Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue. Yesterday across the floor the Conservative members were laughing and heckling on a very important topic, money laundering. I am hoping they will pay closer attention today, because money laundering is not done by ordinary citizens; it is done by criminals and terrorists. It is a very serious matter.
First of all, I should say that our finance critic is generally in support of what is being proposed in terms of amendments. After all, this builds upon the anti-money laundering legislation that our government brought in in 2001. We have now had the benefit of a few years and the government is reviewing the feedback and the experience to date. It is very timely to bring in some amendments.
I would like to touch on one point that I made yesterday which is that one of the amendments actually removes lawyers from the list of those financial intermediaries who need to report suspicious transactions to FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. This is something that the committee should look at very carefully.
What we contemplated when the government brought in this law was that, for example, a citizen would sit down with his or her lawyer and say, “I would like you to keep this $300,000 in cash in safe keeping for me”. The lawyer under the law as we have it would then say to the person, “Do you realize that I am required under the law to report this to FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, as a prima facie suspicious item?” The client would either say, “Yes, I understand that. Therefore, I will take my $300,000 back”, or “Yes, you may proceed”.
On that basis the lawyers in this country have challenged that this takes away from solicitor-client privilege and an appeal court has agreed with them. This amendment takes the lawyers out of the loop of the money laundering reporting, the suspicious transactions reporting.
We know that the vast majority of lawyers in this country are honest people. The small minority of people who would take part in money laundering transactions will now find this loophole. The committee should carefully look at that. There are not many realistic options. Finance Canada and FINTRAC are negotiating with the legal profession to see what can be done. This is a serious matter.
There are other amendments. For example, it is a requirement by financial intermediaries to report suspicious transactions to FINTRAC. As it now stands, the law has some criminal sanctions if the financial intermediaries do not report. What these amendments call for is a lesser level of sanction for lesser violations of the reporting requirements under the act. That seems to be a reasonable request.
There is one issue that is difficult and I know that the House committee, the Auditor General and the committee in the other place have highlighted this, and that is Parliament's oversight over FINTRAC. How do we know that FINTRAC is operating within the mandate that it was given by Parliament? How do we know that the privacy rights of citizens are not being violated? How do we know that it is getting results? Has the information that it is providing to the RCMP and CSIS led to any arrests or convictions? That is something the committee should look at as well.
There are other aspects in terms of these amendments that warrant careful examination by the committee. As I said yesterday, when the legislation was introduced, the focus was put on monetary instruments. In other words, all laundered money eventually finds its way or should find its way into a bank account or into cash of some kind. The reality is that the money launderers become more clever and there is a chance that they could be dealing in precious metals or minerals, or items that are not monetary instruments. That has to be looked at. The proposal here with respect to currency traders, for example, is that they be brought under a regulatory ambit that would be managed by the federal government.
The typical exchange dealers one would find in airports, and I am not going to give any commercial names, but many would be familiar with these operations, right now they are required to report suspicious transactions to FINTRAC. They are considered to be financial intermediaries but it is not a very defined or regulated sector. These amendments propose to bring that under tighter scrutiny.
In 2001 when the Liberal government brought in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, we laid out the objectives of the act: to facilitate the detection, investigation, and prosecution of money laundering and terrorist activities financing offences, and to deter money laundering and terrorist financing activities; to respond to the threat posed by organized crime, while protecting personal information; and to assist in fulfilling Canada's international commitments.
One of the issues that was dealt with at the time is the balance of the type of information and the reason that certain information could be passed from FINTRAC to the law enforcement agencies and to CSIS. There is always a careful balance between the need for Canadians to be protected from money launderers but also the need for their privacy to be protected. The amendments proposed here call for an added level of information that could be provided by FINTRAC to law enforcement agencies and CSIS to decide if there is a trend that they want to analyze and pursue further.
The law still requires that if CSIS, the RCMP or other law enforcement wish to take the issue further, they would have to go to a court and get a judge's permission for FINTRAC to release information above and beyond what we call boiler plate information or basic raw data. Those provisions still stand, although there are increasing abilities to provide additional information under the proposals before us.
The other aspect of these amendments reinforces the need for the banks and financial intermediaries to know their customers. Knowing one's customers is key because that is the way to deal with money laundering activities before they begin.
There are some other elements to the amendments, but I have touched on the major ones. Having been involved in a modest way in 2001 in the design and set-up of the original legislation and the establishment of FINTRAC, my view would be that these are worthy amendments. They should be debated and witnesses should be brought forward with respect to some of the amendments, but generally I believe they should receive the support of the House. Certainly I will be voting for the bill to go to committee for further evaluation.