financial transactions report analysis centre has given them, fits the mould of what they are already doing.

On the basis of the other police work, together with this heads-up from the centre, they would then have to go to a judge and fulfil all the ordinary obligations that would be required of law enforcement agencies so that they could then undertake other activity that would be outside where they could normally go.

To that extent this centre has to be separate because it has to be highly sophisticated, not only the centre itself but the people manning it. Additionally, the centre not being under the thumb of, answerable to, or under the jurisdiction of any police enforcement body or any military enforcement body gives me some feeling of comfort that it will not be abused and that my civil rights and the civil rights of all people in Canada will not be compromised by the enactment of the legislation.

As I mentioned, the centre would report any suspicious transactions or series of suspicious transactions to the appropriate police force, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency if the information is relevant to tax or customs duty evasion, CSIS if relevant to threats to the security of Canada, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and a foreign state if there is an agreement with Canada on money laundering.

Concerns have been raised, as I have mentioned. On behalf of people who have raised them, as the member of parliament responsible for the official opposition I have been very sensitive to any of the testimony that has come before committee and any other research that I have been able to do to arrive at the feeling of comfort that indeed the reports analysis centre will be isolated from being able to easily do anything in terms of infringing on our right to privacy.

I note that criminal defence lawyers and the federal privacy commission warned that the reporting scheme could turn Canada into a nation of snitches. With that in mind I listened to all the testimony very closely. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service said the transaction reporting machine could become a bureaucratic monster. Again, we have taken a look at that. The fact that it has to report back to the government and to parliament is a very important issue, which again is why we feel comfortable with the legislation.

CSIS proposed more selective measures that would target parties known to engage in dubious activities, but it would be my judgment that in all likelihood the centre would end up doing that in any event.

I want to deal specifically with some comments in the March 4, 2000 edition of the National Post by Terence Corcoran who wrote:

If passed, Bill C-22 would give Ottawa fresh authority to trap the innocent, infringe on privacy, collect mountains of information on citizens and put routine money transactions under suspicion. It would also conscript lawyers, banks, accountants and others into a national subculture of informants and snitches.

With due respect to Mr. Corcoran, I think he got a little carried away with his hyperbole. He went on to say:

In a letter to Justice Minister Anne McLellan last December, the Canadian Bar Association listed some of the threats posed by Ottawa's plan to increase its surveillance over money transactions greater than $10,000. It said routine legitimate business transactions could be disrupted and solicitor-client relationships undermined.

Again, I was sensitive to this and other pronouncements by people who have expressed concern about it. I am sorry, but I do not see that as being a problem. I know a member from the Toronto area was as upset as I was when we heard testimony from the Canadian Law Association. It was really very unfortunate. It was like they knew everything, that they were present but should not have been included, that they should have an exemption just because they are lawyers. It was just a tad thick.

Although I am sure there were grains of good information they were giving us, I am sure many of us had to sift through an awful lot of chaff that these lawyers were giving us. I agree with the government that there were no amendments required to give exemptions to the law profession.

I suggested that it would be a hole big enough to drive a truck through. If somebody was intending to try to get around the legislation and find exemptions in it, they could end up getting their transaction through. By making an exemption for the lawyers, anyone interested and possibly engaging in this kind of nefarious activity would naturally choose a lawyer to do the transaction as opposed to choosing an accountant or some other professional. Unfortunately that testimony, although I am sure it was sincere, was not singularly helpful. Mr. Corcoran went on to say:

In the name of fighting organized crime, Ottawa also wants to set up a new bureaucratic agency with big powers. The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada would collect information supplied by bank informants and lawyers, and—depending on regulations—could end up with a licence to harass the innocent and legitimate.

I say to Mr. Corcoran and other people who are concerned about this issue that I take their expressions of concern as being serious. In spite of all the missteps we have had in this process, nonetheless there has been fundamental goodwill among members of parliament. We have all been looking very closely to ensure that the concerns brought forward by Mr. Corcoran and others have been answered within the legislation.

One concern all of us should have is that there is an ever increasing encroachment on our ability to be able to relate to each other within society either as business people, as neighbours or even within our own families.

