Roy Cullen

[Interparliamentary Delegations, November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian parliamentary delegation of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association on the second part of the 2006 ordinary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe held in Strasbourg, France, from April 10 to 13, 2006.

[Food and Drugs Act, November 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-283.

I want to congratulate my colleague from Scarborough Southwest. He and I are working together on another committee right now and we are doing that very well. He will not be surprised, though, when I speak against his bill because I have done so before when the bill was in a different parliament, in different numbers and in different forms.

He has the objective right. Canadians need to understand better what it is they are eating, and if there was a way to do that which was economically feasible, I certainly would support it. I do not think the bill as it now stands does that.

We have heard from others about the importance of diet, about the problems with obesity, and if there is a way to educate Canadians better on these facts, we should be doing so. The food service industry has been doing a lot of that through their voluntary measures and some of the measures introduced by our government to comply with nutritional labelling. However, the bill goes a little bit too far.

My riding of Etobicoke North is out by the airport. There are a lot of restaurants and also a lot of light to medium sized industry, food processing companies, and yes, I have heard from them. If I thought the bill was for the benefit of all Canadians and it was workable, I would support it, but I do not think it is workable, economically feasible or technically feasible to accomplish what the member so rightly wants to accomplish.

I would like to talk about a few of those factors. First, just to recapture, the bill would require companies with over $10 million in annual food service sales to list calories, salt and the sum of the saturated fatty acids and trans fats per serving for each menu item on their printed menu and to list calories per serving for each menu item on their menu board.

I see a number of problems with that. As I say, I think the objective is a good one, but I see a number of practical problems. Right now, if we go into a fast food restaurant, we will see menus displayed throughout the restaurant. To add another layer of information would cause some difficulties in terms of fitting it all on one menu board, or else the lettering would have to be reduced to a point that it would be illegible.

The other problem I see is that there are many trends now for customized meals. Let us face it, these fast food restaurants are here to stay and they are very popular, particularly with our pace of life, and people use them. That is the reality. When we get into these combos that fast food restaurants have, which are very popular, people will say, “I want a big Mac, but I do not want the fries; I want the salad, and by the way on that salad, I would like this dressing. Actually, you can supersize the fries, double up on the cheese, hold the bacon and give me the onions”, et cetera. It sounds mundane, but this is what is happening. In fact, fast food restaurants are marketing in this way. They want to give consumers more choice.

What would we do then? I think we could do it technologically on a computer and on a website, and I think that many of the businesses are doing that now, so if we want to know exactly, we could go to various portions. It will do all the arithmetic. It will add it all up and it will tell us what we are eating in terms of calories, salt and these various elements. If we do that, what that information does for us is another thing, but for those people who want that information, there might be ways of getting it from some of the bigger chains.

However, for some of the smaller restaurants, I know that there is an exemption here of $10 million in sales, but that actually creates another issue. I know what the member is trying to achieve, but it creates a level field that is not quite fair or even. We could have a Harvey's that is required under the bill to comply with all these nutritional elements and put this on its menu board for all the various combinations, and then we have Joe's hamburger shop next door, just a one off little independent, and it will not be required to do that. There is a cost to doing this. We have to have access to a nutritionist.

How could a regular manager of a Harvey's do this work? How could the owner of Joe's hamburger stall? He would not have the information to do that and would have to hire a nutritionist. That is why, quite rightly, the member would exempt small businesses, but then it would create a problem of an uneven playing field.

I read an interesting book not too long ago called Freakonomics and in it there is an interesting part where it talks about Starbucks, the coffee people. Actually, every day on the way to work I pick up a Starbucks. I am a Starbucks fan. That is the way it is.

The author says, and I think he can probably demonstrate it, but I did not do an audit on his numbers, that in a Starbucks coffee shop there are something like 3,000 different permutations and combinations of what people can ask for. I must say this is borne out by my experience when I go into Starbucks and listen to people as they place their orders. I am not that conversant with all the products. They will say they want a double latte, topped up by this, warmed up, doubled up by this and that. They will want Halloween or pumpkin sauce and they want this and that. Apparently, there are about 3,000 different permutations and combinations.

