Madam Speaker, I was particularly determined to take part in this debate because many of the victims of self-styled financial advisor Earl Jones live on Montreal's West Island. It may be that most of them live there. In other words, a large number of those victims live in my riding of Lac-Saint-Louis. I personally know some of the victims or the loved ones of those who lost a fortune because of Mr. Jones' actions.
I would also like to commend the community of Montreal's West Island, the people of the community who pulled together to help these victims. Some people have even made personal donations to help victims get through this very difficult period in their lives.
I would also like to attest to the courage of many of these victims, who are in a very difficult financial situation and who continue to fight for change in the legal system to deal with white collar crime, which seems to be creating victims on a daily basis from what we see in the news.
Technically, fraud or financial crime is not a violent crime, but as the previous speaker pointed out, it is a crime that inflicts a form of violence on people. Some of the stories I have heard coming out of the Earl Jones case leave no doubt that people who have been victimized by him are under extraordinary stress.
I know of one case. I do not know the individual personally nor do I know the person's name, but I have heard in the community that one of the victims is a 99-year-old woman who was living in a retirement residence. She lost everything as a result of the fraudulent behaviour of Earl Jones. She is 99 years old and has to move to the home of one of her children. Everyone can imagine the shock to the system of someone who is 99 years old, who all of a sudden is subjected to a drastic change in her lifestyle. As I said, the previous speaker brought out many examples of people whose lives have been physically damaged by being victims of financial crime.
In the case of Earl Jones, when the story broke in this past summer, I attended a victims meeting along with elected representatives from other levels of government in my community. I was informed of some of the tactics Mr. Jones would use to defraud his victims. I would like to share some of them with the House.
Earl Jones would prey on people who were emotionally drained. For example, perhaps someone who had been caring for an ill loved one who had since died simply wanted someone to settle the estate and do the paperwork which unfortunately accompanies the death of a person. Earl Jones would convince such people, especially widows, to give him power of attorney so that he had control over their lives. In other words, he would have the power to sign all kinds of documents in their name, often without their knowledge.
He would also say to individuals that he would take care of everything for them, that they could have their phone bills and municipal tax bills sent to his office and he would pay them. In the last couple of years, as Earl Jones became financially squeezed, he would not pay the bills and the individuals in question would not know that the bills had not been paid because the late payment notices would go to Earl Jones. People suddenly woke up to the fact that their insurance had not been paid for a year and they were not insured, or that their taxes had not been paid for a year and a half and they were at risk of losing their home. This is a particularly underhanded crime.
We are talking about an extremely underhanded crime here. The government must take action against this type of fraud.
Not only are there repercussions on the health of the victims, but, as the hon. member who spoke before me was saying, these crimes undermine the public's confidence in the Canadian financial system. The Canadian financial system is extremely important to the health of the economy.
Such crimes shake people's trust in financial advisors in general. Many financial advisors across Canada, honest people, are suddenly being looked at suspiciously by people who are wondering whether their advisors are honest and trustworthy and whether their investment advice is sound. There are other victims in addition to those who lost significant amounts of money.
I am very proud that the Liberal Party was able to develop a platform or program that was comprehensive enough for this type of crime. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of the member for Beauséjour and Liberal justice critic, who helped develop this platform. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Michel Picard, Ph.D., a Liberal candidate in Saint-Bruno—St-Hubert, who worked for a number of years on the RCMP's anti-fraud unit, and who contributed a number of ideas regarding financial crimes to the Liberal platform. I would obviously like to thank the member for Bourassa for his contribution to this platform.
The bill is a step in the right direction but a couple of issues need to be addressed. One is the fact that even if the bill were to pass, it would still be possible for fraudsters, who have received a minimum two year sentence for defrauding their clients, to apply for parole after one-sixth of their sentence. Therefore, it is possible that, despite the public relations value of a two year minimum sentence, fraudsters would only serve a few months in jail. I do not know if the public would take very kindly to knowing that the bill leaves a gap in the current situation.
