Securities scofflaws beware: the feds are unveiling a major case squad targeting white-collar crime.

Tuesday’s federal budget provides up to $30 million a year to build new, integrated investigation units that will give Ottawa a hand in fraud enforcement, traditionally the turf of the provinces. It also lays the groundwork for federal prosecutions of fraud and proposes new legislation to beef up the federal presence in this arena.

The budget foresees integrated investigative units composed of police, lawyers and forensic accountants drawn from the RCMP and the Justice department. These teams would be modeled on other integrated, investigative units that currently handle proceeds-of-crime cases. Initially, these units will be built in major financial centres — Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. However, they will be available to parachute into any jurisdiction that uncovers a major white-collar crime case.

The focus is corporate and market fraud. Department officials say they will be targeting any case that substantially threatens market confidence, which may mean combating massive frauds, such as the Bre-X Minerals fiasco. It could also involve pursuing cases that aren’t necessarily large in monetary terms but have substantial impact on market confidence. The government plans to have these teams in place by April.

The federal government is also getting into the prosecutorial end of things, too. Justice plans to introduce new legislation to modernize fraud offences, beef up evidence-gathering powers and revise the sentencing structure to accommodate fraud prosecutions.

Justice is also seeking concurrent jurisdiction with the provinces over serious white-collar crimes. Typically, federal-provincial jurisdictional lines are well-defined, but there are areas of concurrent jurisdiction, such as terrorism. The budget explains that this initiative will require further consultation, but a department official indicates that the existence of money earmarked for related prosecutions suggests there is support for the idea at the federal level. The trick will be getting the provinces to go along.

One idea that Ottawa has not taken up is the proposal for dedicated courts to handle serious white-collar crimes. Joe Oliver, president & CEO of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada, proposed the idea to the Senate Banking Committee last fall. But the idea has not captured the government’s imagination.

The suggestion of a national enforcement capability has been floating around for some time, the hope being that this could lead to national enforcement of securities regulation and perhaps to national securities regulation. These measures do not appear to advance that cause.