B.C. has a $7.4-billion problem — that's the bottom line of two bombshell reports on money laundering released this week.
The big question now is how the province plans to fight it.
Together, the reports make dozens of suggestions for tackling the issue, but civil liberties advocates were alarmed to see something called unexplained wealth orders (UWOs) among the recommendations.
These orders go a step beyond civil forfeiture and "allow confiscation without finding the crime," an expert panel led by criminal law expert Maureen Maloney wrote in its report, released Thursday.
"I think it's an incredibly troubling notion," said Micheal Vonn, policy director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
With UWOs, anyone targeted by the government would be required to prove they bought their property using legitimate sources of income. The province wouldn't need to show any link to criminal activity.
Maloney suggested UWOs would be particularly helpful in cases where the cash might be connected to crimes committed outside of Canada.
For critics like Vonn, however, the proposal is fraught with serious issues, like doing away with the presumption of innocence and subverting the rights that shield Canadians from unreasonable search and seizure.
"What you have is a report that basically sets out to say, look, we just don't have the policing resources or expertise to get at this, so how do we get around the criminal law?" she said.
Another tool for confiscating property
The province already has multiple options for confiscating property linked to crime. B.C. Finance Minister Carole James told CBC News in an email that the government will consider adding UWOs to the list.
The Criminal Code has long allowed for forfeiture of property when someone has been convicted of a crime.
B.C. also has a civil forfeiture system, which means someone doesn't need to be convicted, charged or even arrested to lose their belongings to the government, as long as the province can prove on a balance of probabilities that there's a connection to crime.
If the value of the property is estimated at under $75,000, the strength of that evidence is only tested when someone files a dispute to a forfeiture notice.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...laundering-unexplained-wealth-order-1.5132202
The big question now is how the province plans to fight it.
Together, the reports make dozens of suggestions for tackling the issue, but civil liberties advocates were alarmed to see something called unexplained wealth orders (UWOs) among the recommendations.
These orders go a step beyond civil forfeiture and "allow confiscation without finding the crime," an expert panel led by criminal law expert Maureen Maloney wrote in its report, released Thursday.
"I think it's an incredibly troubling notion," said Micheal Vonn, policy director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
With UWOs, anyone targeted by the government would be required to prove they bought their property using legitimate sources of income. The province wouldn't need to show any link to criminal activity.
Maloney suggested UWOs would be particularly helpful in cases where the cash might be connected to crimes committed outside of Canada.
For critics like Vonn, however, the proposal is fraught with serious issues, like doing away with the presumption of innocence and subverting the rights that shield Canadians from unreasonable search and seizure.
"What you have is a report that basically sets out to say, look, we just don't have the policing resources or expertise to get at this, so how do we get around the criminal law?" she said.
Another tool for confiscating property
The province already has multiple options for confiscating property linked to crime. B.C. Finance Minister Carole James told CBC News in an email that the government will consider adding UWOs to the list.
The Criminal Code has long allowed for forfeiture of property when someone has been convicted of a crime.
B.C. also has a civil forfeiture system, which means someone doesn't need to be convicted, charged or even arrested to lose their belongings to the government, as long as the province can prove on a balance of probabilities that there's a connection to crime.
If the value of the property is estimated at under $75,000, the strength of that evidence is only tested when someone files a dispute to a forfeiture notice.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...laundering-unexplained-wealth-order-1.5132202