The other point is that this is not just a question of sentencing reform. Getting to the bottom of financial crime or preventing financial crime is not just a question of tightening the sentencing regime. These crimes can be complex. I would refer to a case in Calgary where the police have been investigating for a number of years but could not find evidence of wrongdoing until very recently. One of the reasons was that the financial arrangements were so complicated that it took a great deal of time, energy and effort to try to understand them.
Therefore, if we are going to stop financial crime in this country, we need to give the RCMP the resources it needs. It may only need to hire more officers or more forensic accountants, for example, but it is very important to give the RCMP the resources it needs to track what is happening when it suspects there might be some criminal activity. The government should be investing more in the RCMP and perhaps other police services to give them the capacity to follow these developments.
The other problem many victims have, and we have heard this first-hand from the victims of Earl Jones who have come to see me and from some of my colleagues, is that the banks are very slow in providing information following a fraud. For example, after a fraud it is very important that the victims obtain financial statements and different kinds of information from the banks but the banks are not required to provide this information within a specific period of time. The Liberal Party proposes that the banks be limited to 30 days for responding to an information request from victims of a fraud as that would accelerate the process of investigating and perhaps charging the alleged fraudster.
Another issue raised by victims of financial fraud is that when a fraud is discovered it turns out that previous tax returns going back many years often become a fiction and they have no way of going back beyond maybe the immediate year to amend tax returns and get some tax relief in the process. Victims have told me that when they go to see the tax authorities, whether they be federal or provincial, the tax authorities themselves do not know how to handle the situation. They just do not know what to tell these people. It is not just a question that their hands are tied by the law or by regulation. They do not even know where to begin. We may need to put more resources into training tax collectors or the people who work for Revenue Canada in how to deal with these situations, how to go back and look at previous tax returns so that maybe the victims can get some tax relief.
Another suggestion was brought to my attention. The government could require companies that operate under federal jurisdiction, like banks or telecommunications companies, to temporarily ease the burden for these victims. For example, for people who must continue to pay their phone bills, the companies could maybe give them a little 12-month break. Obviously, these customers would later reimburse the money they owe. As things stand, we can imagine a situation in which a telephone company would suddenly decide to cut off a victim's service because they had not paid their bills for a few months. Perhaps we should do something on this end to help victims of financial crimes, but obviously not with this bill.
I also would like to raise the issue of a national securities regulator. I am pleased the government adopted an idea from the Liberal platform on this issue, which was to refer the matter to the Supreme Court for some kind of guidance as to whether the federal government would have the constitutional authority to create a national securities commission. As the House knows, this was an idea put forward by the Liberal Party. It is much better to do that than to propose a commission and then to spend years in court when challenged by provinces like Quebec, Alberta and perhaps Manitoba in court waiting for a decision on whether the federal government has the constitutional responsibility or not.
I would like the government to provide more information on how a national securities regulator could prevent financial crime from happening in the future. I personally that the reason the government is proposing a national securities regulator is not so much to do with financial crime. That is a convenient reason in the current circumstances. Obviously, the government is looking at creating a national securities regulator perhaps as a means of integrating the Canadian economy more than it is presently in the hopes of stimulating more economic growth, and that the real reason is not to stop financial fraud.
Right now, no one on the government side has told us exactly how a national securities regulator would prevent financial crime. What will prevent financial crime is pouring more resources into police authorities so they can do the investigative work that they need to do.
Therefore, it would be helpful if the government would spell out exactly how creating a national securities regulator, how replacing one bureaucracy with another, would prevent financial crime. Perhaps there are some reasons why that would happen but they have not been highlighted yet.
The only thing I would like to add to my remarks is that it would be a good idea for the government, separately from this legislation, to begin international negotiations on a convention or some kind of agreement that would bring countries together to combat financial crime.
For example, when there is a financial crime, it might be hard for the banks of one country to get the information they need from the banks of another country. We have international agreements against terrorism, obviously, and we have international agreements to track other kinds of criminal activity, such as financial transactions involving money laundering and so forth, but maybe it is time for the government to take a somewhat multilateral approach to this and try to kickstart negotiations toward an international protocol to combat financial crimes.