Debates of Oct. 22nd, 2009

Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to say to my colleague, who is a criminal lawyer and expert on the Criminal Code, that what victims want is restitution.

Will this bill provide victims with restitution?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is no.

This bill will not provide restitution for the victims unless we take measures to address the root problems. I would like to quickly repeat that these white collar criminals plan their fraud and theft over a long period of time. It is not armed robbery, although it amounts to almost the same thing sometimes, but it is robbery carried out over a very long period of time. Thus, they have the time to move the money and to make it disappear. That is the problem.

It is not true that this bill alone will solve the problem. That is just not true. People are being asked to believe something that is not true.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-52 which proposes amendments to section 380 of the Criminal Code of Canada dealing with fraud and affecting the public market.

This is one of a series of crime bills which are brought before the House as part of the government's PR attempt to make it look as if it is tough on crime and other people in this House do not seem to be. I say that with some deliberation because it is part of the PR campaign. Otherwise, why would the government release this bill to the media before it even presented it to the House? I know that was the subject of a debate earlier today, as to whether it is a breach of privilege or not, and I understand the Speaker will rule on that at some point, but as part of the government's approach to this, it seems this is aimed at public relations.

Now that does not mean we will not support it because I think Canadians do want to know that parliamentarians care about white collar crime. It is important, particularly the kind of crime that affects people whose savings have been taken, supposedly in good faith, by people for investment or other purposes and they are defrauded of their savings, their pensions or their right to benefit from the money they entrusted to other people.

However, this bill would not create any new crimes. In fact, the real problem with white collar crime, in particular frauds of this nature, is not the lack of sentencing tools available but the lack of prosecution and proper investigation.

We see lots of frauds when they are complained about but the investigations take one year, two years, sometimes three years before they are actually prosecuted. That seems to be the real weakness in the prosecution of crimes.

If we are going to be tough on crime, supposedly, we ought to be very adept at conducting prosecutions, doing investigations and providing resources for that particular purpose, but that is where our system is lacking. It is not lacking at the other end. I will give an example.

One of the provisions of this bill, and perhaps even the major provision that the government likes to wave around, is one that would provide for a two-year minimum sentence for frauds involving over $1 million. Again, that is not necessary because judges will recognize the value of the fraud in determining a sentence.

We had a sentencing in our province of Newfoundland and Labrador six or eight months ago involving a fraud of considerably less, perhaps less than $200,000, and the sentence given was two years less a day for a fraud involving about one-fifth of the million dollars that has been put forth here as a minimum sentence.

It is a perception that the government is trying to use for a public relations purpose as opposed to the reality of the need for a mandatory minimum sentence.

The bill itself is not a very strong reaction to the need to provide protection to the public on issues of fraud, particularly fraud affecting the markets, securities and the type of fraud that goes on in our country that receive a lot of headlines when they happen. It is the tools of prosecution and the tools of investigation that seem to be inadequate. On the sentencing end, that is a different story.

What do we have here? Well, the judges can consider restitution. In fact, the Criminal Code has provision for restitution orders under sections 738 and 739. There is no compunction here for the individuals to pay restitution. It really just stipulates that the court shall consider making a restitution order under sections 738 and 739.

I would suspect that the judges do not need to be told. These judges are intelligent, educated people who are administering the Criminal Code and who are being advised by prosecutors when a situation calls for restitution. Surely, the government is not suggesting that a judge would not consider making a restitution order where one was warranted.

How strong is that in terms of an additional tough on crime sanction? Surely, particularly in the case of fraud where a victim has been deprived of his or her savings, pension or income, that restitution would be a top priority in any sentencing regime without the need for some specific direction to the court.

The government seems to be suggesting, and I hear it as part of their rhetoric from time to time when its talks about these liberal judges, et cetera, that somehow these judges do not care about the victims of crime. As of next April, I will have been a member of the practising bar for 30 years. In my experience the judges are extremely concerned about the victims of crime, particularly when there is an economic crime where the possibility of restitution exists. That would be the number one priority.

Obviously there have been a lot of changes in our Criminal Code over the last number of years concerning victim impact statements and the possibility of those individuals who are victims of crime coming before the court and telling of the financial and psychological impacts, the kinds of things for which the bill provides. That happens all the time.

The aggravating factors must be considered and I do not see anything particularly wrong with enumerating them, but they are also part of the precedence of our court. Aggravating factors in sentencing would include the kinds of things that are suggested, the impact of the fraud on the victim, whether the offender complied with applicable licensing rules or professional standards, the magnitude, duration and complexity of the fraud and the degree of planning. Degree of planning and premeditation is always a consideration when a judge is looking at sentencing.

While these things may add, to some extent, to the recognition that there are particular issues with respect to fraud that ought to be taken into consideration, the bill is substantially weak in that regard.

What is really needed to protect Canadians from the kind of frauds that we are talking about is better regulation, the kind of regulation that needs to ensure that the individuals who are taking people's money and investing it in trust are protected by significant regulations. This is the kind of thing that the government seems to avoid. It wants to have a free market. It does not like big government, too much bureaucracy or too much regulation. However, the way to help Canadians avoid being victims of this kind of crime is prevention.

One of the most significant deterrents to criminal behaviour is not necessarily the sentencing, and this is also true for many other criminal laws, it is whether people will be caught. That is a big, or bigger, deterrent. There is no point in having a sentence available if they are getting caught and we see no prosecutions. We see individuals not being investigated properly. We see people not being protected.

