Industry committee  We have indeed.

Industry committee  You'll be able to search by beneficial owner or by individual with significant control, and you'll be able to search, as you can now, by corporation. Both of those features will exist. In terms of being able to “reverse search” details about that individual, there are limited details about the individual that will allow you to be able to search by the parameters that are public and, by that, potentially uncover additional information.

Industry committee  We would note two things about this amendment. First, the notion of the “jurisdiction of residence for tax purposes” is a field that's already being collected, but it is not being made public. That's to make sure that's understood in terms of what the gist of the amendment is.

Industry committee  What I want to be clear about is that what we've asked corporations to provide is the natural person. I would not know how to implement (c.2) because I don't know what is intended by the name of the corporation. What we've asked for is a natural person, which by nature is not a corporation.

Industry committee  We would just bring the attention of the committee to the changes that were adopted in the Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1, changes that preceded this on the beneficial ownership, where in section 21.301, there is a provision that reads: The Director may provide all or part of the information received under section 21.‍21 to an investigative body referred to in subsection 21.‍31(2), the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada or any prescribed entity.

Industry committee  Certainly, the intent is obviously for the director of Corporations Canada to share the information with provinces and territories. The “may provide” in this particular case is there because the provinces and territories have not yet all—to date—accepted to participate in a pan-Canadian registry.

Industry committee  It depends on the treatment of that information. Obviously, the privacy assessment on this particular bill was done on the remit of the degree to which all participating parties were subject to the same regime. The notion that beneficial ownership information collected by the director of Corporations Canada would flow to an organization without a registry introduces potential risks.

Industry committee  I think the treatment of the information, obviously, and how it's dealt with once it's received by the province. It's essentially compelling the director to potentially send information where there isn't an actual docking capacity.

Industry committee  I have no further comments on this one. I think it was clear to members that this would make public the information about beneficial owners and the land they own, which obviously, in our perspective, is what the registry is intending to do: provide some light on the actual person associated with the corporation.

Industry committee  I'll speak to three areas of impact that we would note. First, as noted, this has been a collective exercise over the course of successive rounds of legislative amendments to try to ensure a cohesive approach with the provinces and territories across the country. The 25% standard was what was agreed to with the provinces and territories.

Industry committee  There are two things I would want to make sure that people understand. One is “control in fact”. The rule is 25% or control in fact. Obligations related to the organization actually provide for control in situations where they live under the 25% standard. They would still be decreed as beneficial owners and be required to report the natural person in that particular regard.

Industry committee  To date, the commitment from the provinces and territories is the 25% standard set up by FATF.

Industry committee  I'm not a legislative drafter. All I can offer would be that right now we are building on the legislative building blocks that came through both in the Budget Implementation Act and then subsequently. The requirement for organizations to hold information about individuals with significant control was set out in precedential legislation.

Industry committee  That's correct.

Industry committee  As you note, the thresholds are a part of international negotiation and a function of the fact that there is a degree to which net benefit reviews are to be concentrated on those large-scale transactions that are of import to the net benefit of the country, but there's no threshold for a national security review regardless.