Finance committee  Actually, I have a whole menu of things I could mention if we had time, but certainly with regard to blockchain, this seems to be a very positive development. There are all sorts of potential uses for blockchain. It could revolutionize, essentially, the back office. It's not so m

Finance committee  I don't think there's an easy answer to that one. What you want to look at is what the international standards are. Canada wants to be in compliance with the international standards, or ahead of them. I think the important thing is transparency. That's what this is all about.

Finance committee  The term “disruption” comes from the consultation paper, which I believe refers to the Department of Finance's three pillars. I don't think that's a good word to use. I think “disruption” is supposed to be an umbrella for a number of different topics. We're really talking about e

Finance committee  The problem with real estate is that it's not a level playing field right now. There are certain aspects of real estate that are regulated. There are other aspects that aren't regulated. That's covered in the consultation paper. You have to have a level playing field where either

Finance committee  I differ with Milos on this one. I see no reason why you wouldn't want a public registry. What is there to hide? If you're getting into shareholdings, there may be a certain threshold level, but in terms of boards of directors and the actual beneficial owners of companies, why

Finance committee  There's an international movement towards disclosing beneficial ownership. It's coming: United Kingdom, Germany. I's just a matter of time. Now, to what extent remains to be seen. We do have the federal-provincial divide, but of course we know that governments have been talking a

Finance committee  Thank you. I'd like to quote something from the consultation paper itself, which actually is quite telling. The consultation paper on page 34 says that “Canada seldom requests or obtains international assistance in relation to Canadian investigations and prosecutions of money l

Finance committee  It's great to say that the framework is not good enough or that MLATs are difficult and so forth, but the Americans are using MLATs. The Brits are using MLATs. They're coming in here and we're responding to theirs. Again, I hope that's changing. The bottom line is that if we don'

Finance committee  Can I respond to that, if you don't mind? I have a different opinion on that, quite frankly. If I may, Chair, very briefly...?

Finance committee  First, with regard to beneficial ownership, I would make it a rhetorical question. Why should people not want to disclose the true ownership of a corporation? Why hide that in terms of normal commercial dealing? In terms of lawyers, I would just very quickly point out that the

Finance committee  Thank you. That's a great question. I don't speak for the RCMP, but what happened in or about 2012 or 2013 is that, with the rise of terrorist incidents in Canada and an awareness that we could be subject to terrorism at home, the RCMP moved a lot of resources in that direction

Finance committee  Thank you to the committee, and thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the invitation to be here, and hopefully we can provide some opinions that will be of assistance to you in your work. I have to say, at the outset, that the opinions I express are mine alone, not those of the in

Finance committee  Thank you. I'll outline a couple of problems. Number one, there is a lack of urgency in terms of how Canada deals with this problem. This is nothing new. It's not something that happened this year or last year. It has been ongoing. I'll give you a very brief example: cryptocurre