Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on her speech. This bill flows from quite a number of the previous government's initiatives. I want to congratulate her and her government on trying to put together some form of bill to address this egregious problem.
This bill has a number of commendable features, but I want to ask my colleague a couple of questions with respect to some of the holes in the bill.
Recently I returned from Moscow, where I met with some Russian officials and talked about this very matter. The Russian officials told us that they are most concerned about the conversion of money into things like diamonds, platinum and things of that nature, other businesses, so to speak. That is how terrorism was being financed in Russia. Of course, regardless of what we think of the Chechen situation in Russia, the Russians regard it as a terrorist situation. Bill C-25 will not deal with this problem. It leaves a very obvious gap, one through which even a not so well-informed criminal organization could take advantage.
I wonder what comfort the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance can give those who are watching that this form of conversion from a financial instrument to other valuable commodities might be addressed.
The second issue I have is with respect to the compromise with the legal profession. As I read this bill, it seems that lawyers will essentially be obligated to disclose financial records only if they know the identity of the client. This seems to me to be something of a low threshold of obligation on the part of the legal profession, which transacts massive sums of money on a daily basis.
I would be interested in the member's comments on both of these issues.