Debates of June 19th, 2023

Canada Business Corporations Act

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, if I understand correctly, we all agree on passing Bill C‑42. We have taken our speaking time to say that we agree but there are some flaws we needed to think about. The Conservatives are doing the same thing. If the Liberals or the NDP do not take their speaking time, that is on them.

Every party could have said that they agree the bill is not perfect, but it is a good step and we are ready to pass it quickly. That could have been a possibility. It is up to the parties, and even though I do not necessarily agree, I will respect it.

As far as Canada's reputation is concerned, it is time to do something. This first step is better than nothing. If we need to introduce another bill to make improvements, then that is what we will do, but the first step is always the most important.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in regard to Bill C-42, we were approached by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, or CFIB, which asked us to determine how we could help businesses, because one of the challenges is all the red tape that comes with this.

We definitely agree that there should be more transparency, but at the same time we must ensure that this burden is not shouldered by all businesses, which are already struggling to survive because of all the paperwork. How can we strike a balance in this case? How can we help small and medium-sized businesses with Bill C-42?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is already a law affectionately called the Red Tape Reduction Act. It should be enforced intelligently; that would help businesses. According to this act, if one page is added to a form, one should be removed elsewhere. That is the problem: It has to be removed elsewhere. It may not necessarily be in the same department and for the same reason. We have to give some serious thought to our obsession with forms. We must simplify forms and ensure that they are truly important and relevant to the information we seek.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

It seems as though we were supposed to be debating Bill C-18, which is legislation that deals with online news. It is interesting that, in this House, Liberals have accused Conservatives of playing partisan games, then half an hour before the debate on that bill begins they tell us we will be debating Bill C-42, so clearly these games are going both ways, but they probably do not want to admit that.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the life of Ms. Kathleen Beauchamp from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. She was my grade 5 teacher who later went on to become the principal at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Elementary School where I went to school. I ran into her a couple of years ago as I was getting into politics and I remember she gave me a really big hug. It was nice to see somebody with so much life, exuberance and vitality. She was volunteering into her nineties. I found out about her passing recently and I want to recognize her life because it was a life well lived. She was a model for the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. May perpetual light shine upon her and may she rest in peace.

I also want to recognize the life of Jared Larkin, the brother of a constituent and friend Sean Larkin. May perpetual light shine upon him and may he rest in peace.

Today, we are debating Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. It is always nice to get up to learn about areas that might not be one's area of expertise. Despite being a lawyer and having some corporate law background, the Canada Business Corporations Act is far from being my area of expertise. However, I know a bit about some of the areas, particularly when we talk about money laundering and how that has impacted corporate crime and the Canadian economy.

I recall being a young criminology student, about 20 years old, and having a professor who told us to put down the sports section and pick up the business section. It was then I realized that corporate crime costs society much more than street-level crime. The problem with corporate crime is we do not always see it. It happens through things like price fixing and illegal influencing. We do not always see these types of things and sometimes, because it almost always happens behind closed doors, it is really hard to detect.

As a former prosecutor I can say that part of what the police authorities have to do is connect the dots and sometimes build what is called a circumstantial case, which is when they take facts from here and there and paint a picture. Each piece of evidence is like a piece of the puzzle. This is obviously an important aspect when we talk about a registry under the Canada Business Corporations Act. It is something law enforcement is asking for and really does need.

Again, as has been said repeatedly in this House, this bill is required, but it could have gone further. I was speaking with our shadow minister, the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, and I believe he spoke about this in the House this morning. He said that there were witnesses at committee and within minutes of hearing from them the committee went into a clause-by-clause analysis. In other words, the testimony of those witnesses who had information to give that was directly germane to the bill at hand was not fully incorporated into this legislation, because the government seems to have been in a rush to deal with this.

I believe four speakers were put up at report stage and then the government moved closure. It is a government that has repeatedly moved closure to stymie debate by saying it needs to get legislation through. I understand that there is a legislative objective, everybody understands that, but it should not push legislation through this way; rather, it should be done co-operatively.

