Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak to the committee.

I'll just correct something right off the bat. I am with Transparency International Canada. I'm president and chair of the board of Transparency International Canada, which is a national chapter of Transparency International. That parent organization was formed in 1993 and is based in Berlin. It has about 100 chapters around the world and is often considered the leading NGO committed to the struggle against corruption globally.

TI Canada, on the other hand, was formed in 1998. We're a coalition that includes professionals, lawyers, such as me, and accountants, and people from the NGO community, retired government officials, and people from business, including from the extractives.

My primary mission today speaking on behalf of Transparency International Canada is to urge the adoption of Bill S-14. In our view, it is a very good thing that the Canadian government is responding to criticisms of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act that have mounted over the years.

Passage of the bill will allow the Canadian struggle against corruption abroad to move on to other fronts. The bill addresses issues that have been pointed to by many over the years, both from within Canada, including from Transparency International Canada, and from outside our country, as I'm sure you well know.

I'm going to be very brief here and just mention the provisions of the bill that have been of special interest to Transparency International Canada. One is the addition of nationality jurisdiction. It needs to be added. Bill S-14 would add it, and we're very pleased to see this.

On the more serious penalties that the earlier speaker from the Canadian Bar Association alluded to, in our view, increasing the penalties sends the message that Canada is truly serious about the struggle against corruption. Many people believe that only when individuals realize they could go to jail for a significant period of time will more people resist what they see as the corrupt, easy way to do business. I think it's probably more important that enforcement of the law be vigorous and consistent than to have the possibility of long jail sentences, but generally speaking, we are pleased to see that the penalties are being increased.

What about facilitation payments? We have debated this internally in TI Canada and within the course of public events that we've put on several times over the last few years. We understand the complex and, with some of them, subtle issues here, but we are supportive of eliminating the current exemption for facilitation payments.

In our view, the addition of the books and records offence that's created by Bill S-14constitutes a very important start in the area of books and records. We also need a civil books and records provision, but we are fully aware of the constitutional limitations on the federal government in this area. In our view, adding a criminal books and records offence, which Bill S-14 does, will be of tangible assistance to the struggle against corruption.

Just briefly, we also spent a fair bit of time at TI Canada talking about the change to the definition of “business”, eliminating the words “for profit”, and we believe that too is an appropriate measure and are glad to see it in Bill S-14.

I want to conclude my very brief remarks by expressing appreciation to those in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade who organized a two-day workshop in early January 2012 to examine many of the issues now addressed by Bill S-14. It was an excellent effort that was well prepared for, well conducted, and well followed up on. Several government agencies were represented, and TI Canada was pleased to have had a number of its directors and our administrative consultant involved in that process.

It was an open and honest discussion. We felt we were heard, and we probably would have had a whole lot more to say about Bill S-14 had we not been involved so far up front in this process.

Thank you for the opportunity to make this statement, and I welcome questions later.

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