Debates of Nov. 10th, 2006

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

In accordance with its order of reference of Tuesday, April 25, 2006 your committee has considered all the votes under Transport in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007 and reports the same to the House.

Marriage

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I am honoured to present two petitions.

The first is on behalf of the fine people of beautiful Prince Edward—Hastings and the surrounding area, who are calling upon Parliament to reopen the issue of marriage and to repeal or amend the Marriage for Civil Purposes Act in order to promote and defend marriage as the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

Age of Consent

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I have the honour to present is again on behalf of the citizens of Prince Edward—Hastings, who call upon Parliament to take all measures necessary to immediately raise the age of consent from 14 to 16 years of age.

Marriage

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to table a petition signed by 63 residents of the great province of British Columbia. The petitioners call on Parliament to recognize the traditional definition of marriage as one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, and further call on Parliament to reopen the debate surrounding same sex marriage in order to repeal or amend the existing same sex marriage law.

Justice

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is rather appropriate for me to be presenting these petitions as we are discussing Bill C-27, the dangerous offender legislation. I introduce these petitions that were received by my office with respect to pedophiles and repeat sexual offenders. To date, we have received over 15,500 signatures through the petition. Signatures are coming in every day. They are from every province in the country, from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, et cetera. They show that people have compassion about this issue. The petition itself says that from time to time children are abducted by known repeat sex offenders and Canadians desire that steps be taken to prevent incidents from occurring.

The petitioners ask that we proceed with changes to the justice system and legislation that would result in harsher penalties for convicted pedophiles, which Bill C-27 does, by mandatory, compulsory, electronic or other forms of the monitoring of pedophiles upon release from custody, ensuring compulsory public notification on movement of convicted pedophiles, and ensuring that such repeat offenders be designated as dangerous offenders. Bill C-27 is before the House. It is being debated as we speak. We would ask the opposition to join with us in putting forward some legislation that would correct many of the issues in this petition.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, if Questions Nos. 106 supplementary and 108 supplementary could be made orders for returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Is it the pleasure of the House that Questions Nos. 106 and 108 be made orders for returns and that they be tabled immediately?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 106

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

With regard to the Canadian presence in Afghanistan: (a) what is the goal of the Canadian presence in Afghanistan; (b) what is the strategy employed by the government; (c) what are the tactics that are being used; (d) who is the enemy; (e) what is the operational centre of gravity of the enemy; (f) does the government have a political strategy to attain its goal; (g) is terrorism the greatest security threat that Canada faces; (h) does the government consider that Canada is at war; (i) what is the condition that the government would consider to be “civil war”; (j) what does the government deem to be the nature of counter-insurgency warfare and does this condition exist in Afghanistan; (k) what Canadian Forces (CF) manuals deal with counter-insurgency; (l) what are the current rules of engagement for the CF in Afghanistan; (m) what has been the change in rules of engagement since Canada left Operation Enduring Freedom; (n) is the government aware of the presence of foreign fighters in Afghanistan who help the Taliban; (o) if there are foreign fighters where do they come from on the whole; (p) what is the opinion of the government regarding the security of the Afghan border with Pakistan; (q) what is the opinion of the government regarding Pakistani cooperation in achieving the objectives of the mission; (r) does the government have an opinion as to when the goals of the Canadian presence will be achieved; (s) when was the decision to deploy a combat mission to Kandahar made by the government; (t) how well are CF capabilities matched to the conditions in the southern region of Afghanistan and to counter insurgency; (u) what is the size and configuration of task forces available for use in Afghanistan through to February 2009; (v) what has been the effect of increased training throughout the forces on the capability of these task forces; (w) how has the training of new recruits been effected by the extension of the mission until 2009; (x) does the CF use dogs in combat missions; (y) what are the protocols used in relation to dogs and civilians and detainees respectively; (z) would Canadian lawyers be allowed to contact and represent detainees while they are held by CF and, if not, what legal authority or doctrine would justify this refusal; (aa) is the arrangement concerning detainees of December 18, 2005, still the current policy of the Department of National Defence following the handover of command to NATO; (bb) what reconstruction projects are underway in Kandahar province under the supervision of the CF; (cc) are there any plans to increase the size of the Provincial Reconstruction Team before 2009; (dd) what is the government position with regard to support by the government of Pakistan, particularly the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence for the Taliban; (ee) what is the length and nature of extra training that is provided for CF personnel going to Afghanistan; (ff) what is the number of enemy captured since the CF arrived in Kandahar; and (gg) has the CF engaged Al Qaeda fighters since moving to Kandahar?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 108