There is a lot of media attention being paid to the kind of sentences that take place in the United States. Recently, Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail. Somehow people think that is a great disincentive to committing a crime. I do not see how that is more of a disincentive than 120 years, or 130, or 75 to a 60 or 70-year-old man. It is only foolishness.

That is the kind of hyperbole that the Americans have gone to in order to somehow convince people there is a deterrence effect. Bernie Madoff carried on his fraud for 25 years without being caught. That is the biggest incentive to commit crime, that people can get away with it for many years without being caught.

We need a system that better regulates, investigates and ensures that people who handle the money of individuals are subject to the kind of regulation, intense scrutiny and high standards that should be expected of people who act in those kinds of positions of trust. That is where the problem is.

First, if we want to be tough on crime, we should ensure that the people who commit crimes have a disincentive because they will be caught if they carry on this type of behaviour. Second, if there are any complaints being made, they are thoroughly and swiftly investigated. These are perhaps more important, by far, than the kind of measures that exist in this legislation.

The mandatory minimums, we have a problem with that. Our party is committed to sending the bill to committee, so we will support it at second reading.

The bill itself is weak. It does not provide the kind of protection that people need and it is not really much of an improvement over what we have had before. However, there does need to be a message sent that white-collar crime is taken seriously. It is important that society is not satisfied to let people, who happen to engage in this kind of fraud and behaviour, get away with it. They should not be treated any differently than other criminals. These are serious crimes and that they ought to be taken seriously.

If we really take them seriously, we would ensure that they are investigated promptly, that every complaint be followed up seriously, that there be considerably greater regulation and control over people who handle money from members of the public who have been offered rates of return. The Government of Canada needs to play a stronger role. It is not simply a matter of the government saying it is tough on crime. It wants to have mandatory minimums for any crime it can think of and make it look as it is tough on crime but the other parties do not support that. There has to be some sense in this kind of amendment. We just cannot willy-nilly amend the Criminal Code and hope people will believe that somehow they are better protected. In my view the increased protection provided to ordinary Canadians by this legislation is not very strong.

Maybe the message will get out somehow so people feel that being tough on crime is going to deter those people, but what is the mandatory minimum of two years going to do? Will that convince someone only to defraud someone to the extent of $900,000 instead of $1 million? Can they get under the wire and avoid the mandatory minimum sentence? This is foolishness, the very idea of mentioning it brings up the fact that this is a fairly arbitrary type of number.

As I mentioned earlier, we can give greater than two year sentence for a fraud of significantly less than $1 million when it is deserved, when the aggravating factors are there and when premeditation is there. When the victims have been harmed to the extent that they have been harmed in other cases, the courts have adequate tools to provide the kind of deterrence as required. That is what we are talking about.

The Criminal Code is supposed to be a tool for the use of society and of courts and judges to satisfy the prevention of crime, the protection of society, the punishment of criminals and to help victims as much as they can be helped by the courts in these circumstances.

The question is this. Does this make that tool more effective? Maybe it sends a message, but I have never been a big fan of mandatory minimums. They can be a deterrent to a proper sense of justice. I am not suggesting there may easily be circumstances where someone defrauds more than $1 million is not entitled to a sentence greater than two years. I do not think we need to tell judges that. In fact, perhaps all we are doing, by suggesting a mandatory minimum of two years, is playing catch-up with what the judges are already doing.

Anyone who closely follows sentencing decisions, the courts always take into account what the community feels, the reaction of a community to a particular type of crime. An offence is more than just an offence against certain individuals. It is also an offence against community standards. If the community is very concerned about this type of crime, about people being taken advantage of in fraud circumstances, there will be a stronger response from the judiciary.

We have seen that already when the white-collar criminals get before the court. Our problem is, despite all the high profile cases we see in the United States, we do not see very many in Canada. How many prosecutions have there been? There have been so few that they are sensational when they come forward. What jail is Conrad Black in? He is not in a Canadian jail. He broke all these laws in Canada, but he is not in a Canadian jail, he has not been prosecuted in Canada.

We do not see many Canadians who have been prosecuted for white collar crime. There is a lack of substantial action by the Government of Canada to ensure white-collar crime is pursued, investigated properly and brought quickly to the courts for a decision. I do not assume anybody who is charged is guilty, but it should be brought quickly to the courts. A proper investigation should be done and the matter should be brought before the court. If a decision is made that the person is guilty of this kind of crime, the person should be treated as quickly and as appropriately as possible.

Passing legislation in the House for the sake of passing legislation and for the sake of having another bill to add to the government's list of tough on crime bills, which for various reasons other parties may or may not support, is just playing politics with the reality of a serious problem about which Canadians are concerned.

The people in Montreal who have been victims of Mr. Jones, who has yet to be convicted of any crime, have lost the money they invested with him. He has been accused of serious crimes. The consequences for those individuals are absolutely devastating. When people are dependent upon an income from funds they have deposited so they can live in an apartment and have a lifestyle for which they have saved and are all of a sudden thrown out of that and cast into poverty, it is absolutely devastating and ought not to happen. That is why it is a crime.

Why does that happen? It does not happen because the sentences are not strong enough. It happens because the kind of regulation under which this activity takes place is not strong enough. People need the ability to complain about alleged fraud and have those complaints taken seriously. When someone does complain, it should raise a red flag, an investigation should be triggered and it should be stopped and prevented long before it gets to the stage where hundreds and perhaps thousands of people have been defrauded and have lost their savings and investments. A more vigorous approach to investigation, prosecution and prevention are the important factors we would like to see pursued, not merely some changes in the Criminal Code, which are frankly quite weak.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there have been a few cases of white collar fraud in my riding of Sudbury. The individuals affected by that are usually seniors who have put their trust in an individual to invest their money wisely. We have seen scandal and scheme again and again take dollars from seniors.

