Mr. Speaker, the member kept referring to the “dynamic” and “aggressive” program this government has in enforcing laws to deal with organized crime. I have a lot of difficulty with those comments.
One of the biggest stock frauds that ever happened in the history of stock markets was not in the United States. It happened in this country with Bre-X, when there was “gold in them thar hills” in Indonesia. That was back in 1996. Billions of dollars were lost by legitimate investors throughout the world and in this country. From what I can gather, to date nobody has been charged.
The U.S. is in the business of dealing with Bernie Evers. The Enron people are going to jail. Martha Stewart just got out of jail. But Bre-X happened in 1996 and nothing has happened, from what I can see, so when the government talks about its “aggressive” program in dealing with organized crime, quite seriously I am scratching my head.
I do have a question for the member. There is a major investigation being conducted on the oil for food program, which involved the United Nations and Iraq. It looks as if billions and billions of dollars were illegally diverted from that program and into the pockets of UN officials and Saddam Hussein.
It looks as though powerful people in Canada may have been involved in this program. The crimes were committed outside Canada, but some of the chief benefactors could be inside Canada. It is fraud and corruption to the highest level to subvert a program like the oil for food program.
I would ask the member of the government to enlighten us on what aggressive policies and laws the government has in place to make sure that the people in this country who would have benefited from this illegal billion dollar kickback scheme would pay a very heavy price in this country. I would like him to enlighten us.