Madam Speaker, I agree that we need to act on many fronts. It would be valuable for different levels of government, federal and provincial, to do more public awareness on this issue. I do not think there is any doubt about that.
As I mentioned in my remarks, we in the Liberal Party believe that banks should need to cough up financial reports much more quickly after a fraud is committed. I know that does not prevent the fraud from happening in the first place but I think it is incumbent upon the banks to react quickly to these situations.
I am not a banker. I do not work in a bank, obviously, and I do not know much about the nature of banking transactions within the banking sector. I would only hope that after the headline cases involving Earl Jones and others that the banks are being much more vigilant with respect to these transactions.
It is possible that the banks are being vigilant but that, in selected cases, someone within the bank was not doing his or her job, in which case that person should be held responsible and the banks standing behind the person should be held responsible. For example, if we find out that in some of these fraud cases an error was made by a bank and that the millions of dollars lost to the clients of Earl Jones, for example, were the result of a banking error, then the bank should be held responsible through the court system.
I agree with the hon. member that the banks have a responsibility always to keep a vigilant eye on what is going on.