BC finance minister relieved by federal promise to fight money laundering
Posted March 19, 2019 6:10 pm.
Last Updated March 19, 2019 6:16 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A federal promise to spend close to $140 million over five years to fight money laundering has B.C.’s Finance Minister Carole James expressing relief.
“Criminals obviously don’t stop at provincial borders,” she says. “There are many issues, whether we’re talking about RCMP resources, specific resources to address money laundering or whether we’re talking about real estate and the speculation in the market.”
She says she’s also happy the government is taking steps to make housing more affordable.
“[It’s] a major focus for our government and so, it’s good to see that the federal government has recognized that and is coming to the table with resources,” she says. “We’ve focused on purpose-built rental housing, which is again a critical need when you have an almost zero vacancy rate.”
RELATED: BC Greens call for full-scale public inquiry into money laundering
A report looking into how money laundering, mainly linked to organized crime, has impacted B.C. real estate is due by the end of this month.
Retired senior RCMP officer Peter German has already found evidence local casinos have been extensively used to ‘clean’ dirty money.
James is also pleased Ottawa is moving closer to setting up a national Pharmacare program, possibly based on a model already working well in British Columbia.
“In the last two budgets, we put more investments to address low-income families and the struggles many seniors have in being able to afford their medications and we’ve certainly said, ‘Feel free to use the example in B.C.’ We feel we really are a leader in this area,’ she says.
After years of lobbying for national Pharmacare, UBC Professor Steve Morgan says it should only take a couple years to implement.
“We already have 95 per cent of the capacity to do this in place in Canada,” he says. “We have national agencies like the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health who are world-calibre agencies for managing drug technology assessments and a whole bunch of stuff that needs to get done.”
The health policy expert admits he’s worried the target date for launching this program might be 2022 because that’s when the government has promised to set up a rare disease fund worth $500 million.
