Madam Speaker, white collar crime is a serious issue, both in my riding of Sudbury and across Canada. It is a shame that the government has presented us with a weak bill to try and tackle this problem. We believe the government could have sat down with all three opposition parties and brought forward world-leading legislation to deal with the real problems facing Canada.
That does not mean that I will not support the bill. I believe that this legislation is an improvement over the status quo, but it does not remove the need for a debate like this. The public needs to know that we understand the shortcomings of this bill and that there are parliamentarians who are saying that this is a start but that alone it is not enough. The government needs to know that even though we will support this legislation we expect more.
This bill is actually the reintroduction of a bill in the last session of Parliament that was killed when the government decided to prorogue last winter. At that time, the government knew that this bill had support from all parties. Then, when the House was finally allowed to resume, the government brought forward other bills, other crime bills, which could not get through the House, as this bill will.
Too often, white collar crime is portrayed as a victimless crime. This simply is not the case. I remember when the previous version of this bill was debated in the House, my colleague from St. John's East, in answer to a question I asked, told us of a case in his riding where a funeral director in his riding took the money people had given him for their funerals and used it to fund his own lavish lifestyle. Unfortunately, as shocking as that story is, it is not an isolated incident.
I have heard from far too many seniors in my riding who had invested their money with someone they thought could be trusted to manage their investment only to find out, once it was too late, that they had been scammed.
An unfortunate example of this occurred in my riding in Sudbury about 10 years ago from the Montpellier Group. Pierre Montpellier was fortunately found guilty after he was extradited from the U.K. However, there were many seniors and families whose lives had been turned upside down by the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars and, in some cases, less than that. Although it was not the million dollars that we talked about earlier, it still had a huge impact on their lives.
White collar crime all too often targets those who have very little. Those investing large sums of money have the money and the time to protect their investments. However, those who have worked hard their whole life to save a modest amount for their retirement or to ensure they would not be a burden to their family once they passed away, simply do not have that luxury.
It is no wonder then that Canadians are worried about white collar crime. There are questions we need ask ourselves when we try to tackle white collar crime. First, will the legislation stop white collar crime from taking place either by providing safeguards for people when they invest or by deterring people from committing such crimes? Second, will the legislation help the victims of white collar crime?
In regard to prevention, we believe this bill is weak. The prime ticket that the government is pushing this bill on is the mandatory two year sentence for all criminals who commit white collar crime valued at over $1 million.This plays well in the media but does it actually do anything to deter criminals?
The problem is that the government is happy to make this type of bold statement about mandatory sentencing because it knows that without extra funding and support for investigating and prosecuting white collar crime, this law will make very little difference.
My colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh pointed to a case earlier today, in a question for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, of the investigation into a Ponzi scheme in Toronto where between $23 million and $27 million were stolen from almost 100 people and that three weeks ago the prosecutors withdrew all the charges.
The fact is that we can make all the changes in sentencing we would like but,with limited funds and time, prosecutors are always going to choose to pursue other types of criminals where the trials take less time and are far less complex.
More than that, this mandatory sentencing certainly will not deter the small-time criminal who steals $2,000 from seniors. The fact is the consequences of that type of crime are as severe, if not more so, than someone who steals $1 million from a $1 billion corporation.
If the government contends that this mandatory sentence would deter criminals, which is a very wide-ranging conversation, and if we accept the government's position for argument sake, then why are we only deterring crime against the rich and big corporations? Regardless of whether this works, this type of provision sends a message that the government is more concerned about protecting their friends on Bay Street than hard-working families from this type of crime.
What should the bill have done in this regard? The best way to have created a deterrent to white collar crime would be to have made it easier to prosecute such crimes. The real threat of any jail time would have been far more likely to deter would-be criminals than the threat of longer jail times that many feel they will never serve if they do not plead guilty. For this to take place, we need to streamline the method of prosecuting white collar crimes and invest in resources like forensic accounting and extra training for judges on the specifics of presiding over cases of white collar crime.
White collar crime is not a spontaneous crime. It takes a lot of planning to carry out such illegal activities and the people who carry out these crimes are very aware of the possible penalties as well as the chances of avoiding them. Increasing the penalties to these people, while keeping the probability of them being enforced, does not deter people as much as we could by increasing the likelihood of persecution.
Let me tackle the second part of my own question. Does this bill provide help or support, either emotional or monetary, to the victims of white collar crime? There are two provisions at first glance which would appear to fit this criteria. The first is the provision for a community victim impact statement and the second is in regard to monetary restitution to the victims of white collar crimes. However, neither of these provisions, in my opinion, go far enough.
Let us look first at the community victim impact statement. This is almost unheard of in criminal convictions. Previously only individuals, be they people or individual corporations, made victim statements. However, this provision allows a whole group of people to come together and have a single representative explain how they as a community have been affected by a crime.
Many individuals feel or can feel very daunted by the legal system. Having the ability to speak as a group should mitigate some of these concerns and therefore allow people to have means to address their emotional distress without causing more distress. I know from consultations with my constituents that many victims have asked for this type of provision before, so there are definitely many positives in this.
However, as this is the very first time that a provision like this has been used in the Canadian Criminal Code, I am disappointed that there are not more guidelines on how this would work.
In many ways, this is a judicial experiment, so we cannot say how this will work in the future, but there is no explanation of who can represent the community or if more than one community representative will be able to present to the court. All these questions are left to judges to work out for themselves. This could actually make it more difficult for judges presiding over already complicated cases, which is certainly not something anyone but the criminals would desire.
As I have already alluded to, lack of resources is already a problem in these cases and we do not want to add to the problem. There is also a question of cost for the victims in appointing representatives. Many people have lost their life savings, so we need to ensure this does not become a tool for only the rich to have their voices heard in criminal proceedings.
Second, with regard to restitution, the provision in this bill states that courts “shall consider making a restitution order under section 738 or 739”. There is therefore nothing in the bill to compel offenders to compensate their victims. In fact, this provision does nothing new because judges already have the option to order restitution under these sections of the Criminal Code. These judges have been practising and studying the law for years. It seems bizarre to remind them that they are able to use sections 738 and 739 in this way.
What the government could have done, rather than referring back to existing methods of restitution, was to have used the bill to compel judges to seek restitution for the victims of white collar crime. These victims have been wronged and it is only right that the court seeks to address this loss. The way the provision is written now changes nothing for victims. It appears to be only in the bill for political reasons rather than good policy.
There are some good provisions in the bill with which I have no problem. For example, the proposed bill also allows judges to take aggravating factors into account when sentencing white collar crimes. Yes, most judges have already been able to determine when aggravating factors are important in a case, but by formally laying these out in the Criminal Code, we will remove any grey areas and formerly authorize judges to take those factors into account.
However, as I have laid out in this speech, many of the provisions in the bill are simply not strong as they should or could be. This is not to say that they are bad provisions, but when we bring forward legislation like this, we should strive to pass the best legislation we possibly can.
I hope we can pass this legislation and at least take the first small steps to deal with white collar crime. It is my real hope that the government will work with the opposition parties and bring forward new legislation in the near future that deals with the problems I have highlighted today.