I am asking this question. How would Starbucks do that? I could see how it could do that on a computer or a website. If someone wanted to go in and say they wanted to do this combination, permutation number 1,876, boom, plug it in and it would give all the nutritional content of it. How could that conceivably be put on a menu board? I have no idea how that would work.

The other problem is that there are many restaurant chains that have operations right across Canada. There is an issue, I believe, with supplier variability. I think that some are discounting the argument. I am not going to argue that it is an insurmountable issue but it is an issue.

We have, for example, Tim Hortons chains. I know they backward integrate. They standardize in a very holistic and very professional way, but if they are buying their flour and all the ingredients, let us say in Nova Scotia, and they are making their muffins there, and they are buying their ingredients in British Columbia from a different source, notwithstanding that they are going to have very tight standards and requirements, there is going to be some difference, I think.

Perhaps I used a bad example because Tim Hortons chains would probably have the most standardized and most integrated supply chain management system around, but I can think of other examples where they might not have that consistency. What do they do then? Do they make an assumption that the flour that is bought in Halifax is the same as the flour that is bought in Trail? I do not know. I think it is an issue.

Do not forget that we would be asking the restaurants to comply with these laws and rules if the act is passed. It is not to be taken lightly. They would have to comply.

I have many food processors in my riding and they are also concerned about section 5.3 of the bill which basically requires manufacturers, people making biscuits or bread or what have you to comply.

It says that manufacturers are to prescribe in the ingredient list the percentage by weight of the three most prevalent ingredients and all those that are of vegetable, fruit, whole grain, legume or added sugar. Additionally, manufacturers would be required to list the percentage by weight for ingredients emphasized on a food label using words or pictures.

First of all, to comply with the requirements that our previous and this government is requiring has cost the industry, in terms of mandatory nutritional labelling, about $300 million. This would cost a lot of money and the industry argues, and I think with some merit, that it would create not necessarily more knowledge or information, but it could add in fact more confusion.

I will tell my colleague that I never like speaking against a private member's bill. I brought in a private member's bill a couple of years ago on user fees, Bill C-212. It took me two years, a lot of blood, sweat and tears, so I congratulate the member for taking this initiative, but I will not be supporting it.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, earlier the minister talked about the guaranteed income supplement, a Liberal initiative, and increases that our Liberal government brought in.

Earlier this year, roughly 148,000 of the 1.6 million guaranteed income supplement recipients were advised in late June that they would be cut off because they did not complete the application or a tax form process or because their income status had changed.

How many of the 148,000 seniors, who received the warning letters, have had their GIS cut off?

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I do not follow that rationale at all. Maybe it is the same rationale for cutting the summer work student exchange program, a program where young people could get work experience and travel across the country.

I know in my riding of Etobicoke North I have had young people from outside come into Etobicoke North and people from Etobicoke North went across Canada. It is a great opportunity for them to get some work experience and see part of the country.

Why would the minister cut a valuable program like that?

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, earlier I heard the minister talk about how she wanted to focus on the labour market, ensuring workers had the skills they needed.

I heard the member for Barrie say that we needed to encourage the trades and apprenticeships and he talked about the shortage of workers. As I listened, I could not believe my ears. At the same time those members are saying that, they are cutting programs that are accomplishing exactly those objectives.

We just officially opened a training centre In my riding of Etobicoke North. It is the Sheet Metals Workers International Association, Local 285. It benefited from the training centre infrastructure fund, which enabled it to buy a welding shop and some other equipment to the tune of about $180,000. That program has been unceremoniously cut. I know my colleague from York South—Weston had a number of projects in his riding that were unceremoniously cut.