Could the hon. member talk a little more about a system that better regulates and investigates, some of the things he spoke about in his speech? What does he think that should be and is there anything like that in the bill?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, many a fraud takes place in my own province of Newfoundland and Labrador. A few years ago a funeral director took money from hundreds of people for their funerals and spent it money on his own lifestyle. When people died, their family looked to this individual for the funeral costs. In Newfoundland it is colloquially called burying money. It is very important for seniors, certainly in my province, who believe they have a responsibility. They do not want to be a burden on anyone when they die, so they save money for their funeral costs. Even people who are not at all wealthy ensure they have a small fund available to take care of the burial costs when they die. The pity of it is individuals who are concerned about that have entrusted their money to an individual and then find that trust has been betrayed by a fraud. It is particularly devastating.

How was that fixed? Obviously by criminal prosecution, but also by establishing particular rules for setting up trust funds, reporting and regulation. A better set of regulations is needed. When people take funds from individuals, they have to be regarded as the trustees of those funds and there should be control of those trusts. There should be a regime of inspection and reporting.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the hon. member's remarks. I would like to lob at the member a couple of thoughts with respect to the bill. Would the member accept that one of the reasons for the apparent need for legislation follows upon the vast increases in wealth in our society, large increases in wealth among the middle class, and the proliferation of financial instruments and people who buy and sell those things?

Second, would he care to rebut the apparent suggestion by many on the government side that the reason we have a problem is that our prosecutors, police and judges have all let us down?

The bill actually does not do too much. It does a few good things to update legislation and at least it allows all of us in the House to show our electors that we are not asleep at the switch when these large frauds are taking place.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member is right. There is a proliferation. There is way more money around now than there was 20 years ago. I do not think our society has caught up with what to do about that. Individuals who have access to the money for one reason or another do not necessarily have the sophistication to deal with it on their own. They are relying on people who come forward and offer themselves as people who will look after their money. There is a high degree of trust involved, trust that unfortunately is often misplaced.

That is why we need the kind of regulation that we are talking about. It is not simply a matter of the prosecutors and judges letting us down. On the police side, I do not know if they have at their disposal the resources they need.

If it is a question of the police not having enough resources, this is something that the Government of Canada can help with. If someone came into the House on the government side and said, “We have a proposal to increase the ability of the RCMP at the national level or police forces across the country to investigate and get quickly to the bottom of any allegations of white-collar fraud”, we would be all for it.

That would be fighting crime of this nature, but we cannot just blame the police and blame the prosecutors and judges. We have to say we have a solution that actually will provide some measure of support for people across the country.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member on his speech.

In answer to a question, he just commented that if the government side brought forward legislation to help our prosecutors, our RCMP and our police forces, he would have no problem standing up and supporting that.

Let me ask the member this. If legislation comes forward, as has come forward in the past, as we had with violent crimes, to tackle some of the drug issues that we have, and our police officers, our law enforcement community and our prosecutors say that it is going to help them and give them the tools that they need, even if it provides within it mandatory minimum sentencing, would the member stand up and support the legislation or would he vote against it simply because of that provision?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose that is a bit of a theoretical question.

This legislation is going to committee. The member's suggestion is a philosophical point. I thought he was going to get up and ask why we voted against salary increases for RCMP officers when we voted against the budget. That is the usual kind of tactic that we hear from the other side.

However, I think the member asked a fair question. Mandatory minimums are a bad thing. We do not need that in legislation. We are suggesting to the House that we will support this legislation in principle at second reading because it provides some direction to the courts and sends a little bit of a signal that perhaps a more serious approach might be taken to white-collar crime and fraud, but we do not think this bill really provides a lot of tools.

The kind of tools that I suggest that the RCMP or the police forces across the country need are more resources to be able to do a more effective job in investigating these crimes.

Whether we will support the bill at the end of the day, I am not prepared to say at this point. We are sending the bill to committee, and the committee will discuss it. Mandatory minimums are a problem. They have been unsuccessful in the United States and we will have to wait and see whether this is in the bill when it comes back to the House.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP will be voting in support of Bill C-52 at second reading to get it to the committee. However, the government is acting after the horse is already out of the barn. The victims want restitution in these situations, but they are not going to get it. A lot of false hopes are being raised for the public.

As the Bloc member mentioned, the government shows no initiative to close down the tax havens in the Cayman Islands, where these fraudsters are hiding their money. We have to stop the fraudsters in the beginning before this happens by strengthening the regulatory bodies. We have to get rid of the industry insiders who are sitting in the regulatory seats, and we have to license the participants and properly police them.

If we do all of that, we are not going to have the problems that we are having right now.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's comments remind me of the former existence of crimes compensation boards across this country that were at one time funded by the Government of Canada but no longer are.

As a result, a number of provinces including my own have shut down their criminal injuries compensation boards, which provided some support for victims of crime. Perhaps the government would consider reintroducing those.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be splitting my time with the member for Kelowna—Lake Country today.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the subject of Bill C-52, which amends the Criminal Code with respect to tougher sentences for fraud.

This bill contains a number of provisions that will help to ensure that perpetrators of serious fraud receive tougher sentences. These measures will send a strong message that fraud is a serious crime for which there are serious consequences, and this in turn will increase public confidence in the justice system, particularly in light of some recent high-profile fraud cases we have been hearing about in the media.

