Finance committee  How many would that be?

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, I see—

Finance committee  Thank you for your testimony. I see that my time is up.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for your service to our country. It's greatly appreciated. I'm hoping that you can clear up a little bit of confusion I have. First of all, just to establish the facts, my understanding is that you were very specific in the way you used the Emergencies Act.

Finance committee  Thank you for that. Thank you for your brevity as well. When we look at the order, it says, “any individual or entity that is engaged, directly or indirectly”. So it is broad enough. Professors and other people have commented that this is certainly enough, that you could have provided information, and in fact bank accounts could have been frozen, just based on that area.

Finance committee  Yes. Thank you for that. But it says “directly or indirectly”. “Indirectly” gets to the financial contribution. You didn't use that. They had to have direct involvement in there. I understand the general deterrent, but when the justice minister goes out on TV and says that a financial contribution—granted, a large one—could result in your bank account being frozen, or you should be worried, anyway....

Finance committee  Thanks very much. I appreciate that. But for the purposes of drafting the act, if this ever came into...ever had to and hopefully never will, you did not need that broad a scope. You could have had it much narrower. It could have said “directly” as opposed to “indirectly”. That could have reassured quite a few Canadians who thought that their bank account might get frozen, as the justice minister said, just simply based on a financial contribution.

Finance committee  But you didn't. Is that correct?

Finance committee  Okay. FINTRAC was before our committee. They had some interesting testimony on the flow of the money into the crowdfunding and into the protests, that they did not see any evidence of terrorist activity. Did you see any evidence of terrorist activity in the funding of these illegal protests and blockades?

Finance committee  Thank you for that. I understand that there was an argument for general deterrents, but specific deterrents.... I understand that the spectre of having their bank account frozen may have held people back from coming out. However, even after the bank accounts started getting frozen, and this was released, I did not see the trucks leave until your officers did their great work and cleared the protesters.

Finance committee  Yes, but I mean, it's clear that there is a legal bias towards freezing than not freezing, just looking at the legal side of things. With respect to the information provided by the RCMP to your members, could you provide some explanation as to what was in this bias? For example, would the individual's location, their financial wherewithal, their gender, their race or whether they were indigenous be included?

Finance committee  Okay. But you received the information, right?

Finance committee  Did your members freeze every single account for which the RCMP provided evidence?

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I want to go through the process. The Emergencies Act is invoked, Ms. Mason, and then your members are contacted, presumably by the finance department, and told how the process works. Is that correct? Is that how it went down?

Finance committee  They were published and then the RCMP gave you briefs that contained evidence that individuals may have been involved in the illegal protest movement. You were then to act based on your legal opinion. For each one of the briefs provided, did your members have their own independent legal advice, or did they do what the RCMP suggested they do?