Financial crimes are a hilarious joke in Canada, I honestly doubt this agency is going to change much.

Like BC’s investigation into money laundering, the Cullen Report, basically came to the conclusion that there were so many people in government and various industries like Car salesmen / Casinos, that it was pointless to try and hold anyone accountable for rampant / flagrant money laundering. We literally had our own government officials enabling it, like Rich Coleman, a “Liberal” (provincial ‘liberals’ were basically federal ‘conservatives’), who decided to fire a task force that was setup to uncover money laundering, when they uncovered rampant money laundering from Asia. Coleman and other conservative MLAs owned multiple rental properties, and there were outstanding question marks on some of their dealings – their hands sure as hell didn’t look clean, and that was likely part of why the Cullen report decided not to hold anyone accountable.

Wasn’t just the provincial govt sorts either – there were municipal leaders, like in Burnaby, who accepted things like luxury-car “gifts” from Asian “business men” who would show up at casino’s with duffle bags full of small bills. Those politicians would say crap like it’s racist to question where these asians got the money, and coerce casino’s to turn a blind eye to the obvious money laundering going on (something the casino’s happily did, especially since local govt reps were telling them to!). The investigation uncovered that those duffle bags were essentially fent money laundering, which was then getting re-invested into real estate after it was laundered through the casinos. No one was held accountable.

So we’ve already got a bunch of history where the govt sets things up, spends a ton of money on looking at the issue, and then does nothing.