Under Bill C-52, the harm suffered by victims of fraud will be an important consideration for judges when imposing sentences on offenders convicted of fraud. The Government of Canada is committed to responding to the concerns of victims of all types of crime, including fraud and white-collar crime.

Today I would like to focus my remarks on two of the measures in this bill that centre on the need to consider the harm done to victims.

Bill C-52 contains provisions designed to encourage the use of restitution orders in fraud cases. The Criminal Code currently enables judges to order offenders to pay restitution to victims in appropriate circumstances. Restitution may be ordered to help cover monetary losses incurred by victims as a result of bodily or psychological harm or damage to property caused by the crime. It may also be ordered to cover the expenses incurred by the members of the offender's household as a result of moving out of the household in cases of bodily harm or threat of bodily harm.

The amount of restitution must be readily ascertainable and not in dispute. It cannot be ordered for pain and suffering or other damages. It can be assessed only in civil courts. Restitution may be ordered as a stand-alone order or as a condition of probation or a conditional sentence.

Bill C-52 would require judges to consider restitution in all cases of fraud involving an identified victim with ascertainable losses. Under these proposals, if a judge decided not to make a restitution order, he or she would have to give reasons for declining to do so.

In addition, before imposing a sentence on an offender found guilty of a fraud offence, Bill C-52 would require a judge to enquire of the prosecutor whether reasonable steps had been taken to provide victims with an opportunity to indicate whether they were seeking restitution. This provision is designed to ensure that sentencing does not take place before victims have had a chance to indicate that they would like to seek restitution from the offender, and would allow time for victims to establish the amount of their monetary losses.

Finally, Bill C-52 includes a standard form for claims for restitution in cases of fraud. While the use of this form would not be mandatory, the availability of a standard form should facilitate the process for victims who are seeking restitution.

Taken together, the proposals in Bill C-52 concerning restitution, if adopted, should ensure that victims are given the opportunity to seek restitution from offenders found guilty of fraud and encourage courts to make greater use of restitution orders in appropriate cases.

Bill C-52 also contains provisions aimed at encouraging courts to consider the impact that fraud can have not only on individuals but also on groups and communities. The Criminal Code currently requires courts, when sentencing an offender, to consider a victim impact statement describing the harm done to or loss suffered by a victim of the offence.

Canadian courts have already, in previous cases, considered victim impact statements made on behalf of a community. When a group of people have been targeted for fraud, many of them, including even some who are not financially impacted, may suffer consequences. Bill C-52 would explicitly allow courts to consider a statement made by a person on a community's behalf describing the harm done to or losses suffered by the community when imposing a sentence on an offender found guilty of fraud. These community impact statements would be an effective means by which a particular community, such as a neighbourhood or a senior's club, for example, could make the court more fully aware of the harm suffered as a result of the fraud.

Recent events, including those in Quebec and Alberta, have highlighted the terrible impact that white collar crime can have on individual Canadians and our communities. Bill C-52 would go a long way to ensuring that the harm done to, and losses suffered by, victims are recognized as important factors that must be taken into account when dealing with those who perpetrate these reprehensible crimes.

While improving the responsiveness of the justice system for victims of fraud is obviously a priority for this government, other aspects of the bill go straight to the heart of the sentencing process and affect the sentence that fraudsters can expect to receive.

Briefly, the bill would clearly instruct courts to impose a minimum sentence of two years for fraud with a value over $1 million. Many frauds are well over that amount so we would expect significantly higher sentences in those cases.

The bill also describes additional aggravating factors which should be applied in sentencing the accused, including consideration of the particular impact the crime had on its victims.

Finally, the bill would permit a sentencing court to help prevent additional victimization by ordering that the offender in no way work or engage in volunteer activities that involve having authority over people's money or real property.

Taken together these proposals represent a complete package of reforms to reflect the seriousness of fraud offences for communities and individuals.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House this afternoon to speak on a very important piece of legislation, the subject of Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud).

The bill would target the fraudsters who have recently been the focus of so many stories in our local papers and discussions at local coffee shops around the country.

Let me speak a little bit about what fraud looks like today and why this is a problem that truly deserves our attention.

Some of today's criminals are so sophisticated and imaginative that anyone could fall victim to their schemes. The variety of fraudulent schemes is mind-boggling. These are organized crime gangs that forge lawyers' documents and real estate title documents, and fraudulently sell or mortgage properties that do not belong to them. There are reported incidents literally of houses being sold out from under homeowners or homeowners returning from absences to find strangers living in their houses. It is hard to believe.

There are still the old-fashioned telemarketing scams of various sorts. People are called out of the blue and told they have won a contest or a prize, offered a desirable item to purchase or asked to make a charitable donation to a good cause.

We all have a responsibility to do our due diligence, but often it is hard for Canadians to distinguish legitimate businesses and charities from those which are scams. The result is that the Canadians and foreigners continue to be defrauded out of millions. Familiar to so many of us are the securities frauds, the Ponzi schemes as they are often known as, accounting frauds which specifically overstate the value of a stock, and other complex schemes designed to trick investors into making investments they would not otherwise make if they knew what was really going on. In these cases, as we know, the losses are just staggering.

These securities frauds have also had the horrible effect of diminishing the confidence Canadians have in the capital markets, in Canadian companies, and in the regulatory authorities that are supposed to ensure that business practices are transparent and accountable. And the list goes on and on.