The headline of an April 4 Globe and Mail article read “Mob threat getting worse, RCMP says Top Mountie warns of organized crime's threat to democracy”. That is not a false threat at all. That is not hyperbole. We have seen the tentacles of organized crime reach right into the Chamber. A member of the Bloc Quebecois, his wife and his young child are being threatened by organized crime. This is something that comes to a neighbourhood near us, if not to our own homes. This is something we have to stand on guard against and we have to fight collectively.

As I have said many times, I have been desperately unhappy with the amateur hour we have had in terms of getting the legislation through the House. I maintain a concern because I do not know. Because of this flawed process I maintain a concern that two, three or four years into the legislation we will probably need a massive review of it, probably preceding the five year mandated review for the legislation.

We are faced with a delay created by the government of at least three years to bring the legislation forward. Because of the urgency of the legislation we have to enable the various public servants that will bring the transaction centre into place to get on with the job. This is an important tool to put into the hands of our law enforcement people. Therefore we will support the legislation proceeding through the House, to the Senate and hopefully to royal assent as quickly as possible.

There are things that we can join hands on. We notice that there has been full co-operation, to the best of my knowledge, among all members of the House respecting the bill. Any interventions I have made on behalf of the official opposition have been made in the spirit of having a proper process to bring this urgent legislation to successful completion and of making it as good as we could possibly make it.

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:25 p.m.

NDP

Dick Proctor NDP Palliser, SK

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate on Bill C-22. This proposed legislation on money laundering involves transactions through financial institutions and other financial intermediaries with the intent to conceal criminal profits and make them appear legitimate.

Bill C-22 builds on the existing Proceeds of Crime Act. The legislation institutes mandatory reporting of suspicious financial transactions and of cross-border movement of large amounts of currency. It creates an independent analysis centre as has been remarked upon by the previous speaker, the mandate of which will be to receive and manage reported information.

The legislation meets commitments that Canada made as a member of the OECD and of the G-8. Canada is one of the last G-8 countries to establish such a regime. That was pointed out to a parliamentary delegation of which I had the privilege of being a part at the European Union in the month of March of this year when we had an opportunity to discuss with our European colleagues what they are doing in this regard.

In developing the bill, Canada has taken into consideration the 40 recommendations set out by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering which encourages the strengthening of international co-operation with regard to the exchange of information on currency flows.

Some of the reasons this is important is that money laundering is now the world's third largest industry by value. It extends far beyond hiding profits from narcotics. It now includes trade fraud, tax evasion, organized crime, arms smuggling, bank, medical and insurance fraud. In this country alone somewhere between $5 billion and $17 billion are laundered each and every year. With those kinds of gaps, $5 billion and $17 billion, obviously nobody knows for sure how much, but it is estimated worldwide that somewhere between $300 billion and $500 billion U.S. are laundered in these ways. Tax evasion is not addressed in the proposed legislation.

The recommendation of the New Democratic Party is to support the legislation in principle. It is obvious that we should support the introduction of any legislation that curbs illegal activity. However there is some wariness on our part as to the lack of certainty and of clarity in some parts of the bill.

We think that a number of concerns should be examined and addressed further. There is a potential for charter violations. The guarantees of reasonable search and seizure appear to be at risk. For example, the Criminal Lawyers' Association argues that the standard of suspicion outlined fails to meet even the first and fundamental requirements of reasonable grounds. The legislation may also create an irreconcilable conflict for professionals, such as lawyers who remain subject to certain codes of conduct that prohibit them from disclosing information. It must also provide a mechanism to absolve an individual from potential liability that may result from disclosing such confidential information.

A second point is the possible pressure on consumers. The reporting regime set up to track and communicate suspicious transactions has at least two financial repercussions. One, there is a cost to be borne by the taxpayer for the establishment and maintenance of the tracking system. Second, in having to establish compliance mechanisms there is a concern that the cost for setting up reporting mechanisms for financial institutions will be borne by the customers of those institutions and the concern that there not be consumer gouging as a result.

A third point is with regard to the system's effectiveness. There remains a series of concerns about the planned reporting effectiveness. There is a warning that the new regime has the potential to create a bureaucratic monster and there is a chance that organized crime would be able to short circuit such a system through a series of shadowy, sophisticated transactions. We wonder whether money might not be better spent granting law enforcement and investigative bodies additional resources to detect and prosecute money laundering offences.

