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.