Industry committee  We're not talking about—

Industry committee  I don't—

Industry committee  Okay, the privacy element on beneficial ownership on corporate shares, to our mind, is a red herring. We're not asking people to divulge how much they make or how much things are worth or what their net value is. It's very basic tombstone information. People who own 25% or more—that's the U.K. standard—divulge their interest in a company.

Industry committee  Sure. I talked about it in my remarks, due diligence and “know your client” obligations that are incumbent upon, among others, financial institutions that under our anti-money-laundering legislation have all kinds of obligations to know who they're doing business with. Having a registry of that nature will enormously facilitate doing that due diligence, doing those “know your client” exercises, and will allow financial institutions with that kind of regulatory obligation to carry out those exercises and validate what's being told them by their new customers.

Industry committee  I will say something very quick about that, and then I'm going to ask Monsieur Meunier to chime in as well. To put it very simply, if you are an RCMP investigator trying to understand who is behind a company or a transaction because you have some evidence that indicates that a numbered company registered, for example, in New Brunswick is involved in some activity that you suspect is improper, getting to who is behind that company for the investigator is extremely difficult.

Industry committee  Yes. We believe that the name of the shareholders of Canadian companies should be in a public registry. However, there is much discussion about making information available to government authorities but not to the public.

Industry committee  I don't know about pitfalls, but the challenge, of course, is our wonderful federal structure, our Constitution, which provides exclusive jurisdiction to the provinces to do what they want with their companies acts. The federal government doesn't have the authority to force the provinces to change their corporate acts to provide for beneficial ownership transparency, but certainly the federal government could take a leadership role by amending its act and then coordinate with the provinces to see what progress could be made to ensure beneficial ownership transparency at the provincial act level.

Industry committee  It's difficult to get very hard data on exactly how much dirty money is being funnelled through Canadian anonymous corporations. Most of the evidence is indirect, but if you look at our report, there are a lot of indications that a lot of money is being laundered through Canada through anonymous corporations.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the committee for this invitation. My remarks will be in English, but I will be pleased to answer questions in French. Again, thanks for the opportunity to be heard by video conference. I think the technology is wonderful, and I appreciate the committee's efforts in using it in this way.