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

With regard to the Canadian presence in Afghanistan: (a) what is the allotment of money set aside in the fiscal framework for the remainder of the mission; (b) how does the mission effect the fiscal framework; (c) what new weapons systems have been purchased, or will be purchased for the remainder of the mission; (d) was there a M777 howitzer purchased for the mission in Kandahar and, if so, what was the cost of the system; (e) does the Canadian Forces use the Excalibur ordinance system developed by Raytheon and, if so, what is the unit cost per shell of the Excalibur ordinance system; (f) what is the added cost associated with the deployment of a leopard tank squadron; and (g) what are the project names and budgets, itemized by project, for each foreign aid project that Canada is financing in Afghanistan?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

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

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Income Tax Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, be read for the third time and passed.

Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The last time the House debated Bill C-25, the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber had 14 minutes remaining.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before handing over to other speakers for members' statements and oral question period, I was in the process of explaining the voluntary disclosure mechanism provided for in the legislation.

All things considered, the timing of that interruption turned out not to be too bad, because this mechanism is in fact at the heart of the privacy protection regime, while at the same time promoting efficiency in the work and fight against money laundering.

Let me explain how it works. The reality is that none of the data collected by FINTRAC can be accessed directly by police, the intelligence service, the secret service or other agencies.

These agencies may, however, voluntarily disclose information. For example, someone might say they are with the RCMP and that they are investigating so and so, who is suspected of laundering money in one financial institution or another, and so on, and submit this information to FINTRAC. This centre then checks the information received against its own to determine if it has any additional information worth disclosing to the agency that made the voluntary disclosure. The procedure is pretty tight, with committees ensuring that this additional information is disclosed only if it is deemed necessary for the purposes of the investigation in question.

It is somewhat like a black box mechanism—really quite ingenious—that prevents the organizations from directly consulting the vast data base and the incredible amount of information it contains but that, at the same time, enables this information to be useful to an investigation.

Once FINTRAC has established that the information is pertinent, it is disclosed to the organization in question. However, FINTRAC will not undertake the investigation or legal proceedings. That is not its role.

Earlier this morning, we spoke of the committee's work. I was somewhat surprised and rather amused to see Liberals and Conservatives trying to capitalize on or score political points with the work of our committee.

I believe that the committee's work was useful. An amendment proposed by the Liberals was that an organization report to the committee annually. This organization did not seem to be the most appropriate one because it was under the authority of the intelligence service, with which FINTRAC is not really aligned. We supported the amendment in order to continue debate on this matter. It proved to be a good approach because the Conservatives put forward a proposal which, in my opinion, is much more interesting than the original one. It has two components. Initially, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will be asked to report every two years on the privacy aspect of the bill. I was very pleased with this because I had placed a great deal of emphasis on this issue. We must carefully examine the privacy aspect.

Under the law, the Privacy Commissioner already has the authority to investigate if she receives a complaint. I did not believe that was sufficient because having the right to conduct a systematic investigation every two years and having the duty to do so are not the same thing.

Indeed, in order to receive a privacy-related complaint, the individual whose rights were violated must be aware of it. Of course, if someone had illegal access to your private files, chances are you will not know about it. Thus, it becomes difficult to file a complaint.

I believe that some work was accomplished by everyone, and the committee was able to achieve a significant result.