How can the minister rationalize those cuts when she says she wants to focus on the labour market and developing the skill sets that are needed?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, October 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, normally the member for Cariboo—Prince George speaks with some knowledge and integrity. This attack is totally uncalled for.

When I was a young person growing up, if I came home and said that I had tried to do well with the hockey team, but because the previous coach did this or that, it was screwed up, or whatever, my parents would have told me to grow up, to move forward and to take responsibility.

We hear this juvenile kind of attack by the Conservatives, time in and time out, about the Liberal government record. I am extremely proud of it. Our government accomplished so many good things during our mandate.

At one point the Conservatives have to take responsibility for their decisions. They have to move forward. The Conservatives cannot get away much longer with tossing the issues back to what the Liberals did when we were the government. We did a lot of tremendous things that Canada is much better for today, and I say that with some pride and some modesty.

The government is doing nothing about climate change. At least we committed ourselves to the Kyoto accord. They were tough targets. Frankly, we could have done a better job of providing the incentives, the signals and the market instruments to better get us there. The Liberal government started to make progress in the last couple of years of our mandate.

Instead of tossing stones, the government has to deal with the issue and move the country forward. The government is not doing that. It is ignoring the problem and Canada will not be a better place because of that.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, October 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that our government committed to Kyoto. They were stretch targets. They were ambitious targets. In the last couple of years of our mandate, we were starting to make some progress with our project green.

How can that member stand up and justify this climate change response or clean air response with its intensity based targets, which means that the absolute amount of greenhouse gases, for example, in the oil sands, will increase dramatically? If this is not a sop to the oil and gas industry and the oil sands, I do not know what is.

The government does not have the vision, the wherewithal or the political savvy to do something that is appropriate and that will allow us to reach our greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The government's proposal, which is a plan to have a plan, does not really deal with climate change whatsoever. What we have to do is support our oil and gas industry, but we have to make sure it is done in a sustainable and environmentally responsible way. The government does not care one iota about that.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, October 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-28, a bill that implements certain provisions of budget 2006.

The Conservative government's first budget, however, fails to address the real needs of Canadians and Canadian families and it unfortunately fails to move the country forward. About the only positive aspect of this budget is that it builds on the eight consecutive budgetary surpluses delivered by our Liberal government. This budget promises another budgetary surplus and I hope the Conservatives deliver on that.

Given the strong fiscal record the Conservatives inherited from our former Liberal government, it is outrageous that the government is raising income taxes, slashing spending by $1 billion a year and excluding any real vision for the future of Canada's prosperity. Let me go through some examples of why this budget fails.

It fails to provide real tax relief for low income and middle income Canadians. Eliminating Liberal income tax cuts in favour of a 1% GST cut has been panned by every serious economist in this country as a plan that will benefit higher income Canadians at the expense of the more needy.

The Conservatives are hiking income taxes, which means that many people who got a refund for the 2005 tax year will end up paying in 2006. The Conservatives are increasing the basic personal amount by $200 and increasing to 15.5% the lowest tax bracket.

This budget fails to address the issue of climate change. The Conservative government has eliminated climate change programs and is abandoning the Kyoto accord. Its transit tax credit is costly and ineffective. It will cost about $400 million over two years and only increase transit use by 5%. This translates to a cost of $2,000 for each tonne of carbon dioxide saved, 10 to 100 times the cost per tonne under our Liberal government green plan.

Furthermore, the Conservatives are planning to finance this measure and their climate change plan, which they are still working on, by eliminating $2 billion worth of existing climate change programs.

Two of these programs are the EnerGuide for houses retrofit program and the wind power production incentive program.

EnerGuide worked. It was helping thousands of Canadian households achieve energy efficiency increases in the range of 30% and doing it in a way that was cost effective. The Conservative government should do the right thing, stand up for the environment and for Canadian consumers, and bring EnerGuide back. Our Liberal government's EnerGuide program supported the retrofitting of more than 100,000 homes for more efficient use of energy before the Conservative government cancelled it.

