Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill S-14, An Act to amend the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, to increase the maximum sentence of imprisonment applicable to the offence of bribing a foreign public official; eliminate the facilitation payments exception to that offence; create a new offence relating to books and records and the bribing of a foreign public official or the hiding of that bribery; and establish nationality jurisdiction that would apply to all of the offences under the act.
For a long time now, members of the NDP have supported clear rules requiring Canadians and Canadian companies abroad to show transparency and accountability. This bill complements the legislative initiatives put forward by members of our party to promote responsible, sustainable, transparent business practices.
In a report published in 2011, Transparency International ranked Canada as the worst of all the G7 countries with respect to international bribery. The organization pointed out that Canada rarely, if ever, enforces its negligible anti-corruption legislation. Since then, the government has started trying to address this national embarrassment. However, since 1999, there have only been three convictions, two of them in the past two years.
By eliminating the facilitation payments exception, the bill will bring Canada’s practices into line with 36 of the 39 other OECD countries. However, while the remainder of the bill comes into effect on royal assent, the rules on facilitation payments will come into effect at an unknown later date, as cabinet wishes. In the United States, the rule on accounting records is already enforced in civil matters by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Canada has no equivalent regulatory authority, but there is a similar rule in criminal law.
The bill is of particular importance in the mining industry, where the NDP has been and is still an ardent defender of accountability. I can cite, for instance, Bill C-323 introduced by the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, which seeks to permit people who are not Canadian citizens to initiate tort claims based on violations of international obligations in Canadian courts, as well as Bill C-486 introduced by the member for Ottawa Centre, which requires companies that use minerals from the Great Lakes Region of Africa to exercise due diligence.
Canadians want our companies to be responsible and respectable representatives of Canada, and Canadian companies want clear and consistent standards for international business. The enforcement of loophole-free regulations will create a level playing field for all companies, while protecting the environment, labour and human rights, something we could all be proud of.
The news headlines concerning SNC-Lavalin are enough to convince us that this is necessary. A number of people in my extended family and some of my childhood friends in Algeria have written to me to find out whether corruption of foreign public officials is the norm in Canada. We are aware that a number of allegations of corruption are floating around the activities of SNC-Lavalin, not just in Libya, but also in Algeria. The company has even been blacklisted in Algeria, including by Sonelgaz, Algeria’s electricity utility.
Clearly, this incident was an embarrassment for Canadians. This is why Canada has a duty to adopt responsible management practices. This bill helps ensure that operations conducted by Canadian businesses abroad meet high standards, of which we can all be proud.
Under the current version of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, however, Canada exercises only territorial jurisdiction, which allows Canada to prosecute the foreign bribery offence when it is committed in whole or in part in Canada. There must be a “real and substantial link” between the offence and Canada. The fact that Canada does not exercise nationality jurisdiction in order to prosecute a Canadian for bribing a foreign public official without needing to provide evidence of a link to Canada has been the subject of negative commentary by Transparency International and by the OECD in its Phase 3 Evaluation Report. Both bodies have recommended that Canada amend its laws to exercise nationality jurisdiction over the foreign bribery offence to promote prosecution of cases under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act.
The incorporation of this recommendation into the bill means that offences committed abroad are deemed to have been committed in Canada. As a result, proceedings for an offence can be commenced in any territorial division in Canada, and the provisions of the Criminal Code relating to the appearance of the accused at trial apply to the proceedings. With certain exceptions, the new provisions also provide safeguards for people who have already been tried and dealt with outside Canada for an act or omission that is deemed to have been committed inside Canada under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. This prevents people from being tried twice for the same offence, once by a court exercising jurisdiction on the basis of territory and once by a court exercising jurisdiction on the basis of nationality. Similar safeguards are already set out in the Criminal Code.
That being said, once again, as the hon. member for Outremont is fond of saying, the government needs to put its money where its mouth is both in this and in many other matters. In Canada, our inability to enforce anti-corruption laws is a source of embarrassment to the country. We are pleased that the government is finally looking into these problems, but it is deplorable that it has taken so much time and that Canada had to be condemned and discredited before the government took any action.
I would like to quote Janet Keeping from Transparency International. She said:
In our view, it is a very good thing that the Canadian government is responding to criticisms of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act that have mounted over the years.... I did want to have an opportunity to say that good law on the books is really important and essential, and Transparency International Canada is behind the adoption of Bill S-14. But just as in any other country of the world, legislation is only as good as it is enforced, especially in the criminal law area.... [Keep] in mind that we must have the RCMP and the prosecution services adequately resourced to enforce the legislation.
We must therefore ensure that our excellent police officers have the resources they need to do their job. If the RCMP does not have enough staff and resources, the legislation alone will not be enough and will not meet its objectives.
