House of Commons Hansard #67 of the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was money.

Topics

Canadian HeritageCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Canadian HeritageCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Bill Blaikie

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Canadian HeritageCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Canadian HeritageCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Bill Blaikie

All those opposed will please say nay.

Canadian HeritageCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

Canadian HeritageCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Bill Blaikie

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

Canadian HeritageCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

Conservative

Jay Hill Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find acceptance to defer the vote until the completion of government orders tomorrow.

Canadian HeritageCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Bill Blaikie

The motion is deferred until the completion of government orders tomorrow.

The House will now resume with the remaining business under routine proceedings.

National Homelessness InitiativePetitionsRoutine Proceedings

October 23rd, 2006 / 6:10 p.m.

Bloc

Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for the two petitions I am about to table. They urge the government to renew the national homelessness initiative, the SCPI and the RHF immediately, to make them permanent and to increase their funding.

The Chaudronnée's meal services and other support activities are essential and improve quality of life for the underprivileged. The first petition is from Chaudronnée de l'Estrie, which is a soup kitchen. One hundred and twenty-five people signed the petition.

The second petition, also from Sherbrooke, was signed by 200 people. It is from Accueil Poirier, a shelter for homeless men and women, and it says that the program is absolutely critical. It is their only source of funding to fight homelessness. Over a 30-month period, they sheltered 1684 people for a total of 8909 nights. They feel that this program should be renewed immediately.

Rights of the UnbornPetitionsRoutine Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

Conservative

Leon Benoit Conservative Vegreville—Wainwright, AB

Mr. Speaker, in 2005, Olivia Talbot of Edmonton was shot and killed and her 27 week unborn child, Lane Jr., was also a target of that attack and was killed. No charges could be laid because there is no protection for an unborn child today under our law.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation where the unborn child is recognized as a separate victim of an attack when he or she is injured or killed at the same time as the pregnant mother is injured or killed.

Remplacement workersPetitionsRoutine Proceedings

6:15 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to table in this House a petition with over 2,000 signatures in favour of Bill C-257 against replacement workers.

Quebec has had such legislation for 30 years for workers under Quebec's jurisdiction. Strikes and disputes do not last as long, they are less violent and the general mood is healthier when employees go back to work. Generally speaking, there is labour peace in Quebec. This is due in large part to the anti-scab legislation.

Some 2,000 workers from across Quebec have signed this petition.

I want thank in particular Monique Allard from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers for collecting most of the signatures.

Child CarePetitionsRoutine Proceedings

6:15 p.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present a nine page petition on the question of child care.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to provide the provinces and territories with annual funding of at least $1.2 billion to build a high quality, accessible, affordable and community based child care system and to ensure fair and effective income support programs for Canadian families.

They note in the petition that there is an absence of secure and stable funding and child care services are greatly in demand across Canada.

The petition was signed by citizens of Toronto and British Columbia.

Questions on the Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

6:15 p.m.

Macleod Alberta

Conservative

Ted Menzies ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

Questions on the Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

6:15 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Bill Blaikie

Is it agreed?

Questions on the Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

6:15 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing ActGovernment Orders

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-25, a bill to deal with the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Income Tax Act.

The bill builds on the work that our government did in 2001 when we introduced the legislation, which was passed by the House and the other place, and when the government set up FINTRAC, the financial transactions agency that serves as the financial intelligence unit for various reports that come in from financial intermediaries to track the suspicious transactions that might be laundering activities.

This bill proposes certain amendments to the act and basically builds on a number of themes. The financial action task force, which is the body that sets the standards in the fight against money laundering, came out a number of years ago with 40 recommendations with respect to standards in the fight against money laundering. Given the advent of 9/11 and other events, it added to its 40 recommendations on money laundering a further nine special recommendations on terrorist financing.

What these amendments do in part is they bring the legislation up to date with that but they do a number of other things, and I will be happy to speak to those as well.

Before I do that, perhaps I could talk briefly about the size and the scope of money laundering. People at home might be watching this debate and wondering what money laundering is. Money laundering has many definitions but the one I prefer is the one that says that money laundering is the processing of criminal proceeds in order to disguise their illegal origin.

If someone were a drug dealer or if someone were involved in planning a terrorist activity, the person would be disinclined to take the money he or she had received and put it into a bank account under his or her own name. Criminals try to launder the money through legitimate businesses. They reinvent themselves into some legitimate purpose and deposit the money and try to launder it in that way.

We do not want to have that type of activity in this country, nor is it something we want happening worldwide. It is an international problem of significant scope. In fact, KPMG, the consulting firm, estimates that money laundering is somewhere in the region of $500 billion to $1 trillion annually. I would suggest that is probably on the low side. I think it is probably more than that.

Who are the money launderers? We have basically four major categories. The first one relates to major drug crimes and we are talking primarily about drug related activities. The second category would be terrorist financing, which would be financing done before a terrorist event or after a terrorist event where money would either be accumulated to enact a terrorist event or it would be money that would be used to pay off various terrorists who had committed these offences. The third category is money laundering related to corruption. This is a very serious problem worldwide. The fourth category is money laundering related to tax evasion.