The committee also discussed a Liberal amendment to allow the Canada revenue agency to directly consult FINTRAC's files, in order to be more effective. I strongly opposed that amendment, because I felt it would create a major breach in privacy protection, as I explained earlier.

Why, for efficiency's sake, would we allow an organization to directly consult these files, considering that the Canada revenue agency can, like any other government agency, submit a voluntary disclosure to FINTRAC and eventually receive relevant information, if any, from FINTRAC's database? The committee agreed with me that we should not open that breach, and I was very pleased about that.

I think this is a good bill. It has been improved by the committee, and it definitely deserves to be supported by the House. The next logical step for the government would be to work on the issue of tax havens. Tax havens are places where a lot of money laundering is going on. These countries have tax and financial rules that are much more lax than ours. This is why terrorists use them to fund their activities, or simply for money laundering purposes.

By signing agreements with tax havens, we are opening a door and making the work of those people easier. The second reason to work on the tax havens issue is obviously the fiscal inequity. Major companies invest in Barbados, Bermuda or other tax havens of this kind and do not pay taxes in Canada thanks to these little manoeuvres. This makes for a lot of lost revenue for Canada.

By addressing tax havens, we would be killing two birds with one stone: we would be fighting money laundering and terrorist activity financing, and we would be broadening the tax base, and that would create greater fiscal equity among corporations. I believe that the Minister of Finance has opened the door on this matter a few times. He has done so in this House. When I spoke to him about it, he said he would review the issue. Yesterday, in committee, following a question from my Bloc Québécois colleague, the hon. member for Joliette, he also showed interest in this issue.

I am very pleased to see this openness. All that I hope for is that this openness will translate into concrete action in the short term. We have to take action in this matter. In my opinion it would be a natural extension of the bill before us today.

In closing, my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and I would be pleased to support this bill. In my opinion it demonstrates interesting progress.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if the member would comment, from his experience, on what he believes are the consequences in terms of lost tax revenues for our various communities. When taxes go to these tax havens, what happens to the people at home?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Any time the government loses revenue to big businesses and large corporations around the world, this has an effect on the daily lives of Canadians.

For example, this means less money for the Quebec government and other provincial governments. This is really a matter of fiscal imbalance, but the fiscal imbalance is not just an abstract notion. It means less money invested in hospitals and schools.

Our entire society is robbed of revenue when the government does not receive this money. In order to provide good service to our citizens, it is important to cover the entire tax base. Every individual, every corporation and every company must contribute their fair share.

Tax havens trigger some degree of cynicism in Canadians and undermine our tax system. People are honest, pay their taxes, work hard and hand over a large portion of their wages in taxes, and then they see businesses, companies and corporations going to Barbados to avoid paying taxes.

This triggers a great deal of cynicism and must be shut down altogether by immediate action.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter into the debate today on Bill C-25 on behalf of the NDP caucus.

I am going to draw on some of the comments made by previous NDP members in this debate earlier and during other stages of the bill. I note many of the thoughtful comments made by our justice critic, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh and our finance critic, the member for Winnipeg North, who analyzed the bill and added some helpful comments that I will try and summarize here.

I should note by way of introduction that the bill comes to us as one of a flurry of bills dealing with justice issues. There has been an entire suite of legislation in recent months, some of it good and some not so good. In the NDP's point of view, we believe that some of the bills go too far and some not far enough. I hope I will have time to develop this somewhat.

We believe that aspects of Bill C-25 do not go far enough given the worthwhile goals and objectives stated in the bill. This is one of those situations where the government of the day could have exercised even more authority to solve some of these issues.

Let me start with that one point that I have introduced to explain. Should the bill pass, this would be one of the few places in the Criminal Code where the reverse onus would be contemplated and allowed. This has been controversial in other aspects. For instance, we just finished debating Bill C-9 yesterday that introduced an element of reverse onus. Should individuals be convicted for a third time of an offence from a list of serious offences, the reverse onus would be put on them to prove why they should not be designated as dangerous offenders and locked up for life.

