Toronto: Publish What You Pay Canada, Transparency International Canada, and Canadians For Tax Fairness applaud Federal Government commitments to tackle money laundering particularly through anonymous companies.
Yesterday, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair met with several provincial and territorial counterparts in Vancouver, British Columbia to discuss a range of ideas to stop financial crimes in Canada.
The government announced commitments consisting of increasing funding to the RCMP; creating a working group with the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (FLSC) to address the inherent risks of money laundering; establishing cross-government coordination for anti-money laundering best practices; and exploring the merits of a publicly accessible company register of beneficial owners through consultations.
“A commitment for consultations regarding a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry signals meaningful progress on corporate transparency,” says James Cohen, Executive Director at Transparency International Canada. “Getting ownership information out in the open deters would-be money launderers and alleviates due diligence headaches for many sectors of the Canadian economy, and more notably helps law enforcement authorities to do their jobs.”
A commitment to consultations builds upon existing measures on beneficial ownership outlined in Budget 2019 which proposed making corporate ownership information more available to law enforcement and tax authorities.
The UK has a public beneficial ownership registry and all 28-member states in the EU are already implementing a centralized, publicly accessible company registry of beneficial owners,” says Sasha Caldera, Program Manager at Canadians For Tax Fairness. “We are very pleased to see this government commit to consultations regarding the merits of a public registry. Canada needs momentum and ambition on this file.”
An expert panel commissioned in British Columbia estimates that 47 billion dollars was laundered through Canada in 2018.
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Media contacts:
James Cohen, Executive Director
Transparency International (Canada)
james.cohen@transparencycanada.ca
416.488.3939
Sasha Caldera, Program Manager
Canadians For Tax Fairness
647.861.6425