On April 30, Transparency International Canada joined Publish What You Pay Canada and Canadians for Tax Fairness in providing a submission to the federal government’s consultation on a public beneficial ownership registry.
This consultation is an important step on the path to establishing a pan-Canadian publicly accessible registry of corporate beneficial ownership. The federal government’s consultation is complemented by similar consultations that took place in British Columbia and Quebec. The results of the Quebec government’s consultation has already led to the proposal of a publicly accessible registry in Quebec 2020-2021 budget, which we applauded.
We are pleased that the federal government did not postpone this important consultation while managing the outbreak of COVID-19. They did extend the deadline for submissions to allow all interested stakeholders to contribute to the discussion.
Indeed, the COVID-19 crisis has shown more examples of the importance of beneficial ownership transparency. With billions of dollars being urgently dispersed, beneficial ownership transparency can safeguard limited resources and save lives and time. Transparency can mitigate fraudsters from using shell companies to access bail out funds, or scam procurement contracts for desperately needed medical supplies.
There will be more steps in the process towards adopting a national public beneficial ownership registry, and we will continue to work hard with our partners to achieve this end goal.
You can read our coalition’s submission here.