We are also concerned that the bill does not appear to address technology based crimes, the white collar crimes which surely we will see grow in future with the growth of the Internet and computers in general. Technology based crimes include credit and debit card fraud, telephone fraud, stock market manipulation and computer break-ins. Increasingly organized crime syndicates are using technological and digital means of communication, including encryption and scanning devices, thus potentially circumventing the provisions of this bill.

We would recommend to the government that a clearer and more precise definition of what constitutes a suspicious transaction be formulated. The subjective nature of the definition could provide an excuse for compliance failure and as a result many suspicious transactions might not be reported.

In addition, the use of a vague definition could result in institutions over-reporting for fear of involuntary non-compliance, thus creating unnecessary, unwarranted scrutiny of innocent individuals.

We think that the proposed legislation must clearly address the issue of the threat to the privacy of all Canadians and especially the possible disclosure of information to Revenue Canada should it involve a taxation matter. Obviously, strict guidelines must be established in this area. The bill must also address the possible violations of the guarantee against reasonable search and seizure in the charter of rights and freedoms.

In addition, the issue of tax-related offences could be addressed. Tax offences occur when money is transferred to offshore tax havens through companies, trusts and bank accounts. The purpose obviously is to conceal assets from Revenue Canada. Money laundering, on the other hand, involves the intent to conceal criminal profits and make them appear legitimate.

It is perplexing that even the definition of a suspicious transaction, a fundamental principle indeed, is to be determined after the legislation is passed. Many other key dispositions would be determined after that fact by regulation. These include: the appointment of the centre's director and the determination of his or her remuneration; the determination of the individuals or businesses that will be subject to this legislation and how they will report; the delay which will be granted to financial institutions to retrieve and report information; bodies and institutions which will be required to report on how records are to be maintained; the delay a financial institution must respect; and the length of time records are to be kept.

In agreeing to a bill such as this we also wonder about things like the Tobin tax which the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle brought forward. Indeed, it was passed as a private member's bill in this House. Why could that not be established with the same alacrity with which we are working in this area?

As the House knows, a Tobin tax framework would be an excellent initiative to establish an international monitoring system of currency flows.

Those are the points I wish to make. After listening to the remarks of the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia I was pleased to note that the financial reporter for the National Post , Terence Corcoran, has many concerns about this bill. That resolves my belief that the bill is worthy of support. It is one of the few things that has resulted from the fact that the National Post is now in existence that I do not have to look at Terence Corcoran's column in the Globe and Mail .

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:35 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Scott Brison Progressive Conservative Kings—Hants, NS

Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak to Bill C-22 at third reading to address some of the very important issues about the legislation which would create the new money laundering oversight agency that would be positioned to help protect Canadians from organized crime and be part of a global effort to combat the insidious and pervasive nature of organized crime.

Like most business activities, organized crime has become very much a global enterprise. As such, Canada's procrastination and tardiness in not addressing this issue earlier is unconscionable. It is unfortunate that the government had not seen the need to address this issue earlier.

As hon. members have noted, we are lagging behind other members of the G-8 and the OECD in terms of pursuing this very important initiative of establishing within our country a sound oversight agency to reduce the incidence of money laundering.

It is a huge issue. The estimates of money laundering are even difficult to get a handle on. Some estimates in Canada are as low as $5 billion or $8 billion and some are as high as $20 billion. There is a huge variance and disparity on this one issue. That indicates the degree to which we are really only beginning to understand it.

One concern I have about this legislation is that it addresses in many ways yesterday's issue, that is, the very conventional means of money laundering. Nowhere in the legislation or in the new agency do I see some sort of commitment that the agency will have the type of resources and technological strength to address some of the current and emerging issues of technologically oriented money laundering.

With the sophistication of financial instruments and the inability of sovereign governments to track either cross-border financial transactions or intra-state transactions, whether they be derivatives, which are not considered to be a particularly sophisticated financial instrument in the current context, the fact is that increasingly we are dealing with these sophisticated financial instruments and the ability of any agency to track transactions, large or small, intra-state or cross-border, is a real challenge. I would hope that this agency will have not only the resources to pursue technologically driven approaches to the very serious issue of money laundering, but beyond that would work with the private sector and many of the companies involved on the Internet security side to develop private sector solutions.

The technology being developed by both American and Canadian companies in these areas is very advanced. I would hope that the government would do a better job at seeking input from the private sector in developing more sophisticated approaches to this problem than it has in other areas.