This is a government, as I understand it, that said it would not use closure and time allocation. I am sure it was highly critical of Stephen Harper when he did it. We now see the Liberals and the party that is supposed to be the conscience of Parliament, the NDP, backing them up at every step of the way. I cannot remember a bill, controversial or not, for which we have not seen some sort of time allocation or closure invoked by the Liberals; their coalition partners, the NDP, just go along with it. What happened to being the conscience of Parliament and to hearing debate?

Yes, the government wants things to go through quickly. Here we are at the end of June. It is not Canadians' problem. It is not everybody in the House's problem that the government did not manage its time effectively and has not been conciliatory in terms of addressing things that would be of mutual interest. The Liberals say they want to work together. I am just not seeing that when we see these types of actions.

I will move on to some of the elements of this bill and the necessity for it. For me, as a British Columbian, the necessity comes when I review the Cullen commission. The Cullen commission was authored by Austin Cullen, from British Columbia; I believe he was associate chief justice at the time. He found that money laundering had risen to an unacceptable level in British Columbia. The province and law enforcement not only were not keeping up with it, but enforcement and shining a light on these types of issues had also become secondary.

This is a timely issue to be dealing with. The Cullen commission report, I believe, came out in the past couple of years. However, we have to remember that we should not be rushing these types of things in order to simply get them through, when more things could be done.

One thing that stood out to me was that the threshold for share ownership for being listed in the registry is at 25%. That is actually a high threshold. When we look at other corporate legislation, if memory serves me from when I was studying, there is a threshold of 10%. When somebody owns 10% of shares, that is enough to trigger a warning system.

Therefore, 25% of shares seems inordinately high. I would suggest that we perhaps move back to 10% of shares. As I understand it, the RCMP was supportive of this. Its view is that 10% would get more names into this registry, and the more names, the better. With more names on the registry, more dots can be connected for the police. Moreover, the police will have more tools to combat money laundering.

Before I go any further, I just want to highlight a couple more things from the Cullen commission, because I think they are really important to this discussion. There are unexplained wealth orders. I believe they would probably be an issue for the provinces, but while we are talking about commercial crime and Canada as a whole being a safe haven for money laundering, the provinces should really explore this issue in conjunction with the federal government as we enact this legislation. They could be used in conjunction with civil forfeiture and things of that nature.

The Cullen commission made a number of recommendations and really came up with things that the government should be doing. It looked at how money laundering was occurring in British Columbia. For instance, it was occurring by laundering money through casinos; the commission looked at how this impacted the real estate market.

Before I end, I want to recognize a news anchor, Bill O'Donovan, who received the RTDNA career excellence award in broadcasting. I am the godfather to his granddaughter. Bill is a great human being and a great broadcaster. Congratulations to him.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for his thoughtfulness, particularly when he mentioned the people of his community, including his teacher, in those circumstances .

I wonder if my colleague could comment on the whole notion of fighting fraud. At the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, I asked Mr. Beaudoin from the RCMP whether his organization had enough resources to combat fraud. Mr. Beaudoin talked about the fact that fraud has evolved, that it is quite broad, that it has changed, particularly in the past five to 10 years, and that cybercrime to obtain money fraudulently has really changed the game. Obviously, as he said, there is no doubt that they could do more if they had more resources.

Should we give the RCMP more resources, specifically to do more to combat fraud and to go out into the field where they have the means to recover some money?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand where the member is coming from. I also understand where the RCMP is coming from; they are expected to do more with less, each and every day. When it comes to fraud, there are limited resources. We are finding there are limited resources for the RCMP, period. The Liberal government is running a $60-billion deficit, yet when it comes to the enforcement of crime, whether it be in fraud, as my colleague referred to; in things like simply proving a firearm is a firearm; or in the area I used to prosecute in mostly, Internet offences against children, it takes 12 months to 18 months to analyze a hard drive. The RCMP needs more resources.

It is puzzling to me how the government could rack up $60 billion in deficit and still have a national police force that does not have the resources to deal with these extremely salient issues of the day. To me, that is unacceptable; I agree with my colleague. These things, and commercial crime, fraud and money laundering, impact each and every one of us. We do not always see the impact of them, but they do impact us.