There were howls of derision in the House because the NDP had the temerity to raise the caution that we should only venture into this notion of reverse onus with our eyes open and with due diligence. We think we were justified in that respect and we are taking political heat as a result of it.

It was not a pleasant sight yesterday when we were debating Bill C-9. I was not proud at all of the tone of the debate that took place just because the NDP had the temerity to question the idea of “three strikes and you're out” and the idea of putting the reverse onus on individuals who are convicted to prove they are not dangerous offenders.

Bill C-25, the bill we are addressing today, deals with a reverse onus as well. This is one case where I think the Conservative government has gone soft on crime. I cannot understand why it did not go farther. Even though those members hurled abuse at the NDP for being soft on crime yesterday because we raised a question, in a more respectful way I ask them why they could not have gone tougher on crime in this bill. I will explain what I mean.

In the context of this flurry of crime and justice bills that we are dealing with, we have to establish the notion that crime does not pay. I would hope this would be one way to deter criminals from activities that we are trying to discourage. The prevailing wisdom and the common knowledge out there is that crime does pay.

An awful lot of bad people are getting away with an awful lot of things and living a very good life right under the noses of our police officers and law enforcement officers whose hands are tied. They may have darn good reason to believe that somebody is enjoying these luxury goods from ill-gotten gains from the proceeds of crime, but because the burden of proof is so onerous on our police officers and on our criminal justice system, it is rare that the proceeds of crime are actually seized.

Bill C-25 does suggest that in the event of money laundering and fundraising for terrorist activities or belonging to an illegal organization, the government can in fact seize bank accounts and cash assets from individuals and apply the reverse onus. I think that is laudable.

I would point out, though, that we could have expanded this notion to include more things than just the bank accounts. In the province of Manitoba we introduced legislation. It was defeated narrowly by the two Liberal members of the Manitoba legislature who would not allow it to pass, but we introduced legislation that was very broad and very sweeping. If a person was a member of a criminal organization and was convicted of a crime, the crown prosecutor could go to a judge who could then assess the material possessions of the criminal.

Let us say the person was a member of an illegal organization like the Hell's Angels and the guy was living in a $750,000 mansion with a tricked out Escalade in the driveway, two boats and a Sea-Doo, and all the tools and jewellery et cetera, the trappings of ill-gotten gains and crime. If that individual could not prove to the judge that the toys were purchased by earnings or by some legally obtained wealth, then we in fact could seize the property. The assets would be liquidated and the proceeds would in fact be dedicated directly to law enforcement, so that we can go out and bust more criminals. I thought that was a great bill and I thought that in the bill before us we could have explored some of those notions.

I note that the private member's bill from the Bloc Québécois in the last Parliament proceeded quite a way down the road before Parliament ended and the bill died on the order paper. I think Richard Marceau was the name of the Bloc member who is no longer a member so I can use his name and give him credit. That garnered a lot of support in the House. We thought it was a good idea.

This notion of reverse onus is not foreign to the NDP nor do we oppose it out of hand, but there was derision heaped on us yesterday for raising the idea that we did not believe reverse onus should be used in Bill C-27, the “three strikes and you're out” bill. We opposed it yesterday, but that does not mean that we oppose it all the time.

Some of the legitimate concerns about Bill C-25 that were raised above and beyond that observation from my own point of view were that it would put a burden on financial institutions to monitor, track, and take note of suspicious transactions or even overt exchanges of money that may indicate illegal activity. I think this is a necessary aspect of the bill. We have to rely on the cooperation of the financial institutions to alert us when these suspicious transactions take place.

However, the burden on smaller financial institutions may be quite onerous. I have an email from the director of the largest credit union on Vancouver Island, Mr. Bob Smits. Mr. Smits noticed that we were raising issues about the bill in the House of Commons and was monitoring it carefully.

He raised a concern that in a smaller financial institution like his, the current regulations, even as they exist today regarding tracking, the FINTRAC legislation, and the financial transactions and report analysis legislation have required his small credit union to hire an enforcement officer. He estimates that the cost of compliance with the current law to be over $100,000 a year.