Wind power is another important component of Canada's response to the challenges of energy conservation and global warming. The wind power industry is responsible for thousands of direct and indirect jobs across the country, and our government's wind power production incentive program, or WPPI, as it is affectionately referred to, is essential to attracting investment and ensuring the viability of this industry.

The Conservative government has been exposed on this. We know that these programs were working and were cost effective. I am today calling for the government to immediately reinstate the EnerGuide program and the wind power production incentive program. The Standing Committee on Natural Resources recently adopted motions that also called for the reinstatement of these important programs.

Budget 2006 fails to provide a real child care choice for parents. As if $20 a week for child care is not bad enough, low income parents will be losing the young child supplement of the Canada child tax benefit. The Conservatives are cutting $1 billion from the Canada child tax benefit, a program that the Liberal government brought in and which was supposed to reach $10 billion this year.

Budget 2006 fails to establish a real plan to create child care spaces. Rather than honouring the Liberal child care agreements, something that the majority of provinces, parents and advocacy groups had demanded, the government insists on forging ahead with a nebulous plan which will mean that provinces will lose the stable funding agreed to by the previous government.

The budget offers nothing to meet the urgent needs of Canada's aboriginal peoples.

Rather than honour the historic Kelowna accord signed last November—which would have brought about great improvements in the lives of our first nations—the Conservative government chose to leave them behind and reduce planned funding by 80% from $5.3 million to just over $1 million.

Budget 2006 fails to make any significant investments in education and innovation. The Liberal government had a concrete vision that would have helped put us at the forefront of competitiveness and innovation. This lacklustre and visionless budget contains virtually nothing in this regard.

For example, our last fiscal update provided $2.5 billion for university research. The Conservative budget provides $200 million, less than one-tenth of our commitment. For student aid, our plan would have provided up to $6,000 per student for tuition over a four year program. The Conservative plan provides $80 for textbooks.

University students would like to see a portion of the Canada health and social transfer, the vehicle the federal government uses for transferring funds to the provinces and territories for social programs, dedicated to post-secondary education. This request I believe has some merit, provided accountability measures and performance benchmarks can be attached to these transfers along the lines of the 2004 health accord so that Canadians can evaluate how their province or territory is spending their money on post-secondary education and citizens can make comparisons with other jurisdictions. This makes some sense and is an example of a visionary initiative that is totally absent from budget 2006. Eighty dollars for students for textbooks just does not do it.

Budget 2006 fails because it cuts programs that help to build a highly trained and competitive workforce, programs like the training centre infrastructure fund. This fund was an important source for unions and management for the building of training centres. Union training centres are formed through partnerships among unions, management and government. They provide workers with the necessary information and on the job training to continuously improve their skills and remain at the top of their field.

The objectives of this partnership include developing and facilitating training programs that not only improve the vocational and safety skills of the industry but also enhance the employability of the students and meet changing and evolving market demands. In order to maintain this standard, training centres must upgrade their equipment and facilities to provide their students with the most innovative technology. The training centre infrastructure fund provided the necessary financial support to allow these centres to equip their facilities.

Recently, I attended the grand opening of a training centre operated by Local 285 of the Sheet Metal Worker's International Association in my riding. The local had been receiving funding from the training centre infrastructure fund until the Conservative government cut the program. The funding enabled the association to include in its training centre a state of the art welding laboratory and other equipment to ensure students receive the best training available.

The centre provides essential training to students entering the field and to professionals who have been working in the field for years but need to upgrade their skills to remain employable. It also plans to set up a training program to encourage more young people to get into welding. Unfortunately, the training centre infrastructure fund was cut, which means it will not have enough money to offer these programs now.

Budget 2006 also fails because it abandons Canada's forest industry and forest communities by caving in to the American lumber producers and the U.S. government and negotiating a bad softwood lumber deal that robs Canada of forest policy sovereignty. The U.S. will now dictate what forest policies we will have in Canada. The deals leaves $1 billion on the table in wrongly collected duties and it is in the hands of the U.S. government and U.S. producers.

The budget also stands by as our natural resource companies, companies like Inco and Falconbridge, are gobbled up by foreign companies. Are companies like Noranda and Husky Oil next? The government, with its laissez-faire attitude, does not care. I will be introducing legislation that will deal with this question and I am sure this House will have a good debate.

This budget really falls short. In 2007, or whenever the next budget is, the government will have a chance to rectify it. I look forward to that debate.

[Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, October 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue. Yesterday across the floor the Conservative members were laughing and heckling on a very important topic, money laundering. I am hoping they will pay closer attention today, because money laundering is not done by ordinary citizens; it is done by criminals and terrorists. It is a very serious matter.

First of all, I should say that our finance critic is generally in support of what is being proposed in terms of amendments. After all, this builds upon the anti-money laundering legislation that our government brought in in 2001. We have now had the benefit of a few years and the government is reviewing the feedback and the experience to date. It is very timely to bring in some amendments.

I would like to touch on one point that I made yesterday which is that one of the amendments actually removes lawyers from the list of those financial intermediaries who need to report suspicious transactions to FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. This is something that the committee should look at very carefully.

What we contemplated when the government brought in this law was that, for example, a citizen would sit down with his or her lawyer and say, “I would like you to keep this $300,000 in cash in safe keeping for me”. The lawyer under the law as we have it would then say to the person, “Do you realize that I am required under the law to report this to FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, as a prima facie suspicious item?” The client would either say, “Yes, I understand that. Therefore, I will take my $300,000 back”, or “Yes, you may proceed”.

On that basis the lawyers in this country have challenged that this takes away from solicitor-client privilege and an appeal court has agreed with them. This amendment takes the lawyers out of the loop of the money laundering reporting, the suspicious transactions reporting.

We know that the vast majority of lawyers in this country are honest people. The small minority of people who would take part in money laundering transactions will now find this loophole. The committee should carefully look at that. There are not many realistic options. Finance Canada and FINTRAC are negotiating with the legal profession to see what can be done. This is a serious matter.

There are other amendments. For example, it is a requirement by financial intermediaries to report suspicious transactions to FINTRAC. As it now stands, the law has some criminal sanctions if the financial intermediaries do not report. What these amendments call for is a lesser level of sanction for lesser violations of the reporting requirements under the act. That seems to be a reasonable request.

There is one issue that is difficult and I know that the House committee, the Auditor General and the committee in the other place have highlighted this, and that is Parliament's oversight over FINTRAC. How do we know that FINTRAC is operating within the mandate that it was given by Parliament? How do we know that the privacy rights of citizens are not being violated? How do we know that it is getting results? Has the information that it is providing to the RCMP and CSIS led to any arrests or convictions? That is something the committee should look at as well.

There are other aspects in terms of these amendments that warrant careful examination by the committee. As I said yesterday, when the legislation was introduced, the focus was put on monetary instruments. In other words, all laundered money eventually finds its way or should find its way into a bank account or into cash of some kind. The reality is that the money launderers become more clever and there is a chance that they could be dealing in precious metals or minerals, or items that are not monetary instruments. That has to be looked at. The proposal here with respect to currency traders, for example, is that they be brought under a regulatory ambit that would be managed by the federal government.

The typical exchange dealers one would find in airports, and I am not going to give any commercial names, but many would be familiar with these operations, right now they are required to report suspicious transactions to FINTRAC. They are considered to be financial intermediaries but it is not a very defined or regulated sector. These amendments propose to bring that under tighter scrutiny.

In 2001 when the Liberal government brought in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, we laid out the objectives of the act: to facilitate the detection, investigation, and prosecution of money laundering and terrorist activities financing offences, and to deter money laundering and terrorist financing activities; to respond to the threat posed by organized crime, while protecting personal information; and to assist in fulfilling Canada's international commitments.

