Vaughn Palmer: Money-laundering inquiry is a big ask legally, plus deadline is costly
Credit to Author: Gord Kurenoff| Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 01:51:59 +0000
VICTORIA — The NDP government-ordered public inquiry into money-laundering has prepared a budget of $15 million and scheduled three rounds of hearings starting next month.
The budget still requires approval of the provincial government. But given the NDP’s stake in the process, inquiry commissioner Austin Cullen can expect the funding will be approved, no questions asked.
The budget is larger than the $10 million the New Democrats proposed for a public inquiry (that never happened) into the sale of B.C. Rail. But it would be only one-third of the cost of Charbonneau commission into corruption in the construction sector in Quebec.
Though the money-laundering commission has yet to provide a budget breakdown, one of the drains will be the cost of its own legal team.
The latest addition is Vancouver lawyer Tam Boyar, appointed last week as policy counsel. He joins the two senior counsel already on staff at the commission, plus three associate counsel and three juniors — for a total of nine lawyers in all.
The tally recalls something the New Democrats used to say when they were expressing reservations about the need for an inquiry into money laundering.
“People lawyer up,” cautioned Attorney-General David Eby. He meant the individuals and organizations to be called to account and perhaps faulted in the commission’s findings.
I don’t know if he contemplated the commission itself would be racking up the billable hours to such an extent.
However, when I asked recently, the commission defended the hirings by citing the broad-brush mandate and tight time frame imposed by the NDP cabinet.
“Our scope is extensive in investigating money laundering in B.C.,” said the reply from senior commission counsel Brock Martland. “With nine lawyers on staff, this means that more work gets done on a daily/weekly/monthly basis — so we can complete our work on schedule.
“While we are always aware that the work that we do is publicly funded, it is also crucial that we have the human and other resources required to deliver on our mandate.”
The New Democrats did indeed ask a lot of the inquiry. Commissioner Cullen and his team are supposed to examine money laundering in “gaming, casinos, horse racing, real estate, the professional and corporate sector, accounting and legal services, financial institutions, luxury goods, automobile sales, cryptocurrency, trade and asset recovery.
Plus they are to review enforcement, regulation, government responses and how other jurisdictions have dealt with the problem and to what extent they have succeeded.
An interim report is due this fall and the final one by mid-May 2121, a timetable that is obviously political.
The New Democrats hope the findings will expose negligence, incompetence and corruption under the previous B.C. Liberal government in time for the election scheduled for the fall of 2021.
But the commission, once appointed, is independent. Cullen, B.C. Supreme Court justice, has already signalled the proceedings will be open, thorough and fair.
The commission has broken up the workload into three sets of hearings, spread over the year.
The first phase, convening Feb. 24-28 in Vancouver, is for participants — organizations and individuals granted preferred standing and access to the proceedings.
They will make opening statements and outline the matters and materials they would like to see the inquiry address.
Cullen has recognized 18 participants in all, each of whom can be expected to appear with legal counsel.
They include government agencies and regulators, industry associations and watchdogs, as well as B.C. Lottery Corporation CEO Jim Lightbody and one other individual deemed to have a major stake in the outcome. The group includes no current or former elected officials.
A second phase opens May 25 and is scheduled to run through the following five weeks.
“These hearings will deal with an overview of the money laundering topic and regulatory models, as well as attempts to quantify the extent of money laundering activity in British Columbia,” according to the commission.
The best bet for the bombshell testimony hoped for by the New Democrats and feared by the B.C. Liberals will be hearings that open Sept. 8 and run through Dec. 22.
Proceedings will be open to the public and streamed on the commission website. Closer to the fall, the commission will publish a list of witnesses, expected to include both accusers and accused.
Each will be entitled to representation by counsel. Each could be subject to cross examination by participants, depending on the relevance and implications of their testimony.
Given that the hearings are scheduled to run almost to the end of the year, I wondered how the commission will address the cabinet directive for an interim report by Nov. 15.
“An interim report has the important purpose of setting out what we are working toward for the final report and where we are in the process,” said Martland. “It will outline the work underway and the issues under consideration. … It will draw on the input of participants in identifying key issues and themes.”
He expects to meet the Nov. 15 deadline. But he emphasized that the commissioner Cullen’s findings and recommendations will be in the final report, due May 15, 2021.
That’s presuming all goes well. But one doesn’t need to look to deeply into the history of public inquiries to recognize the final report can be delayed by the workload going in and legal challenges to the findings coming out.
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