If we compound that burden even further and make the obligation more onerous, we have to accommodate somehow these smaller institutions who want to comply with the law, but who have served notice that they are legitimately concerned that the burden will be passed on to them. They are asking that the government pay attention to the submission made by the credit unions at committee.

I am not sure how the submission was received in committee but I did not notice any substantial amendment in that regard. The only amendment I could find in my research for my speech today was a committee stage amendment put forward by the member for Markham—Unionville. The amendment stated that SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, established by section 31, “...shall undertake a review of the operations of the centre in each financial year and shall, within three months after the end of each financial year, submit the annual report to Parliament on those operations”.

That is just a mandatory review process, which is not unusual when we are introducing a bill of this nature. I am not sure we took into consideration the legitimate concerns of the Credit Union Central of Canada in its submission to the bill. I want to recognize today that the NDP did take note of CUCC's concerns and we tried to represent its concerns at every stage of the debate on the bill.

One of the points I highlighted in its submission is where CUCC states that “in the absence of compelling evidence of need, Credit Union Central is concerned that the proposed legislation is largely driven by the perceived need to make Canada's AML-ATF regime formally consistent with the new international financial action task force standards, rather than in response to any substantive threat arising from loopholes in Canada's current AML-ATF regime”.

I suppose CUCC is questioning whether better enforcement in support of the existing regime may have been adequate to plug the loopholes. These are the practitioners in the field who do not want us to pass legislation unnecessarily unless we can have a demonstrated need proven to them. They also point out, and we should take note of this, that they do not necessarily accept that the need is commensurate with the level of activity contemplated in the bill.

The one thing that I do take note of and support in the bill is that the bill does include the foreign currency exchange shops. I think this is a logical extension in terms of financial institutions.

I would also note that a lot of questionable activity can be shielded in the completely unregulated financial sector of the payday loan companies, many of which, in fact, offer this foreign exchange and foreign delivery of currency.

As we know, a lot of money leaves Canada every year, expatriated by people who are working in Canada and sending money to other countries. When the completely unregulated payday loan sector started to explode into our communities and started sprouting up like mushrooms on every street corner, we were very concerned. However, one of the things we have not given too much thought to is that one of the services offered by these payday loan outfits is, quite often, wiring money to other countries.

The wiring of money was normally done in a fairly regulated setting until these shops started popping up in every strip mall across the country, sometimes three, four and five of them in the same strip mall. I think we will need to pay better attention to the activity involved in that because questionable people have entered into that industry sector. When people can get 1,000% rate of return on their money, a lot of people are taking note and it is no wonder these little shops are sprouting up.

In one sting case done by the crown prosecutor for the province of Manitoba, they found that 10,000% interest was being charged by one of these outfits. I believe that is a better rate of return than a person can get selling cocaine. There is no other activity in the country where we can get 10,000% return on an investment, other than these payday loan shops, so it is attracting all the wrong kinds of people. I would suggest that might be one place that officials may want to really look for money laundering, illegal transactions, and bring these payday lenders under tight scrutiny and tight regulation.

I do acknowledge that payday loan legislation is pending in this 39th Parliament, and I welcome that.

This bill deals with the legislation governing money laundering as it exists today and tries to strengthen and improve the performance of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre, or FINTRAC as it is known to the practitioners in the field.

FINTRAC, being an independent agency, does report to the Minister of Finance. It places obligations on certain individuals and entities to keep records, to identify their clients and to report certain financial transactions.

The second concern brought to our attention by the Credit Union Central of Canada is the obligation to report activity. First, the onerous burden that may be compounded by this legislation to track activity looking for suspect transactions, but also the obligation to turn in the names of member clients, otherwise seemingly innocent transactions may cross some line where a red flag pops up on a file, the institution would have no choice other than to report that individual. It could be someone who has been a member of that credit union for 20 years. We all know that credit unions are a lot more community driven than are some of the bigger banking institutions. It could put the manager of a credit union, who is a member of the community and who might be the coach of the local hockey team, in the difficult situation of having to turn in one of the parents of the children on that hockey team because of a transaction that was possibly innocent but set off a little red flag.

