Anonymous Companies - Sign on to a letter calling for transparency

[Claire Woodside]

Hi all,

 

Publish What You Pay Canada is championing a sign-on letter to Minister Morneau, to highlight the current government’s inaction on beneficial ownership. Anonymous companies undermine Canada’s anti-corruption efforts and make Canada a good place for individuals who wish to launder money or evade taxes. In this letter we call for the creation of a PUBLIC registry of corporations and trusts in Canada.

 

Ourselves and other organizations and individuals have highlight this issue within the OGP process in Canada: http://open.canada.ca/en/idea/beneficial-ownership-transparency. International bodies, including  the Financial Action Task Force, recently highlighted Canada’s lack of progress to increase beneficial ownership transparency, identifying this as a priority issue for Canada. Moreover, Canada has made commitments within the G20 to improve beneficial ownership transparency.

 

The Canadian government is currently looking more seriously at hoe to improve beneficial ownership transparency, however, from our conversations tfour things are clear: 1) they are comfortable with very slow progress, 2) they are not considering making this information public, 3) they do not wish to expend any capital on this issue with the provinces and 4) they would prefer not to lead domestically (ie. Be more comfortable if a province took the lead).  We hope that this letter will highlight the importance of this issue and help to move it up their agenda. It will also support our efforts to highlight current proposed amendments to the Canadian Business Corporations Act, Bill C-25, as a missed opportunity to do more.

 

We would like to use this letter to demonstrate the breadth of support for  the creation of a public registry of the beneficial owners of companies and trusts in Canada and to move this issue up the political priority list.

 

Who can sign-on? Canadian-based organizations or international organizations without a Canadian affiliate or representative.

 

Please  advise me, Claire Woodside: [hidden email], if your organization is able to sign the letter by November 10^th. Thank you to all those whom have already indicated their support.

 

Warm regards,

 

Claire

 

 

Claire Woodside

Director/Directrice

Publish What You Pay Canada/Publiez Ce Que Vous Payez Canada

331 Cooper st., Suite 600

Ottawa, Canada

(Tel) 6132376768 ext 29 (Cell) 6137943536

[hidden email] - @pwypcanada

www.pwyp.ca

 

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[James McKinney-4]

Hi Claire,

Thanks for pushing this forward.

I have a list of organizations that the civil society network (http://www.opengovdialogue.ca/) used for outreach. Would it be helpful for me to share that with you?

With regard to your point about the federal government being more comfortable if a province took the lead: I participated in Ontario’s Open Government Partnership consultation and submitted an idea for beneficial ownership transparency for the Ontario Securities Commission, but it did not make it through to voting. Based on the public criteria for ideas, the Ontario government either considered it irrelevant, infeasible, or impossible to make progress on before the end of 2017. I think it’s more likely that other criteria excluded it.

The other provinces with an open data policy are Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Alberta and BC – in case you want to push at the provincial level.

James

> On Oct 31, 2016, at 10:23 AM, Claire Woodside <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>  
> Publish What You Pay Canada is championing a sign-on letter to Minister Morneau, to highlight the current government’s inaction on beneficial ownership. Anonymous companies undermine Canada’s anti-corruption efforts and make Canada a good place for individuals who wish to launder money or evade taxes. In this letter we call for the creation of a PUBLIC registry of corporations and trusts in Canada.
>  
> Ourselves and other organizations and individuals have highlight this issue within the OGP process in Canada:http://open.canada.ca/en/idea/beneficial-ownership-transparency. International bodies, including  the Financial Action Task Force, recently highlighted Canada’s lack of progress to increase beneficial ownership transparency, identifying this as a priority issue for Canada. Moreover, Canada has made commitments within the G20 to improve beneficial ownership transparency.
>  
> The Canadian government is currently looking more seriously at hoe to improve beneficial ownership transparency, however, from our conversations tfour things are clear: 1) they are comfortable with very slow progress, 2) they are not considering making this information public, 3) they do not wish to expend any capital on this issue with the provinces and 4) they would prefer not to lead domestically (ie. Be more comfortable if a province took the lead).  We hope that this letter will highlight the importance of this issue and help to move it up their agenda. It will also support our efforts to highlight current proposed amendments to the Canadian Business Corporations Act, Bill C-25, as a missed opportunity to do more.
>  
> We would like to use this letter to demonstrate the breadth of support for  the creation of a public registry of the beneficial owners of companies and trusts in Canada and to move this issue up the political priority list.
>  
> Who can sign-on? Canadian-based organizations or international organizations without a Canadian affiliate or representative.
>  
> Please  advise me, Claire Woodside: [hidden email], if your organization is able to sign the letter by November 10th. Thank you to all those whom have already indicated their support.
>  
> Warm regards,
>  
> Claire
>  
>  
> Claire Woodside
> Director/Directrice
> Publish What You Pay Canada/Publiez Ce Que Vous Payez Canada
> 331 Cooper st., Suite 600
> Ottawa, Canada
> (Tel) 6132376768 ext 29 (Cell) 6137943536
> [hidden email] - @pwypcanada
> www.pwyp.ca
>  
> <Beneficial Ownership sign on letter - Signatories Wanted.docx>_______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss