Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is much doubt that the House, in a general proposition, is in favour of this bill. By and large, I think, speeches have been in support of the bill. Every once in a while the NDP members wander off the rail, but they are prone to do that anyway.
The genesis of this bill lies in the tragedies of 2001. Bill C-36 was passed. There was a significant court case in 2003, which opened up an avenue for lawyers. Then, in 2004, there were a number of inquiries, none of which have at this point resulted in any convictions.
First of all, I am interested in the hon. member's views with respect to the compromise position between the government and the legal profession, which is essentially a “know your client” proposition. I am interested in knowing whether he feels that relieving the lawyers of the obligation to report in the same fashion as other institutions would be required to report is adequate in the circumstances, and whether he thinks that their merely keeping a list of the relevant information will fill this very significant hole in this regime.
I want to make it clear that I am not criticizing the government in this particular instance. This is a very difficult issue of balancing solicitor-client privilege with the right and the need of government and law enforcement agencies to know what is going on in financial services.
At one point in another life I practised law and I know that on any given day we would be flushing literally millions of dollars through our trust accounts. I also know that there were times when I did not know my client and times that my colleagues did not know our client. They had come in for a particular real estate transaction or a corporate transactions or things of that nature. They appeared to be who they were. When asked, they presented verifying information with respect to who they were, but in truth, I am not a police officer and I was not a police officer, nor are my colleagues who are practising now. I had no way of verifying information that appeared to be legitimate on the face of it.
I am interested in my hon. colleague's comments with respect to whether he thinks this apparent opening in the legislation has been adequately addressed.