Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. I do not think we will be issuing a written guarantee with the bill that it will cover absolutely everything. As we deal with this bill, I am sure there is a criminal mind out there trying to figure out a way to slide something through the existing net of legislation so that he or she will not get caught and charged.
The member has raised a very good reference point. This bill will do a whole lot to better protect the class of Canadian that she has described, but it does not address the financial implications directly. If a fraud is committed, the money is lost or the money is diverted.
The hon. member mentioned mortgage fraud. I know that criminals have found a way to do mortgage fraud. This usually involves a fairly large amount of money. It is not a $100 item. A mortgage is usually for $50,000, $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 and even more. They have found a way to manipulate the provincial land registration system in a way that allows a mortgage lender to be defrauded using a personal identity. I have a case in my constituency office involving just that. A lady is working her way back after two court cases. She has done a great job. She had to hire a lawyer once.
It is just awful that Canadians are put in this position. The Canadian victim will bear the burden of making the information correct and there will be allegations that the Canadian has borrowed the money under the mortgage. In the end it is usually provable that the individual did not, that it was a scam and it is the financial institution that would normally bear that liability.
There were occasions in the province of Ontario where the first response of the government of Ontario was that it would not change its law. A buyer for value in due course, which is a legal principle, of a piece of real estate, without notice of a fraud, is able to buy the land and does not have to bear the responsibility. People have had their registered property sold out from under them by a scam and they were not aware of it. This is usually a case where the owner of the real estate does not live on the real estate. It is tentative in some way.
Eventually, I am informed, the government of Ontario decided to change its law, change its policy, and the innocent victims of these scams are now apparently to be believed and they can get their land back, or they do not lose it.
The law two or three years ago was such that individual Canadians who were scammed had to bear the brunt of it. Now as I understand it, it would be the financial institution which has been defrauded that would bear the brunt of it and not the individual Canadian whose identity was used to perpetrate the fraud.
These things are still working their way through the courts and there are many different scenarios. The short answer to my friend's question is that the bill goes a long way to regularize and patch up the law, but there are still some open areas involving not criminal law, but civil law and the law governing financial transactions and mortgages that still may need some repair.