There are the privacy elements here that we must take into consideration and there is the awkwardness associated with that.

Bill C-25 seeks to improve and strengthen the performance of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre. I come back to the point made by Credit Union Central that perhaps all that is needed is a more robust administration of the existing FINTRAC regime.

It would be irresponsible to speak to this bill without taking into consideration the projected costs.

As I see I have only two minutes left, I will restate two of the compelling arguments brought to our attention by people we trust, about Bill C-25, the Credit Union Central of Canada.

The budget for FINTRAC, as contemplated currently, is $64 million. It may be that more resources will be necessary to offset the impact of the costs of administering the further obligations under Bill C-25 for these smaller institutions. As a former activist in the credit union movement, I try to advocate on their behalf. Let us not put this added financial burden on struggling organizations that are trying to meet the financial needs of individuals in places where the banks have abandoned them.

Quite often, the credit union stuck with the tough work of providing basic financial services that the banks should have been providing if they were living up to their obligations under their charters. They have abandoned the inner cities. Credit unions have fallen in to take their place and this bill might add an unnecessary financial burden on them.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was quite pleased to hear my hon. colleague talk about the role of the credit union movement.

Where I come from in Timmins--James Bay, my family goes back a long way with the credit union movement. The Anguses were solid members of the Worker's Co-operative, which, in those days, was called the red credit union. My grandfather, Joseph MacNeil, who broke his back in the McIntyre Mine, was the credit manager for the Consumer's Credit Union, which was known as sort of the pink credit union.

These credit unions provided service when no one else would and they kept many people from losing their homes in tough times. In our region now, I am a solid member of the Caisse populaire. I will tell all members that the Caisse populaire in northern Ontario is an essential functioning element in terms of community development.

It seems to me that governments have never paid attention to the role that groups like the Caisse are playing in small towns across the north The government listens to the big banks, to the lobbyists and to the insiders, but it does not listen to the credit unions that are on the ground, doing the work and helping people. Why does the hon. member think that is the case?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay and I thank his ancestors who were founders and leaders in the credit union movement, doing us all a service.

We need to keep in mind that our charter banks were given the exclusive monopoly on certain very lucrative financial transactions, such as credit card transactions, in exchange for providing basic services to all Canadians wherever they are in the country and even sometimes when it is not the most profitable thing to do.

Nobody needs to have a tag day for the banks. They are making record profits every quarter and yet they are abandoning rural Canada and the inner cities, such as this flight of capital, this vote of non-confidence. Fifteen bank branches from the five charter banks have closed in my riding in the last five years and, in the riding of my colleague from Winnipeg North, which borders my riding of Winnipeg Centre, another dozen. That is 27 bank branches.

Who is backfilling that need for financial services? It is the payday lenders, the Money Marts, the Paymax, the scourge on society. I have seen the face of evil and it is the payday loan industry in Canada and in my riding.

The only people who can actually backfill and meet the needs of Canadians is the credit union movement. However, a person needs a fair amount of economic stability to even form a credit union or join a credit union. People should know their banking rights and they should know that the charter banks have abandoned Canadians.

The reason we got onto credit unions, and to get back to relevancy, is that the Credit Union Central of Canada made a very passionate submission to the committee citing its reservations about Bill C-25. It stated that it may be handicapped and hog-tied with this added financial burden of meeting the terms and conditions of Bill C-25 in terms of money laundering and tracking every transaction to monitor for illegal activity.

We all want to do what we can to defeat money laundering and illegal transactions by illegal terrorist groups but let us not put the added burden on the credit unions that may hog-tie their ability to serve the needs of Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, November 9, Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Income Tax Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, is deemed to have been read a third time and passed.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, November 9, 2006, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.