The accountability of this new agency has been of significant concern and remains a significant concern. Amendments have helped and have been constructive in assisting to ensure that there will be some level of accountability for this agency and some level of rigorous reporting that has the capacity to provide some checks and balances. That is all well and good, but we have to be vigilant as parliamentarians to ensure that we provide mechanisms to protect Canadians against these all powerful new agencies.

I do not think that any law-abiding Canadian would have any difficulty with getting tough on money laundering. That being the case, it is very important to separate the powers of these agencies. For example, I expressed concerns at the time of the creation of the new Revenue Canada agency that it could emerge as an IRS style agency, Godzilla the tax collector, which would have the power to persecute and relentlessly pursue individual Canadian taxpayers, and in many cases bring about undue suffering and unfair treatment of ordinary law-abiding, tax-paying Canadians.

The more powerful the agency, the more difficult it is for individual Canadians to muster the resources to fight it. My concern has been and continues to be with the new money laundering agency that we ensure that any sharing of information between this new agency and the Revenue Canada agency is done under very strict conditions.

For example, if the new money laundering agency sees some level of evidence to suggest money laundering and feels that sharing that information with Revenue Canada would help bolster the new agency's case in pursuing a case of money laundering against an individual or a group of individuals, that could be seen as being reasonable.

If, on the other hand, there is not sufficient evidence to suggest money laundering, but if the new agency sees some evidence that there may be some level of tax evasion and shares that information with the new Revenue Canada agency, I think that would be overstepping the boundaries and would be leading to an incredibly powerful, turbo-charged Revenue Canada agency that could wreak havoc on the lives of ordinary Canadians. We have to be careful to ensure that there is a Chinese wall between the Revenue Canada agency and this new money laundering agency.

The nebulous nature of the description of suspicious transactions is also disturbing. It seems to be a very qualitative description that is very difficult to narrow in a substantive way.

The issue of resources is very important. Certainly the RCMP calls this legislation long overdue, but we have to ensure that the RCMP on a national level is funded properly to pursue some of these activities and work with this agency. It is critical to ensure that we not create these new agencies without providing some level of resources to ensure that they can do their jobs and at the same time maintain our traditional policing of white collar crimes through the RCMP in a way that is consistent and which provides over a period of time a reasonable level of support and resources. The government has not provided ongoing and consistent levels of support to the RCMP, and in fact has starved the activities of the RCMP on a national level.

The Progressive Conservative Party supports this legislation. We support some amendments which in my opinion improve the accountability of the new agency. This is a step in the right direction but the government is prone to taking baby steps as opposed to more substantive steps.

While we do recognize that this is a step forward, a lot more needs to be done to ensure that ordinary Canadians are protected against organized crime. In the future we must work more proactively with our trading partners and with our partners in the G-8 and the OECD to develop solutions and introduce them within our borders earlier as opposed to always playing catch up and lagging behind our partners on something as important as money laundering and organized crime.

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

Is the House ready for the question?

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

Some hon. members

Question.

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

Bob Kilger Liberal Stormont—Dundas, ON

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been some discussions and there is probably some ongoing work relative to a matter concerning the member for Rimouski—Mitis. It would only be a matter of a few minutes so I wonder if we could suspend the House until that matter is before us. I believe it would take less than five minutes, which seems to be the indication. I wonder if we could suspend to the call of the Chair and then reconvene the House to deal with the matter of the member's riding name change with all the information we require.

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

Is it the wish of the House to suspend the sitting to the call of the Chair?

Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 3.48 p.m.)

(The House resumed at 3.52 p.m.)

Business Of The HouseGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Scarborough—Rouge River Ontario

Liberal

Derek Lee LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think you will find consent in the House for the following motion: I move:

That notwithstanding any standing order, Bill C-445, an act to change the name of the electoral district of Rimouski—Mitis, standing on the order of precedence on the order paper in the name of the member for Rimouski—Mitis, be deemed to have been concurred in at report stage with the following amendment:

That Bill C-445, in clause 1, be amended by replacing the words “Rimouski—Neigette et La Mitis” with the following:

“Rimouski—Neigette-et-La Mitis”; and

That the bill be deemed to have been read a third time and passed.

Business Of The HouseGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

Does the parliamentary secretary have unanimous consent to introduce the motion?

Business Of The HouseGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Business Of The HouseGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?