Bill S-16 · 37th Parliament · Jean Chrétien
An Act to amend the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act
Government bill. Became law.
- IntroducedFeb. 19, 2001
- Debated in principleFeb. 28, 2001
- Studied by a committeeDone
- Passed its first chamberApril 3, 2001
- Passed the second chamberJune 11, 2001
- Became lawJune 13, 2001
Leading supporters
Ranked by the part each played: who is responsible for the bill, who carried it, and who spoke for it most.
- Jean ChrétienPrime Minister
Who carries this bill
Arrows run from the person responsible to those who answer to them on this bill. The critic leads the Senate’s scrutiny and answers to no one on it.
Where members stand
Votes and debate for this bill have not been read yet.
How it changed on the way
65% of the text as introduced was changed or removed by the time it became law (550 words introduced, 477 passed).
substantial changeintent mostly kept
The bill kept its core purpose of clarifying rules for the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada but altered the data retention period from fixed five- or eight-year terms to a flexible five-to-eight-year range. It also added a new protection for solicitor-client privilege during examinations that was absent from the introduced version.
- Added a new prohibition protecting solicitor-client privilege during document examinations.
After: “(9.1) The authorized person shall not ex- amine or make copies of a document in the possession of a person, not being a legal counsel, who contends that a claim of solici- tor-client privilege may be made in respect of the document by a legal counsel, without giving that person a reasonable opportunity to contact that legal counsel to enable a claim of solicitor-client privilege to be made.”
How precisely it is written
mixedChallenging the law: ModerateDisputing a charge: Hard
The bill sets fixed retention and destruction periods with exact years and dates but mixes them with subjective phrasing and open regulatory powers. This leaves some questions open to interpretation rather than settling them in black-and-white terms.
Open to argument
“without giving that person a reasonable opportunity to contact that legal counsel”
The phrase relies on a subjective standard instead of an objective test or fixed timeline.
Clear-cut
“shall retain each report and all information for five years after the date the report is received”
It supplies a concrete number and an objective calendar trigger.“shall destroy each report received and all information received or collected on the expiry of the applicable period referred to in paragraph (d)”
It ties the duty to a specific prior period already stated in the text.
Discretion. Authorized persons decide what counts as a reasonable opportunity and regulations can add further categories of identifying information.
Challenging the law itself. The subjective 'reasonable opportunity' language could be attacked under sections 7 and 8 of the Charter for vagueness in the context of solicitor-client privilege.
Disputing a charge under it. The explicit five- and eight-year periods plus the closed list of exceptions to other statutes make compliance or breach comparatively easy to verify.
Read by a language model from the royal assent text; every quoted phrase appears in the bill. A reading of the drafting, not legal advice.
Did it work?
no evaluation found
Who lobbied on it
No lobbying registration naming this bill is loaded.
Stages and dates from LEGISinfo.