One of the issues that was dealt with at the time is the balance of the type of information and the reason that certain information could be passed from FINTRAC to the law enforcement agencies and to CSIS. There is always a careful balance between the need for Canadians to be protected from money launderers but also the need for their privacy to be protected. The amendments proposed here call for an added level of information that could be provided by FINTRAC to law enforcement agencies and CSIS to decide if there is a trend that they want to analyze and pursue further.

The law still requires that if CSIS, the RCMP or other law enforcement wish to take the issue further, they would have to go to a court and get a judge's permission for FINTRAC to release information above and beyond what we call boiler plate information or basic raw data. Those provisions still stand, although there are increasing abilities to provide additional information under the proposals before us.

The other aspect of these amendments reinforces the need for the banks and financial intermediaries to know their customers. Knowing one's customers is key because that is the way to deal with money laundering activities before they begin.

There are some other elements to the amendments, but I have touched on the major ones. Having been involved in a modest way in 2001 in the design and set-up of the original legislation and the establishment of FINTRAC, my view would be that these are worthy amendments. They should be debated and witnesses should be brought forward with respect to some of the amendments, but generally I believe they should receive the support of the House. Certainly I will be voting for the bill to go to committee for further evaluation.

[Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, October 23rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-25, a bill to deal with the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Income Tax Act.

The bill builds on the work that our government did in 2001 when we introduced the legislation, which was passed by the House and the other place, and when the government set up FINTRAC, the financial transactions agency that serves as the financial intelligence unit for various reports that come in from financial intermediaries to track the suspicious transactions that might be laundering activities.

This bill proposes certain amendments to the act and basically builds on a number of themes. The financial action task force, which is the body that sets the standards in the fight against money laundering, came out a number of years ago with 40 recommendations with respect to standards in the fight against money laundering. Given the advent of 9/11 and other events, it added to its 40 recommendations on money laundering a further nine special recommendations on terrorist financing.

What these amendments do in part is they bring the legislation up to date with that but they do a number of other things, and I will be happy to speak to those as well.

Before I do that, perhaps I could talk briefly about the size and the scope of money laundering. People at home might be watching this debate and wondering what money laundering is. Money laundering has many definitions but the one I prefer is the one that says that money laundering is the processing of criminal proceeds in order to disguise their illegal origin.

If someone were a drug dealer or if someone were involved in planning a terrorist activity, the person would be disinclined to take the money he or she had received and put it into a bank account under his or her own name. Criminals try to launder the money through legitimate businesses. They reinvent themselves into some legitimate purpose and deposit the money and try to launder it in that way.

We do not want to have that type of activity in this country, nor is it something we want happening worldwide. It is an international problem of significant scope. In fact, KPMG, the consulting firm, estimates that money laundering is somewhere in the region of $500 billion to $1 trillion annually. I would suggest that is probably on the low side. I think it is probably more than that.

Who are the money launderers? We have basically four major categories. The first one relates to major drug crimes and we are talking primarily about drug related activities. The second category would be terrorist financing, which would be financing done before a terrorist event or after a terrorist event where money would either be accumulated to enact a terrorist event or it would be money that would be used to pay off various terrorists who had committed these offences. The third category is money laundering related to corruption. This is a very serious problem worldwide. The fourth category is money laundering related to tax evasion.

There are many ways and reasons to launder money, which is why our government brought in the anti-money laundering legislation in 2001 and that is why we set up FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. That organization began making disclosures in the year 2002.

It is quite appropriate for Parliament to review the act. In fact, a committee reviewed FINTRAC in 2005 to see what it was doing, what it was proposing to do, how successful it had been and what kind of changes it wanted to see. There was also a review recently in the other place on money laundering, and the Auditor General completed a report not too long ago.

It is quite timely that the government has introduced the amendments. Generally, I would support the way it is proceeding, but if the bill passes the House and goes to committee, there are a number of issues the committee should examine in some more detail.

