Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned that we did not go as far as other G8 countries, that we are playing catch-up and that in the vast evolving technology we will be playing catch-up for a lot longer.
My concern is that the bill includes fines but no criminal sanctions. It also does not provide a mechanism for us to even attempt to look at international information-sharing agreements so that there can be some co-operation and collaboration among countries to start to deal with this problem, because so many of these near fraudulent activities, or the process of committing fraud, originate internationally and are beyond the reach of our legislation.
If we are going to be playing catch-up for the foreseeable future, why would the government not consider an approach, such as the one we have in the Income Tax Act called the general anti-avoidance provisions, which basically says that, notwithstanding any other law that we have here or what the act says, if we determine that someone has found a new way to get around the law, he or she will be caught under the law in any event, because it is achieving the same thing that we were trying to deal with? It is trying to deal with it using a proactive approach.
Is the member aware of the government having made any indication whatsoever that it really wants to deal with this problem that carries approximately a $130 billion price tag around the world?