End Snow-washing Coalition provides perspectives on Bill C-42, Amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA).
For immediate release: Thursday, October 19th, 2023
OTTAWA: Yesterday, Canada’s Standing Senate committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy (BANC) heard from the ‘End Snow-washing’ Coalition: Publish What You Pay Canada, Transparency International Canada, and Canadians For Tax Fairness. The Coalition provided strong support of long-awaited legislation (Bill C-42) for a corporate beneficial ownership, which the Senate is studying. Should this bill pass, it will be a massive blow against money laundering, corruption, tax evasion, and terrorist financing.
“We applaud Minister Champagne for introducing critical legislation to end snow-washing. A publicly accessible and searchable registry can deter billions of dollars of illicit funds from entering Canada through federal companies each year,”
Sasha Caldera
Beneficial Ownership Campaign Manager at Publish What You Pay Canada.
“Publicly accessible registries are a powerful tool for law enforcement, competent authorities, businesses, civil society, and journalists. In essence, Canada will be strengthening the integrity of its economy with this legislation.”
The legislation contains many positive elements which the Coalition has been advocating for, including:
Publicly accessible.
Searchable.
Free to access.
Mechanism for whistle-blowers to flag errors.
Basic data verification and validation.
Back-end for law enforcement and competent authorities.
Capacity to be scaled-out to provinces and territories.
While the Coalition is supportive of the legislation, members are also recommending ways to strengthen it, such as powerful indictable offences for those who are ‘knowingly’ non-compliant and requiring beneficial owners to submit valid, non-expired, government-issued photo ID numbers to corporations for safekeeping and future ID verification.
“Using Canada as a secrecy jurisdiction to engage in ‘snow washing’ is coming to an end. This bill makes it harder for money launderers to hide behind corporate vehicles to wash their dirty money”
Noah Arshinoff
Interim Executive Director of Transparency International Canada.
“But if we really want to end snow washing, the provinces and territories must get on board with this. No one wants to be Canada’s hold-out secrecy jurisdiction.”
Bill C-42 brings Canada in line with G7/G20 and Five Eyes’ strategies to advance national security goals and surpasses the new Financial Action Task Force standard on beneficial ownership registries. These registries have become more urgent as transnational criminal networks and foreign state actors seek to exploit liberal democracies to hide dirty money. Currently, 132 countries have made commitments to beneficial ownership registries, and Canada can begin next steps in ensuring that all registry data is secure and useful to all FINTRAC reporting entities and law enforcement.
“Tax dodging and money laundering cost the public billions every year,”
Dr. DT Cochrane
an economist for Canadians for Tax Fairness.
“Bill C-42 will significantly improve tax compliance and enforcement for all levels of government.”
As a key next step, the Coalition urges the federal government to reach an agreement with provinces and territories and to permit registered provincial and territorial entities to send beneficial ownership information directly into a central registry. A pan-Canadian agreement will ensure that the registry will comprehensively cover all of Canada to avoid any weak spots which can be exploited by criminals.
For media inquiries please contact:
Sasha Caldera
Campaign Manager, Publish What You Pay Canada
Phone: 647-861-6425
E-mail: scaldera@pwyp.ca
Noah Arshinoff
Interim Executive Director, Transparency International Canada
Phone: 416-488-3939
Email: noah.arshinoff@transparencycanada.ca
DT Cochrane
Economist for Canadians for Tax Fairness
Email: dt.cochrane@taxfairness.ca
About: The End Snow-Washing Coalition is composed of three civil society organizations, who advocate for a publicly accessible, pan-Canadian, company registry of beneficial owners. Members include Publish What You Pay Canada, Transparency International Canada, and Canadians For Tax Fairness. Learn more at www.endsnowwashing.ca .