PhoneBusters, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre, lists over 20 different types of scams which are currently active. Some are particularly frightening.

In one scam, which PhoneBusters calls the “Hitman Email”, consumers apparently receive emails sent by a supposed hitman who says he has been hired by someone to assassinate the recipient. The sender demands a large sum of money in return for not carrying out the mission.

Of course, many of us receive that mysterious email from the Nigerian prince to send $20,000 and we will be rewarded handsomely.

Other scammers prey on people's affection for animals. We all love animals. A photo of a dog is advertised with a caption saying that the owners are moving and that new owners are being sought; whereas just for a small fee, if someone sends it, the animal could be theirs and as soon as the money is sent, there is no animal and the money just seems to disappear.

There is also the home renovation fraud. I represent the constituency of Kelowna—Lake Country where there are many seniors and they are often susceptible to smooth-talking salesmen. There are fraudulent travel advertisements on eBay and other online classified site scams. The list is endless.

Fraudsters could be such productive members of our society if only they used their creativity in law-abiding ways. Instead, they take advantage of innocent people for their own gain.

In my own riding of Kelowna—Lake Country, last month Gloria Lozinski told CTV Canada AM that her sister committed suicide when she realized she lost her life savings, about $300,000, in the Ponzi scheme based out of Alberta. Lozinski said her sister, Edna Coulic, called her to tell her what had happened. “She said she lost everything,” Lozinski explained. “I asked her to elaborate and she said she [just] got conned. Lozinski said Coulic was convinced that she was set to get a big return and that the people involved did everything to convince her that was the case. “They had her believe she had to get a safety deposit box”, Lozinski said. When she realized there was not going to be a return, Coulic contacted the people involved several times, pleading with them to return her money, said her sister. “Edna became Edna no more,” her sister said. Her demeanour had changed. She became anti-social and depressed. Shortly after, she took her life.

This is the kind of devastation that white-collar crime has on the lives of real people, people in my riding and families across the country. After decades of indifference, Canadians are now waking up to a world in which there is a scam around every corner. No one is immune.

These are true crimes which cause true suffering, and it is time that criminal justice began to take fraud seriously again.

This bill would improve the Criminal Code sentencing provisions for fraud to ensure that sentences imposed on offenders adequately reflect the harm they cause. For frauds which have crossed a certain monetary threshold, that is to say that they have a value of $1 million or more, there would be a minimum sentence of two years imposed. Of course, if the fraud was larger than that, as so many are, or if there were other aggravating factors at play, the sentence should be well above two years.

Speaking of aggravating factors, Bill C-52 would also add additional factors to the list in the Criminal Code for fraud offences. The bill would make clear that if the fraud had a particular significant impact on victims because of their financial situation, their health or any other factor, that should aggravate the sentence. Likewise, the more sophisticated or complex the fraud is, the longer it lasted, the higher the sentence should be.

If the offenders failed to comply with application regulations, such as those which require them to have a licence to sell securities or if they concealed or destroyed the records which would show where the money went, these factors would also increase the sentence.

Bill C-52 also seeks to help mitigate future frauds. The prevention element is found in the new prohibition order which can form part of an offender's sentence. When ordered by a judge, the offender could be prohibited from having authority over another person's money, real property or valuable securities in any employment or voluntary capacity.

This is very important, the fact that justice needs to be seen to be done. There has to be truth in sentencing. This means that convicted fraudsters can be prevented from deceiving others into handing over money again. Failure to abide by this prohibition would itself be an offence.

The bill would also help to improve the responsiveness of the criminal process for victims of fraud. It would require the sentencing court to consider if restitution should be ordered, and it would permit the court to receive a community impact statement in cases where a community, in addition to the individuals, has suffered from the fraud.

This is a very important addition, the fact of a community impact statement. Some people may not have been personally defrauded, but it has had a holistic impact on the seniors population or a condominium complex or strata or a group of investors.

I encourage all Canadians to visit the PhoneBusters website to better inform themselves of the scams that are swirling around their mailboxes and telephone answering machines. There is also excellent information on the RCMP website and the websites of local police forces. Consumer agencies also have lots of useful information.

We have awakened in this country to the world of fraud that has previously gone unseen. Education is our first line of defence. The more Canadians know, the better they will be able to protect themselves beginning with the first tenet, if the offer seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

I am confident the measures in this bill will help send a strong message to the fraudsters out there that their time is up. They are doing a cost-benefit analysis and saying that it is not too bad, they can take a risk because the reward is greater. Not anymore.

I am pleased that this bill can act as a springboard for discussion and raising awareness about fraud more generally. I am hopeful and encouraged by the members who have spoken here today. I encourage all hon. members to support this bill and to help ensure it is passed into law as quickly as possible.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke about a number of situations in his own riding. I think many of us in this House could speak about those. He spoke about a number of dollar values. I wonder if he could tell the House why the amount of $1 million was established as the breaking point for this.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, in fact, it is one of the questions I asked when we were discussing this bill, why $1 million, not $1.5 million or $500,000?

The fact is that $1 million is basically established as the benchmark within fraud in criminal case laws within the courts. We also have to realize that a fraud of this size can only be described as large scale and would have been the result of a great deal of time and energy. In essence it is premeditated. There is a lot of planning that has to go into it.

Such frauds demonstrate a tremendous amount of contempt and disregard for law-abiding Canadians, the fact that people fall prey and become victims of their scheme.

