Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  That's unfortunately the way the world operates, and I don't know of another way of doing it. If I did, I would suggest it, but we can't pretend it doesn't exist.

Finance committee  It's up to the parliamentarians to try to trace the funds that are coming out. How far they go is a personal and party choice.

Finance committee  Yes, but this is a cost-benefit issue. It's a long-term issue, as you mentioned. Again, I see the amnesty as the low-hanging fruit, which one gets tired of hearing about in politics across the country because it means you don't deal with the issue. If we want to take whatever money is available and, let's say, put it into—

Finance committee  I'm saying we absolutely have to. On the side of what is motivating the people in the first place to collect this money—mostly beyond the Criminal Code—I would rather see the effort go into that side, rather than going into a temporary collection. The money is not freely available, as everybody in the room knows.

Finance committee  I think they can be partially useful. Again, you're talking about the low-hanging fruit concept, as opposed to seriously curing the problem. The point still is, why does that money go offshore? Many times it goes offshore because of other suspect or worse activity. I don't see that this is even being addressed, perhaps because it's not part of Finance.

Finance committee  The ones I run into are fairly careful if they are Canadian banks. This goes back to the Bank of Nova Scotia situation many years ago, in which they had to go through a thorough investigation. I know of certain people and so on who will stay away from the Canadian banks as a place to put their money.

Finance committee  Partly. The other side of the coin is, don't forget the volumes of both of these exchanges are dropping. I don't think there's a good business argument for not letting them merge. It's a lesser-of-evils situation. As long as we have weak prosecutions in Canada—and I'm being kind by using the word “weak”—it is a problem that needs monitoring.

Finance committee  I've done probably 15 interviews on TV and radio since this came up. Yes, I've thought about it quite a bit. What bothers me is that we have the bottom of both of these. You have AIM in London; you have the TSX Venture Exchange. Most of those are iffy companies; maybe 10% or 15% are okay.

Finance committee  I do not know the answer to the question about how much money was recovered. For the Barbados, I'd have to refresh my memory. But with the Cayman Islands, you would first of all have to prove that there was some criminal activity before you could get the access. This is the agreement the U.S. has with them.

Finance committee  I sympathize with your point about the average person trying to save and hoping to keep their money and having a pension and so on. In fact, we wrote a book on this a few months ago. I know a bunch of you probably don't agree with this, but I see the ugly side of it every week.

Finance committee  I would agree a hundred percent with you.

Finance committee  It's not just the OSC. I've testified in many other courts across Canada. I cannot honestly point out any of them that are strong in pursuing these. We've had pathetic situations. Because of contacts with these particular law firms and so on, we have agreed to help on a case, and we find the securities commissions drop the case; they just do not put in the effort.

Finance committee  No, it is a multiple-level issue. It's a question of whether the Canadian public cares enough and the lawmakers see this as a priority. On the leadership—I've been on the prosecution side for the OSC, but it was some years ago—you need that courage to proceed.

Finance committee  The SEC, as far as I can see, probably cuts off 70% of what we see in Canada being successful. With regard to the other 30% or 25%, whatever that is, I have doubts, but some of that was because of the administrations at the time. The point is that the stock market crash in 1929 was followed up in the U.S. by SEC legislation in 1933-34.