Quebec’s government is stepping up its efforts to tackle financial crime with the announcement of a series of measures designed to fight financial fraud.

The province’s minister of public security, Jacques Dupuis, Sunday announced the creation of a new team, consisting of 17 investigators from the Sûreté du Québec, attorneys assigned to the Director of Criminal Prosecutions and experts from various other ministries, that will investigate all types of misappropriation of funds and corruption concerning public institutions in Quebec.

“Economic crimes are complex. By pooling our information and skills, we can investigate more effectively to prosecute these criminals. Today, we are sending a clear message to white-collar criminals and those who are tempted to imitate them,” Dupuis said.

Additionally, the Sûreté du Québec is setting up a team of six specialized investigators that will work closely with the Director of Criminal Prosecutions and under the coordination of the Autorité des marchés financiers with the specific purpose of combating financial fraud.

The minister of finance, Raymond Bachand, also announced the AMF will try to improve investor education, by intensifying its efforts with more vulnerable groups, in particular pensioners, and by working with professional associations and bankers, who serve these groups. A major media campaign will also be mounted this fall to make investors aware of the risk of fraud and ways to protect themselves.

Finally, the province’s minister of justice, Kathleen Weil, called for stiffer sentences for economic crimes. “The Quebec government considers that economic crimes are serious and have a significant impact, and that is why it wants stiffer sentences to apply to them,” she said. However, she noted that criminal law is a federal responsibility and that any request to reform the determination of sentences and enforcement must be made to the federal government.

Weil said she has asked that these issues be raised at the federal-provincial-territorial meeting of justice ministers in late October, and she sent a letter to her federal counterpart detailing her recommendations. She is proposing: legislative amendments to facilitate confiscation of the proceeds of crime in cases of fraud and other economic crimes; increased sentences for certain economic crimes; and that the law relating to parole be amended to review the rule under which a convicted person can automatically be paroled after serving 1/6 of his sentence in the case of non-violent crimes, to exclude certain types of financial fraud.

“The measures announced today show that the Québec government is firmly determined to fight economic crime and provide the best possible protection for savers,” Bachand said, adding that mots transactions that are carried out on Québec’s financial markets comply with the rules and involve honest and competent advisors. “Cases of fraud account for only a tiny portion of these transactions. Overall, the public can have confidence in how the markets operate,” he concluded.

IE