Mr. Speaker, if anybody in this chamber knows about community it is this member. He has served as chair of the greater metropolitan area of Toronto. His father was the mayor of York. This man knows community.
Crimes of fraud touch all aspects of age, gender, location, geography, et cetera. What this bill does not do, anymore than the existing law, is crack down specifically on the greatest fraudsters.
I want to answer my friend's question. There is not enough attention paid to specific fraudsters here. In these cases that have been pointed out by law newsletters, regarding Earl Jones, Stan Grmovsek and Vincent Lacroix, the penalties meted out were well in excess of the two-year mandatory minimum that is in this bill. In other words, the existing law gave sentences variously of 14 years for Earl Jones and 39 months for Grmovsek, and led to in that case, under the existing code, the disgorgement or return of $8.5 million.
We ought to be considering what the United States does with respect to the control of assets and the control of money, because at the end of the day, the victims want their day in court. They want to see sentences, but also, and maybe primarily, they would like to have their money back. This bill does nothing towards that, so we ought not to raise false hope in my community or in the member's community that this is a panacea. It is not.