We are very privileged that the presidency of the Financial Action Task Force, which is the standard setter in the fight against money laundering, has been assumed by a Canadian, a very distinguished public servant from the Department of Finance, a gentleman by the name of Frank Swedlove. This gives us a unique opportunity to be engaged in the fight against money laundering.

What is FINTRAC? The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada is an arm's length agency. It is required to collect all the reported suspicious transactions by financial intermediaries. In 2001 the government defined suspicious transaction as predominantly a cash or near cash type of definition. Any transaction over $10,000 is automatically deemed a suspicious transaction. Then many other types of transactions are covered by guidelines and some of the professional people look at these types of questions. A number of guidelines published by FINTRAC and the Department of Finance define transactions that might be suspicious even though they are below $10,000.

In fact, in its recent report, FINTRAC reported that it had disclosed more than $5 billion in suspicious deals to law enforcement and CSIS last year, which was twice what it had reported in previous years. We are seeing that the laundering of money is not diminishing. It is increasing and it is of particular concern now with the threat of terrorism before us.

I had the great honour, from 1999 to 2001, to serve as the parliamentary secretary to the then minister of finance, our colleague, the member for LaSalle—Émard. I was very proud that we were able to get the support of the House and the other place for the legislation and to establish FINTRAC.

I have also been quite involved with the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption. This organization started in Parliament. People from around the world were invited and GOPAC was formed. GOPAC sees its mission as not only being the fight against corruption, but also the fight against money laundering. A large conference was held in Tanzania at which some 300 parliamentarians from 50 countries around the world attended.

I would like to indulge the House, if I may, with the resolutions that came out of the conference with respect to money laundering. I will not read them all. There are six of them. I will highlight some of the more critical ones.

First, it is to seek observer status within the Financial Action Task Force. The request has gone out to Mr. Swedlove to get observer status for the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption.

Another resolution was to look at the benefits of an international convention against money laundering and also to encourage GOPAC members of the importance of the 40 + 9 recommendations published by the Financial Action Task Force.

Another resolution was that GOPAC begin a dialogue with the offshore and international banking communities to better understand what the communities were doing to fight money laundering in the financing of terrorism and also to develop protocols specifically on fighting the laundering and recovery of corrupt money and assets. That was done, particularly in the context of GOPAC, which is concerned mainly with the fight against corruption.

In bringing forward this legislation in 2000-01, it was quite a challenging balancing act, balancing the need for Canadians to deal with the blight of money laundering and the risks to which Canadians were exposed while at the same time balancing the privacy needs of Canadians.

There were questions around what kind of information FINTRAC should disclose to law enforcement and to CSIS and on what terms they should disclose it. There were many issues like that.

There was the question of how we define financial intermediaries. We had a lot of presentations by various interest groups, whether they were the lawyers, the accountants, the department stores or the churches. They said they wanted to be exempt because, after all, they were not laundering money.

The tack the government took was to say that it would not create any exceptions, because money launderers being what they are, the money launderers would go to the areas where there were gaps or where exceptions were made. The decision of the government was to set a very big net and basically capture everybody in the sense of reporting requirements, and then, over time, evaluate what could be released and what would not.

As part of this amendment to the bill before us today, there is something that is quite a concern. I am not sure that there are many answers other than what is proposed here, but I think it would be a good discussion within the committee.

So that Canadians understand what is being done here, the lawyers in Canada were included in the reporting requirements of FINTRAC. In other words, any suspicious transactions had to be reported by the legal community to FINTRAC. The law societies of Canada, or whatever organization represents them in this case, took this to court. The court agreed with them that it would create a problem with respect to solicitor-client privilege.

So what these amendments do is take the lawyers out of that reporting requirement. There are ways that the Department of Finance is working to incorporate lawyers, but it is an area of great concern, because once the launderers realize that there are gaps, that is where they will go. We know that, and I will pick this up again--