The law should be clear that any fraud of that scope must be met with a minimum term of imprisonment. We believe $1 million is the appropriate level.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, this is an initiative that we support as well, at least as far as getting the bill to committee is concerned.

The government is offering a lot of false hope that people are going to be able to get restitution in these cases of fraud. The member should know that the people who are perpetrating these frauds are actually spiriting the money out of the country. It is being hidden in tax shelter areas like the Cayman Islands. The government would be well advised to develop a strategy in that regard and try to shut down these tax havens. Furthermore, it should try to license participants, police them more properly and set up a proper regulatory body that does not have a lot of industry insiders regulating the industry.

That is where the problems are. This law is to deal with the problem after it has already reached the point where there is probably nothing left in terms of restitution for the people. I would ask the government to reconsider how it is approaching this matter. The legislation should be at the end of the process, not at the beginning of it.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do not accept the premise of my hon. colleague's question, but I do support the fact that there are other measures that could be taken as we proceed.

As I mentioned in my comments, this is a springboard for further discussion to move other pieces of legislation forward. In fact, we are dealing with Bill C-52. We are looking at minimum mandatory sentencing. We need to deal with economic crime and the serious effect that white collar crime has on families and communities across the country.

There is a provision within the proposed legislation. It is very exciting. Restitution will be required in the sense that the judges will now have to work with the victims. There will be an online form. They will be able to work with the Crown prosecutor and ensure that the dollar value is calculated. If restitution is not provided, the judge has to provide reasons.

This is one of the most proactive aspects of this bill. We want to make sure that people get the money back. It is often said that these carpetbaggers take the money and do not pay it back. They have to pay it back and they also have to do the time that fits the crime.

This is one step in the journey of many bills that are in the House. With the way it is right now, criminals could receive house arrest for committing a crime. That is ridiculous. We need to continue to support this as a whole House. This is a non-partisan issue and it is for the benefit of all Canadians.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

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.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member made several important points.

When we look at the United States and the case of Mr. Madoff, Harry Markopolos found out about this Ponzi scheme 10 years ago and turned over all the information to the SEC. However, when he was asked how long it took him to find out about it, he said that he became immediately suspicious because Madoff never reported losing money in any month. He knew it was a fraud in about five minutes.

The fact is that the ability is there for people to pick up on these frauds at very early stages.

We just recently developed money laundering laws that require real estate and insurance people to report suspicious transactions. The key here is the banks. The commonality that these fraudsters use is the banking system. The banks are already required to report deposits over $10,000 in cash, but we should have stricter reporting requirements on the banks.

I liked his idea about forensic auditing, because that is part of it too, but the tools are all there right now. We just need to work together, rather than having a kind of hands-off disinterest in this problem. These people have been operating right under the noses of the banking system all these years.

The government needs to spend more time advertising the problem. It has millions and millions of dollars for feel-good advertising, for “the land is strong and vote Conservative” ads, but it should be running advertising campaigns on this very problem, on how to report and how to discover these sorts of fraudulent activities.

There are a lot of different areas that we should be looking at right now. The tools are out there. We just need to act on them.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

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.

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

Madam Speaker, I found it a little puzzling that the NDP member would ask us to advertise how to catch criminals and what criminals will get as far as penalties, but, at the same time, he does not want the government to advertise how Canadians can take advantage of tax savings, how they can help themselves and how they can have a boost in confidence in our Canadian economy. I find that somewhat puzzling but it is good to see that the NDP is finally getting onside with the government's tough on crime agenda.

It should be noted that the Liberals are finally, in this place at least, coming forward and supporting the Conservative government. I wish they could convince the members in the other place to do the same.

However, I wonder if the member could comment on the statutory aggravating circumstances and the new four aggravating circumstances that are being put into the bill, specifically the impact of the fraud on the victims, the complexity and magnitude of the fraud, the failure of the offender to comply with the applicable rules and regulations, and any attempt by the offender to conceal or destroy records relevant to the fraud.

Quite frankly, I think most Canadians would think that those things should have been put in place long ago by a previous Liberal government, and obviously was not, but we have finally moved forward on those four particular aggravating circumstances that are very crucial to the sentencing factor. I wonder if he could comment on that.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, these appear to be good, sound ideas. Yes, it is very important to take account of the repercussions of the fraud on the victim and also on the community. As I was saying before, when a fraud like this occurs, it impacts the livelihood of financial advisers everywhere. All of a sudden they find themselves under suspicion and no doubt there has been a drop in their business. It is good to bring in the idea of the impact on the community.

I would urge the hon. member not to view this as a partisan issue. Unfortunately, often terrible situations must occur before governments act. The government has had four years to address this issue, but is only addressing it after the Earl Jones case has come to light.

It is important that we treat this as a non-partisan issue because the victims themselves do not have much patience. It is good that the government has brought in some legislation. It is good that the parties are working together to send the bill to committee.

I do not think there is anyone in the House who does not feel sympathy for victims of financial crime. Earl Jones' crime was committed in my riding. There really is not a day that goes by that I do not think about those victims and what the loss of their lifesavings means for them and their families.

There are some very good ideas in this legislation. Maybe we could make the legislation better, tougher when it gets to committee. That is the crux of the issue.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to point out what may be an omission in the statute and I wonder whether the member has noticed it or wants to comment on it.

Clause 4 in the bill deals with prohibition orders against those who are convicted of these types of crimes. The prohibition order would allow the court to give an order prohibiting the offender from seeking, obtaining or continuing any employment or becoming a volunteer in any capacity that involves having authority over money, et cetera. What it does not deal with is a fraudster who is self-employed. The prohibition order only deals with employment or volunteering.

I do not know whether there are any members here on either side of the House who sit on the justice committee where the matter will be addressed.

I can think of one fraudster from Toronto who defrauded many people by selling faulty franchises. A group of people tried to deal with this and get a response from the feds or the province, but they felt that they fell between two jurisdictions. They never did get anything.

The portion of the bill dealing with prohibition orders could address the current problem of the guy who sold all the phony franchises. He is still out there selling phony franchises. The guy is self-employed and most of these guys are. They do not care if they are employees or not.

Could the member comment on that?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague has brought up an important point. That is precisely why committee work is important. It is precisely why we need to send the bill to committee to round out the rough edges.

No doubt members on the government side have taken note of the hon. member's point and hopefully that will be addressed at the justice committee.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-52, an act to amend the Criminal Code, which deals with sentencing for fraud.

Before I get into the body of my speech, I want to say that during the break last week and the summer recess, members had the opportunity to go into their constituencies and hear the real concerns of constituents. Not so much during the summer but during break weeks when the schools are still operating, we have the opportunity of going into the schools and speaking to students in grade 6, grade 9 or grade 12 where the curriculum deals with governance and governing.

We have the pleasure of telling students part of what our job in this place is. We have the responsibility of representing constituents, their ideas and concerns here in this remarkable institution. We also have the responsibility of taking their concerns and building law. Sometimes we see a real common sense need for a law change. Other times we hear about certain aspects of law that should be changed to address certain concerns.

The bill we are debating today deals with the frauds that we have heard about more and more often over the past number of years. Stories have come out of the United States. Stories have come out of every province in Canada. They have been around for a long time.

It seems that as time goes on, there is a greater propensity for people to get involved in schemes that are the plan of someone who has sat down, concentrated and drawn up a Ponzi scheme or some type of scam. People get involved in things that may have a certain degree of common sense to them but later they find out that it has drifted and become fraudulent and the people who have perpetrated those offences have done it knowingly. Members have an opportunity to speak about that in the House.

In my riding numerous people have phoned me about these types of scams, schemes and frauds. These things have cost them. We can sit back and think of all the terms that we use, such as, buyer beware, huge risk investments, all those types of things, but speaking to these people on the phone or sitting down in a coffee shop and dealing with individuals who have been hit hard in some cases, there are tears, passion and emotion. In some cases they have lost everything.

In his speech earlier, the minister described what fraud looks like today and why it is a problem for Canadians. Today's criminals are very sophisticated. Any Canadian could fall victim to their schemes.

As the minister said, there are numerous threats to Canadians when it comes to fraud. He mentioned a number of them. There are organized crime frauds. There are forgers, those who work their way into a fraudulent scheme by forging documents that look very official. There are fraudulent telemarketing scams, Ponzi schemes, security frauds, bogus charity scams, accounting frauds, all sorts of mail and personal information theft and many other schemes. It is becoming increasingly difficult for Canadians and their families to detect when they are dealing with legitimate businesses and legitimate charities, or with others that may be fraudulent.

A problem is that by the time many Canadians find out that what they have just invested in or what investments they have had for a number of years have been determined as being fraudulent, in some cases it is far too late. They have handed over their hard-earned dollars for an investment that appeared worthy and safe, but it was not.

Most of my riding is rural. In some cases, although our Internet connections may not be all that great, pretty well everyone is on high speed Internet. Many of the rural communities are not on high speed Internet yet, but through wireless and other things, we have access to it. We are as vulnerable as anyone living in the big cities. All Canadians have money they want to invest. We want to prepare for retirement. We want to be protected from losing the money we worked hard to earn.

In my constituency we see transfers of farms into the hands of the next generation. We see that less and less all the time because the next generation is not really buying into this whole farming thing, but that is another story. However, at some point we do see a transfer of farmland or business or however people have made their livelihood, and as they are ready to move into their retirement, they realize they have a little nest egg. They have cash in the bank. They have sold their farm. They have had their farm sale and they have the proceeds from the sale of the machinery. They have paid off some debts. There may be a small little nest egg left. Many times they are approached by those who are slick, who say they have a way for them to turn that little nest egg into a much larger one, and those people become vulnerable.

There are people in my constituency, indeed probably some who are related, who have received a phone call telling them they have won some gift if they pay for the shipping. They received that one gift, and that was real. They received their gift. Then all of a sudden they are told that if they send more money, they will get a bigger gift, and they have been chosen out of a lot of people. Pretty soon they have invested thousands and thousands of dollars into a scheme. The more they put into it, they realize that they have to keep contributing to the scheme or they could lose it all, so that is what they have done. They have been enticed into it. They are honest and good people who have never, ever thought of breaking a law or being caught up in something like that. The people at the other end are involved in organized crime or they are fraudsters. They do this to hundreds and hundreds of people. They do this to many people in my riding. I know this because I get the phone calls.

At some point Canadians and people around the world are defrauded out of millions of dollars. In some cases it is only $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, but the cumulative effect is that millions of dollars are made by those who say that they will set up a scheme to make some money.

In some cases, we know that the losses can be devastating to individuals and families. I will not go into the devastation that it causes, but we have heard about these losses ending in the break-up of a marriage, the break-up of a family.

A case was reported in the Calgary Herald about a son who knew that something was not right and that something was going on, so he investigated. He was one of the key individuals who brought down a Ponzi scheme into which had been drawn hundreds of people and cost Canadians millions of their retirement dollars. This is part of their response to those types of issues and those types of concerns that Canadians have.

Our government has been elected and re-elected to stand up for Canadians. Today with Bill C-52, we are helping Canada's criminal justice system stand up to fraud. The bill will improve the Criminal Code sentencing provisions for fraud to ensure that sentences imposed on offenders adequately reflect the harm they cause.

Once again we are putting the rights of the victim before the rights of the criminal. In most of our justice legislation, we believe the protection of society is the guiding principle. Bills like this serve to act as a deterrent to those who knowingly set up such a scheme.

For the type of legislation we bring forward today, frauds that have a value of $1 million or more, there will be a minimum sentence of two-year imprisonment. If the fraud was larger than that, as so many are or if there were other aggravating factors at play, the sentence could be well above the two years. This may seem lenient, particularly to victims who have been severely hurt by a white-collar crime. Again, I would remind them that this puts in place minimum sentences.

A number of years ago, a former government said that it would get tough on this kind of thing and it increased the maximum sentences. The problem is very seldom do we see where a judge ever imposes anything close to a maximum sentence. There may have been in a few cases. In many cases, those who set up such schemes, never see any jail or any prison time. This would give certainty to the fact that those who devised such fraudulent schemes would see time in prison.

Bill C-52 goes much further than that. It would also add additional factors to the list in the Criminal Code for fraud offences. The bill provides that if the fraud had a particularly significant impact on the victim because of their financial situation, health or other factors, age or retirement, then these factors should be considered as aggravating and increasing the sentence handed down to the perpetrator of the crime.

As well, Bill C-52 provides that the more sophisticated or complex the fraud is and the longer it lasted, the higher the sentence should be. If offenders broke regulations or if they concealed or destroyed records that would show where the money went and help recover it, that is if they tried to destroy evidence that would serve against them, then these factors should be considered as well and cause an increase in the sentence handed down to the convicted fraudster.

I mentioned just in passing that the legislation will serve as a deterrent. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to prevent future frauds. The prevention element is found in the new prohibition order, and this can be part of the offender's sentence.

Bill C-52 would make it so that offenders could be prohibited from having authority over another person's money, real property or valuable securities in any employment or any volunteer capacity after they served out their sentence. This means anyone convicted of deceiving innocent people through fraudulent means, enticing them into handing over money or tricking them or whatever, the individual could be prevented from doing it again.

If this measure is used against a fraud artist and that fraud artist continues his or her ways, then the person failing to abide by a prohibition would itself become an offence. We are also insisting that the sentencing court consider if restitution can be ordered. This is where we really give the victims their day in court.

Last night I sat down and read through the bill a number of times. One of the things I noted in it and which we have advocated for a number of years is the whole idea of restitution. The bill states:

As soon as practicable after a finding of guilt and in any event before imposing the sentence, the court shall inquire of the prosecutor if reasonable steps have been taken to provide the victims with an opportunity to indicate whether they are seeking restitution for their losses, the amount of which must be readily ascertainable.

It asks the victims to be prepared to list the amounts that they have lost. It makes it much more accountable in the fact that it is not just rumour that they have lost millions or thousands. It asks specifically how much they have lost and if it will move forward to restitution.

If the bill passes, the sentencing court can consider if restitution can be ordered. We give them their day in court, because the bill also allows for a community impact statement. We have heard about victim impact statements, which are very similar, but this would be an individual who speaks on behalf of the community or constituency of people who have been taken in by such fraudulent activity. In Bill C-52, we make provisions for the delivery in court before sentencing of the community impact statement.

We talk about one or two families or a retired family being hurt, and I have made reference to it in my speech. In many cases people have been hurt by the same scheme. Entire towns or communities can really be affected, although it can be interprovincial and intercontinental as well. The productivity and economies of those communities can be affected in a major way. We are providing an opportunity for these people to speak as an individual or as a community. We are also adding those statements to the considerations before he or she is being sentenced.

I was watching CBC one evening after a certain Ponzi scheme came to light. The individuals had been charged and arrested. I watched as the media covered the victims. One woman spoke on how her sister, I believe, had ended up taking her life for a number of reasons. It was not just because she had lost a lot of money in the scheme, but in some ways it was because she could not live with the fact that she had been sucked in. Other people were asking her how she could be sucked into such a scheme. It absolutely demoralizes the person who has been taken.

I have made some poor investments in my time and I stand back and I think shame on me. However, for some of those who have invested in a scheme where there is nothing to show for it, the shame and disappointment is beyond what they are able to cope with.

We have watched stock markets rise. We have seen people invest in markets and make a significant amount of money. We have seen recently where those markets have cooled down and fallen. People have lost money, but they realize the risk of the stock market or of those types of investments. However, when people put their investment into a program or plan that they believe has very little risk and they lose everything, in some cases it is more than they can live with.

I urge my constituents and all Canadians to take these types of schemes very seriously and to visit the RCMP website. There is excellent information on frauds that are occurring and how to protect themselves and their families. As the Minister of Justice has said, education is our first line of defence. I would encourage my constituents and all Canadians across the country to educate themselves.

I remember parents and grandparents saying, “If something sounds too good to be true, chances are it is”. Although we have seen a lot of things that paid off when we had the strong economy, we now have to educate ourselves. The more Canadians know, the better they will be able to protect themselves. I am proud that our government is standing up to the fraudsters and trying to protect innocent, vulnerable Canadians from them.

I appreciate the opportunity to bring this important issue forward and to speak on it here in the Parliament of Canada.