Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure in the brief time remaining to speak in favour of Bill C-52, which is a much needed piece of legislation.
Over the course of the last few months, unfortunately, we have seen some very serious white collar crimes occurring in North America and elsewhere which have literally ruined the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of North American residents.
We have all read the stories about Bernie Madoff and Earl Jones and how those two individuals set up Ponzi schemes that have literally bilked unsuspecting citizens of their entire life savings in some cases. This piece of legislation seeks to address those inequities. We seek, by this piece of legislation, to set in place a legislative process that would ultimately cause the Bernie Madoffs and the Earl Joneses of this world to think twice before they even begin to enter into the Ponzi schemes that we have seen.
As much as anything, this piece of legislation would send a very strong message to those people who are considering trying to set up a Ponzi scheme, a money for nothing, cheques for free type of thing, where they prey on innocent people.
Many times those innocent victims are senior citizens, people who have invested their life savings in a scheme because they trusted the individual who brought the so-called investment opportunity to them in the first place.
Think of the shock, think of the depression that some of these people would be feeling after they found out that their entire life savings, which they counted on to live on in their golden years, was completely gone. Many of these people have considered drastic steps, such as suicide. Some have attempted suicide. What have we done to try and correct it up to this point in time? We have done precious little.
Many times we have seen examples where fraudsters have gotten away with literally a slap on the wrist. They have served their sentences, whatever they may be in length, in conditional arrest, in the sanctity and the safety of their homes. This is no way to send a strong message to those would-be criminals out there that this has to stop.
We have to protect Canadians, and by protecting them I mean ensuring that if there are Ponzi schemes out there, if there are people out there who would even attempt this type of scheme to bilk money out of innocent victims again, they will be dealt with severely.
That is what this bill is about and that--