Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, who is also a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
He asked a two-part question. He mentioned cases in his province of Ontario. I would point out to him that in Quebec, we have had our own share of problems. We had the Norbourg and Earl Jones cases. In the Norbourg case, people had, or seemed to have, documents allowing them to sell certain products, but 9,800 people were nonetheless defrauded by a man by the name of Vincent Lacroix. As far as Earl Jones is concerned, he apparently was not licensed to sell a host of products involved in a Ponzi scheme in which he made off with about $150 million.
The problem is that criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated, so in addition to needing financial resources, we also need intellectual resources. In future, some lawyers might also have to be forensic accountants in order to understand the dynamics of these crimes. Fraud is so sophisticated that it can take some time to understand the entire system that was set up. In the Vincent Lacroix case, Caisse de dépôt et placement sold the products to a company called Norbourg, and the government itself issued all the licences. Nevertheless, 9,800 people were defrauded out of $115 million or $150 million.
We need resources, but we also need to invest in law schools in order to provide lawyers with training in forensic accounting to help them understand the system and how fraudsters operate.