Today in the legislature I rose during question period to ask the Attorney General what action he’s taking to crack down on money laundering in BC casinos. I also inquired as to what he is doing to ensure that those involved are held accountable for their actions/inactions.

Below I reproduce the video and text of our exchange. I was very impressed with the comprehensive and thoughtful answers that I received to my questions.

Video of Exchange

Question

A. Weaver: Last week’s explosive investigative report on CTV’s W5 alleged that the B.C. Lottery Corp. displayed wilful blindness to money laundering in B.C. casinos. Since the early 2000s, multiple whistle-blowing attempts were allegedly ignored. From 2008 up until last year, these warnings were coming with increasing frequency, yet they were still ignored.

But it goes deeper than that. Those who tried to expose the racket were penalized. Does this sound familiar? The reports issued on the escalating crisis by the previous executive director of the B.C. gaming policy and enforcement branch were shelved, and at times, senior staff were even told that they should not talk about money laundering. It’s astounding.

After continually warning of a massive escalation of suspected dirty money infiltrating casinos, the top gaming investigators in B.C. lost their jobs.

My question is to the Attorney General: what action is this government taking to clean up this alleged culture of corruption?

Answer

Hon. D. Eby: I thank the member for the question. One of first things that we did on forming government was actually let British Columbians know about what was happening in our casinos, that our regulator believed that our casinos were the hub of an international large-scale money-laundering ring. British Columbians did not know that.

The member mentioned the Vancouver model in his two-minute statement. The reason British Columbians know about that now is because Peter German talked with the university professor who was teaching anti-money-laundering professionals about the Vancouver model of money laundering at the same time as officials here were saying that there was no issue with money laundering in our casinos. Can you imagine that?

The action we’ve taken is to, first of all, let British Columbians know about what was going on, and second, to tell the casinos, even though we knew there was a potential $30 million hit to the budget — even though we knew that — to stop accepting the cash. It cut suspicious cash transactions by 100 times from the peak of July 2015.

I can also tell the member that we have the regulator in the casinos at peak hours now. Previously they were only there Monday to Friday, nine to five. I don’t know if the member has ever found himself in a casino, but it probably wasn’t Monday to Friday, nine to five. Now the regulator’s there when people are actually in the casino, which seems like a good idea to us.

B.C. Lottery Corp., under the supervision of the regulator…. The member was in the House when we passed the legislation to make those 40-plus recommendations from Peter German all underway.

I thank the member for the question very much. We’re taking a lot of action on this file.

Supplementary Question

A. Weaver: There’s little doubt that this problem occurred under the watch of the previous government. However, it is now this government that’s in power, and it’s this government’s responsibility to actually get to the bottom of this.

As the Province reporter Mike Smyth pointed out, the NDP loves talking and talking about money laundering. According to other whistle-blowers in the industry, there was not only a culture of wilful blindness, but some executives were actively justifying the money laundering. Some said it would occur anyway, and therefore, at least the government casinos could be used to recycle the dirty money into productive uses. The seemingly pervasive theme across casino executives and within the BCLC was that the money should not be questioned.

According to whistle-blowers at the centre of this, their behaviour was not unwitting. It was deliberate. A former senior director of investigation for B.C.’s gaming policy enforcement branch has even said that the BCLC could have stopped this at any point. They did not.

My question, again, is to the Attorney General. Those responsible in his ministry must be held accountable. What is his ministry doing to ensure that British Columbians are getting the answers they deserve today, not some time in the future, but now?

Answer

Hon. D. Eby: You know, it’s a bit ironic to be given information that was in the Peter German report as evidence of the fact that the government hasn’t been taking action to get the information out. The reason why CTV and others knew about Joe Schalk and others who were fired when they tried to ring the alarm bells was because that was in Peter German’s report. I’ve actually written to them to congratulate them and thank them for their work in defending British Columbia’s interests. We’re getting the information out to British Columbians. We’re trying to stop the activity that’s taking place.

I’ve heard the members on the other side, in the official opposition, say: “Oh, we had lots going on. We were trying to stop money laundering.” We asked them: okay, well, give us the cabinet documents. Give us access to cabinet documents. We’ll keep that confidential. We won’t release that information. We’ll use that to inform our anti-money-laundering response so we don’t repeat the work. Did they give us the documents? No, they did not.

I can tell the member that it was just about eight weeks ago that the Silver International federal prosecution fell apart. We expected that British Columbians would hear a lot of information on that prosecution. We were incredibly concerned when it fell apart. I presented to a federal finance committee on this issue.

We now have a federal minister tasked directly to work with B.C. on this issue. The federal government is committed to work with us. We have a civil forfeiture action underway that I can’t talk about that is currently in front of the courts. The Ministry of Attorney General lawyers resisted an application to give the money back to the alleged money launders in the Silver International case. This case is ongoing.

The independent prosecution service, provincially, is looking at the federal materials and seeing if there are provincial charges that are appropriate. I could go on and on and on, and I would love to.