I would like to see the government focus its spending and divert some of the funds that, in my view, are being recklessly spent, to matters of significance like the one the member raised.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, the invasion against Ukraine made it obvious, now more than ever, how important it is to place sanctions against those people who are closely connected to Putin, for example.

Could the member explain how sanctions enforcement could be improved with the public beneficial ownership registry in place?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is not something I turned my mind to when I was preparing this speech, so I appreciate the fact that the member raised it.

This is another piece of the puzzle. When we talk about connecting the dots for proving an offence, it would seem that we would have to connect dots in order to prove who owns what when it comes to sanctions. Perhaps that would be another by-product of this legislation. There is an illegal invasion of Ukraine, and there are also other people around the world who have committed all sorts of atrocities, and those people should not be using Canada as a safe haven for their money. I fully support using this registry and every tool available to find their assets and seize them.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are here in closure again with the Liberal government. Does the member opposite agree that more time to study this bill at committee would have helped strengthen it? I am looking at letters from stakeholders. They were pleading for more time. I wonder if the member could answer that and speak to our being in closure again.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises an excellent point. Why are we rushing this through? This is important legislation. Everybody around here says that this is important legislation, and when legislation is important, so is debate. We should not be settling for an okay bill or a good bill; we should be pursuing excellence for the people of Canada.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, and I want to take a moment congratulate all of the young folks. In fact, everyone is taking the opportunity to thank everyone else because of the short time we have left in the House of Commons. I would like to take a minute to thank and congratulate all of the young people who found a summer job in all of the ridings, mine in particular. These young people are contributing to the regional economy of our communities and embracing work. As I see it, work is an extremely important value to instill in young people to help them rise to the challenges of the future and gain experience through summer employment.

I am very pleased to rise in the House this evening to speak to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. This bill is one phase of the government's plan to create a national registry of individuals with significant control over corporations in Canada pursuant to the Canada Business Corporations Act, or CBCA. Of course, we are talking about federally regulated companies.

The purpose of this bill is to require Corporations Canada to make public some of the information collected under the 2022 amendments to the CBCA. The bill also introduces whistle-blower protections, introduces exemptions for certain individuals, adds new offences and gives Corporations Canada additional powers with respect to inquiries, data validation and information sharing. For one thing, these powers allow Corporations Canada to share information with provincial authorities. We know that Quebec already has a registry. Since I am an entrepreneur myself, my name is on this registry, as are the names of my company's shareholders. I think it is important for the public to have access to this information.

According to what the government is saying, this bill basically seeks to protect Canadians from money laundering and terrorist financing, deter tax evasion and tax avoidance, and make sure Canada is an attractive place to conduct business. I completely agree up to that point. It is a worthwhile initiative. Money laundering and terrorist financing do a lot of harm.

Unfortunately, Canada has a poor record when it comes to fighting these modern scourges. Canada is known as an easy target for criminal groups and as an epicentre of money laundering and tax evasion. According to a 2020 investigative report published by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada on money laundering and fraud in Canada, the estimated extent of money laundered in Canada is between $45 billion and $113 billion. That is a huge amount of money, and it is good that the government is doing something about that.

The Conservative Party has agreed to vote in favour of Bill C‑42, but not because it is perfect, far from it. The review process in committee was rushed. There were only two meetings. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, and I would say that everything happened quick as a flash, leaving members and stakeholders little time to develop and debate amendments to improve this bill. We also proposed amendments that were unfortunately rejected, and that is what I want to focus on.

The first amendment we proposed that was rejected had to do with share acquisition thresholds. We proposed: “(a) any number of shares that carry 10% or more of the voting rights attached to all of the corporation's outstanding voting shares; or (b) any number of shares that is equal to 10% or more of all of the corporation's outstanding shares measured by fair market value.”

This amendment would have added a new clause to the bill, amending the parts of the CBCA that define significant control to lower the threshold from 25% to 10%. We know that there are several categories of shares in a business. In this case, we are talking about voting shares, those with decision-making authority.

