Corruption in Canada
[1] Conflicts of interest within government, tax evasion, and the prevalence of money laundering in areas such as British Columbia[2] are among some of the leading factors of corruption in Canada.
[3] The 2014 Ernst & Young global fraud survey found that "twenty percent of Canadian executives believe bribery and corruption are widespread in this country".
These included President James (Jim) Christie, Vice-president Martin Bain and chief administrative officer Karl Walsh.
[10] It has uncovered long running, widespread corruption including "price-fixing schemes among construction companies bidding on municipal governments", "illegal donations to the province's major political parties from some of its biggest engineering firms" and links between the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, the Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ), the province's biggest federation of unions, and organized crime.
[11] In 2015, employees of EBR Information Technology firm, IBM Canada and Revenu Québec were arrested for fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust in relation to computer equipment and services contracts to the provincial government.
In March 2017, Andrew Potter, academic and former director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, wrote an article critical of Quebec civil society.
[15] In arguing that Quebec suffered social malaise, he used evidence showing that the province has the largest underground economy in Canada and that many citizens regularly avoid paying taxes by illegal but widely common practices.
[18] Dr. Michele Brill-Edwards had previously expressed similar concerns, noting that whistleblowers were not sufficiently protected by Canada's existing legislation.
[22] Dentists in multiple provinces have been disciplined for overcharging patients by forging insurance documents, charging for services that were not provided, and offering unnecessary or substandard work.
[27] Alberta's former head of Health Services, Stephen Duckett, noted that "preferential access to care was a common practice when he took over and politicians had fixers who could get valued constituents faster treatment.
"[27] Some private high schools have been found to illegally and unethically help students earn inflated grades, credits and credentials.
[40] Canada's lax regulations make it one of the top[clarification needed] countries for anonymous shell companies,[41] which are often used for tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist financing and organized crime.
[43] Highly reputed multinational accounting firm KPMG has been accused by the Canada Revenue Agency of offering tax evasion schemes as products to its clients.
"[45] These numbers are likely an understatement of true levels as the RCMP has admitted not tracking "hundreds of cases of serious misconduct committed by Mounties across the country for years".
[48] Each year, the CBSA conducts hundreds of internal investigations into allegations of employee misconduct, including sexual harassment, missing money, and criminal associations.
[51] Despite legislation known as ATIP, or Access to Information Policy, acquiring statistics, or reports is also a complex process, that can take months despite the standard 60-day law to comply and appeals to the Public Service Integrity Commission are often "Well Founded.
[58] A Toronto Star investigation revealed that "self-reported information is so riddled with inaccuracies as to be absolutely useless to a donor" and that the federal government does not verify the claims of charities' "good works".
A Toronto Star investigation found that "the truck-driver testing centre is letting learners earn their licences without being required to drive on a major expressway".
Chinese buyers are suspected of laundering money through the Vancouver real estate market in large numbers, with the help of major Canadian banks.
[71] According to a The Globe and Mail investigation, "some Canadian banks allow wealthy Asian investors to skirt Chinese law by helping them bring in large amounts of money, which is then often used to buy real estate in Vancouver.
[71] In 2012, Equifax uncovered $400 million of mortgage fraud in Canada, which experts suspect represents only a fraction of the cheating taking place in the country's real estate market.
[73] The Panama Papers leak of documents from the law offices of Mossack Fonseca brought to light a rather high level of referrals by Canadian banks to the Panamanian offshore specialist.
[43] More than 3,000 Canadian names, including three former prime ministers, current Liberal party operatives, a hockey team, trusts, foundations and individuals are identified in the Paradise Papers relating to offshore accounts.
[87][88] The documents link Stephen Bronfman, the chief liberal party fund-raiser and close aide to prime minister Justin Trudeau to tax avoidance schemes.
The Auditor-General reports to the Parliament, not to the cabinet, and conducts annual and special audits to examine the government's activities and hold it to account.
In 2012, Office of the Inspector General, which was a key oversight body for the Canada's spy agency CSIS was abolished by the Conservative government.
[95] As of 2015, there are thousands of individuals employed full-time throughout all levels of government and their agencies tasked with processing formal requests for access to information; this represents a cost to the Canadian taxpayer of hundreds of millions of dollars annually and does not include additional expenses including outside legal and other professional opinions, tribunal hearings, motions and appeals in courts, multiple access to information commissions and tribunals across the country, and various other expenses lead to system costs of approximately $200 million.
For instance, in 2015 an Ethics Commissioner report found "Government Services Minister Diane Finley breached conflict-of-interest rules by giving preferential treatment and federal funding to a project" that received "one of its lowest ratings" in an assessment done by the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development.
The CFPOA applies to persons and companies, aiming to prevent and punish the acts of bribery of foreign public officials to obtain or retain a business advantage.
Disclosure of this information has highlighted relatively high salaries of many chiefs, in comparison to extreme poor living conditions of their members.