There are many ways and reasons to launder money, which is why our government brought in the anti-money laundering legislation in 2001 and that is why we set up FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. That organization began making disclosures in the year 2002.

It is quite appropriate for Parliament to review the act. In fact, a committee reviewed FINTRAC in 2005 to see what it was doing, what it was proposing to do, how successful it had been and what kind of changes it wanted to see. There was also a review recently in the other place on money laundering, and the Auditor General completed a report not too long ago.

It is quite timely that the government has introduced the amendments. Generally, I would support the way it is proceeding, but if the bill passes the House and goes to committee, there are a number of issues the committee should examine in some more detail.

We are very privileged that the presidency of the Financial Action Task Force, which is the standard setter in the fight against money laundering, has been assumed by a Canadian, a very distinguished public servant from the Department of Finance, a gentleman by the name of Frank Swedlove. This gives us a unique opportunity to be engaged in the fight against money laundering.

What is FINTRAC? The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada is an arm's length agency. It is required to collect all the reported suspicious transactions by financial intermediaries. In 2001 the government defined suspicious transaction as predominantly a cash or near cash type of definition. Any transaction over $10,000 is automatically deemed a suspicious transaction. Then many other types of transactions are covered by guidelines and some of the professional people look at these types of questions. A number of guidelines published by FINTRAC and the Department of Finance define transactions that might be suspicious even though they are below $10,000.

In fact, in its recent report, FINTRAC reported that it had disclosed more than $5 billion in suspicious deals to law enforcement and CSIS last year, which was twice what it had reported in previous years. We are seeing that the laundering of money is not diminishing. It is increasing and it is of particular concern now with the threat of terrorism before us.

I had the great honour, from 1999 to 2001, to serve as the parliamentary secretary to the then minister of finance, our colleague, the member for LaSalle—Émard. I was very proud that we were able to get the support of the House and the other place for the legislation and to establish FINTRAC.

I have also been quite involved with the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption. This organization started in Parliament. People from around the world were invited and GOPAC was formed. GOPAC sees its mission as not only being the fight against corruption, but also the fight against money laundering. A large conference was held in Tanzania at which some 300 parliamentarians from 50 countries around the world attended.

I would like to indulge the House, if I may, with the resolutions that came out of the conference with respect to money laundering. I will not read them all. There are six of them. I will highlight some of the more critical ones.

First, it is to seek observer status within the Financial Action Task Force. The request has gone out to Mr. Swedlove to get observer status for the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption.

Another resolution was to look at the benefits of an international convention against money laundering and also to encourage GOPAC members of the importance of the 40 + 9 recommendations published by the Financial Action Task Force.

Another resolution was that GOPAC begin a dialogue with the offshore and international banking communities to better understand what the communities were doing to fight money laundering in the financing of terrorism and also to develop protocols specifically on fighting the laundering and recovery of corrupt money and assets. That was done, particularly in the context of GOPAC, which is concerned mainly with the fight against corruption.

In bringing forward this legislation in 2000-01, it was quite a challenging balancing act, balancing the need for Canadians to deal with the blight of money laundering and the risks to which Canadians were exposed while at the same time balancing the privacy needs of Canadians.

There were questions around what kind of information FINTRAC should disclose to law enforcement and to CSIS and on what terms they should disclose it. There were many issues like that.

There was the question of how we define financial intermediaries. We had a lot of presentations by various interest groups, whether they were the lawyers, the accountants, the department stores or the churches. They said they wanted to be exempt because, after all, they were not laundering money.

The tack the government took was to say that it would not create any exceptions, because money launderers being what they are, the money launderers would go to the areas where there were gaps or where exceptions were made. The decision of the government was to set a very big net and basically capture everybody in the sense of reporting requirements, and then, over time, evaluate what could be released and what would not.

As part of this amendment to the bill before us today, there is something that is quite a concern. I am not sure that there are many answers other than what is proposed here, but I think it would be a good discussion within the committee.

So that Canadians understand what is being done here, the lawyers in Canada were included in the reporting requirements of FINTRAC. In other words, any suspicious transactions had to be reported by the legal community to FINTRAC. The law societies of Canada, or whatever organization represents them in this case, took this to court. The court agreed with them that it would create a problem with respect to solicitor-client privilege.

So what these amendments do is take the lawyers out of that reporting requirement. There are ways that the Department of Finance is working to incorporate lawyers, but it is an area of great concern, because once the launderers realize that there are gaps, that is where they will go. We know that, and I will pick this up again--

Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing ActGovernment Orders

6:30 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Bill Blaikie

Order, please. I have the feeling that members are disappointed that the House is about to adjourn, but the hon. member will have eight minutes left in his speech when we resume debate on the bill.

It being 6:30 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:30 p.m.)