James Cohen, the executive director of Transparency International, made the following comment regarding our proposal, and I quote:

I don't think...lowering the threshold from 25% to 10% and a risk-based approach are mutually exclusive. I think they actually go hand in hand. I would note that the 25% isn't so much a standard as it was an initial global recommendation that everyone just kind of grabbed on to. There is room to go down to 10% and provide more information for the RCMP.

The amendment that we proposed would have enabled the RCMP to cast a much wider net in terms of tax avoidance in particular, and also money laundering.

We also moved an amendment to make it easier for law enforcement to access information during investigations. This amendment would have added specific wording to the bill to ensure that law enforcement and other investigative bodies such as the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, could access information from the director rather than having to approach companies individually. It would also have removed the reference to prescribed circumstances with regard to exceptions, ensuring that only minors are automatically exempt from having their information disclosed and that everyone else must apply for an exemption to prove that it is necessary. Once again, this amendment was rejected. This bill could have been improved, but the NDP-Liberal coalition said no.

Not only were our amendments rejected, but, as I said earlier, the bill was rushed, to put it mildly, through the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, on which I sit. In fact, we had just one meeting to hear from departmental officials, and we heard from justice experts on the same day that the clause-by-clause process took place.

Briefs from interested organizations such as the anti-money laundering campaign and the Canadian Bar Association were received the day after amendments were submitted. There were several amendments, and several of these briefs were received after the presentation of certain amendments. It is strange because we received some very interesting briefs from law firms, which had some significant reservations about this bill.

It is truly unfortunate, but that is how this government operates. It waits to take action and then, at the last minute, it acts hastily and imposes time allocation, which is what we have been experiencing for practically two months in the House of Commons. Time allocation is introduced time and time again. I will take this opportunity to point out that the NDP has now adopted almost 55 time allocation motions, which it never, or almost never, did before. This demonstrates the extent of the government's hold over that political party.

As I was saying, by colluding with the NDP, the government is getting its way with obviously shoddy results. Canadians expect the federal government to combat money laundering and the proceeds of crime in a way that aligns with our economic and security partners around the world. Canada must shed its reputation as a haven for dirty money. A future Conservative government will make it happen.

In 2021, the Conservative Party committed to establishing a federal registry of beneficial owners for residential properties and implementing comprehensive changes to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to give FINTRAC, law enforcement and prosecutors the tools they need to identify, arrest and prosecute money launderers and, ultimately, stop illicit funds from making their way into the real estate market. This is the kind of policy our government will bring in to really tackle the problem of money laundering and tax evasion. Particularly in the Vancouver area where my colleague lives, absolutely huge sums of money are being invested by outside entities that launder money directly through real estate acquisitions.

The provincial and federal registries must be harmonized. In Canada, about 15% of corporations are in federal registries, while 85% are in provincial registries. The two types of registries therefore need to be harmonized so that the provinces and the federal government can work together. As I was saying, Quebec has a great registry that works very well, but it was recently amended. The federal registry could have been even better had the time been taken to study it.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup for his work. I was thinking back to the question that he asked me earlier. The key word that I missed was interoperability. It is important to have laws that are interoperable, so I would like to try again by putting it in a comment and asking him the following question.

How important is it that our laws remain interoperable?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, by interoperability we understand the connections and interplay between the provincial laws and the federal law that enable them to work together. It is imperative and fundamental that these laws can work together so that the work done upstream or downstream—whether at the federal or provincial level—can be constructive and effective, particularly against money laundering.

I think my colleague is right, and I thank him for that. I must say publicly that my colleague is a very fine individual who does great work on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology and who always makes an effort. As he said earlier, we do not always agree. However, in general, I think his arguments are geared towards the common good of Quebec and Canadian society as a whole. That is what we are arguing for as well. To answer his question, I think it goes without saying. Everyone should realize that this is really something that should be interoperable.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on this same point, I would say that this interoperability is really important. The provinces that already have a public registry have set the threshold at 25%. The member mentioned 10% before, but, for the bill to be compatible with the laws of the provinces that already have a public registry, it seems to me it would be important to start with a 25% threshold and to then have some conversations with the provinces, instead of legislating something in the House that is incompatible with the provincial registries.

How can we address this and make sure we create laws that allow the federal government to have an important tool it can use to go after the Russians who are hiding their assets in Canada?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent question.

To move society forward, we must move bills forward, be it at the federal or provincial level. I realize that the registries are all harmonized at 25%. We are fully aware of that, but, in moving amendments like the one meant to lower the ownership threshold to 10%, we have made people think, not only in the House, but also at the provincial level.

In doing so, we could perhaps improve the registries to ensure that all the information could be collected more effectively, both at the provincial and federal levels, so as to eliminate, once and for all, money laundering, tax evasion, and related crimes.

The tighter the measures across Canada, the greater the chance of limiting the damage. I am an entrepreneur and I regularly consult the Quebec registry. I will be consulting it again soon, because my daughter will be taking over for my associate in my company. I will be required to have a notary make the change at the IGIF, the institute that records all the information in a registry. We will record my company's new shareholder, my daughter. Actually, it will just be my daughter and me. That is very important. We each hold 50% of the companies' shares, but there could have been several shareholders, and the threshold could have been 10% instead of 25%.

In our case, it does not matter, because we are not fraudsters. I remember that my colleague said that there are companies that own multiple companies. It becomes a sort of puzzle. It would have been more obvious to have a 10% threshold rather than a 25% threshold.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The question is on Motion No. 1.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote, please.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the division stands deferred until Tuesday, June 20 at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I believe that you have received the proper advance notice and, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at midnight so we can begin Adjournment Proceedings.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I have received notice from all recognized parties that they are in agreement on this request.

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Natural Resources

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am standing today representing my constituents and the constituents of Alberta. I want to tell a bit of a story. In May 2020, amid COVID-19 shutdowns, on the Friday afternoon before the May long weekend, Alberta's United Conservative government quietly revealed that it was rescinding Alberta's coal policy that had protected the Rocky Mountains and the eastern slopes from exploration and mining since 1976.

Albertans had no insight into this. They had no inkling that this change was going to happen, but the mining companies absolutely did. Within days, on 240,000 hectares of environmentally sensitive land on the eastern slopes, areas that included the headwaters of Alberta's major watershed serving Edmonton, Calgary and southern Alberta, thousands of trees were bulldozed and hundreds of kilometres of temporary roads were carved through the landscape by coal-mining companies. The outcry from Albertans and other Canadians was swift. It was overwhelming.

Through various petitions and forms, hundreds of thousands of Canadians turned to the federal government for help. They asked that the government enforce federal laws, including the species at risk legislation and the Canada Water Act, and consult with first nations and other indigenous groups in keeping with the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is something that the provincial Conservative government had very clearly failed to do.

I stood in this House and called on the government to close a loophole in the legislation. In fact, I brought a private member's bill forward to do that. The loophole was that in the past any mine that was under 5,000 tonnes per day did not trigger the Impact Assessment Act. What we were finding was that mining companies were building two mines side by side that were 4,950 tonnes or 4,925 tonnes to get under that 5,000 tonnes per day loophole.

Therefore, I brought my private member's bill to the minister of the environment at the time, the now Minister of Natural Resources, and he agreed with me and he agreed in policy to change that loophole. It was the best day of my life as a parliamentarian because my legislation was put into policy, so we were delighted. It meant that all coal mines in the Rocky Mountains were going to trigger an environmental impact assessment. I am pleased to say that meant that some of the mines that were going to be most destructive in southern Alberta were shut down and the ones that were most destructive in the eastern slopes were shut down and did not go ahead. The investors pulled out, the mining companies pulled out and our water and our land was protected in Alberta.

However, after that we got a new minister and the new minister has now rubber-stamped a coal mine that is going into the Grande Cache mountains. The minister has completely discarded the policy that his predecessor put in place. Either he is not paying attention or he does not care, and if that is the case it is a betrayal. Either the minister thinks that this mine does not have to be under the threshold of 5,000 tonnes or he thinks that selenium is not a risk.

What I would like to know from the government is, which is it? Which reason is it that the government is betraying Albertans and not triggering an environmental impact assessment on a coal mine in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains?