Bill C-22 To Establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee Passes First Reading
On June 16, 2016, Bill C-22, An Act to establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts (“Bill C-22”) passed its First Reading in Parliament. If passed, Bill C-22 would establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (the “Committee”) and determine its composition and mandate. It would also establish the Committee’s Secretariat, which would assist the Committee in fulfilling its mandate and make consequential amendments to certain Acts.
The Committee would be given the capacity to monitor classified security and intelligence activities and subsequently report findings to the Prime Minister. Bill C-22 states that the mandate of the Committee would be to review:
- the legislative, regulatory, policy, administrative and financial framework for national security and intelligence;
- any activity carried out by a department that relates to national security or intelligence, unless the appropriate Minister determines that the review would be injurious to national security; and
- any matter relating to national security or intelligence that a minister of the Crown refers to the Committee.
Although the Committee would be precluded from reviewing activities if such a review would be deemed “injurious to national security”, charities and not-for-profits that have concerns about the far-reaching effects of Bill C-51 and the dearth of oversight for broad state investigative powers may wish to follow the progress of Bill C-22.
Revisions Announced to FATF Recommendation 8
From June 22-24, 2016, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) held a plenary meeting in Busan, Korea, which, among other things, resulted in revision of FATF Recommendation 8 and its interpretive note to protect non-profit organisations from terrorist financing abuse (the “Revision”) which has been incorporated into the FATF’s main Recommendation document. The FATF is an inter-governmental body responsible for setting and monitoring international standards for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism and Recommendation 8 deals specifically with combating the abuse of non-profit organizations, internationally.
Of particular note is the fact that the Revision has amended the Recommendation to remove the identification of the Non-Profit Organization (“NPO”) sector as “particularly vulnerable” to terrorist abuse and money laundering concerns. The Revision follows a Consultation and Dialogue Meeting that the FATF held with NPOs on April 18, 2016, in Vienna to encourage “open dialogue with representatives from a variety of NPOs on the FATF’s ongoing work to revise its standards on non-profit organizations” (as discussed in our April 2016 Charity & NFP Law Update). This meeting followed a November 2015 call for public consultation on the Interpretive Note to Recommendation 8 (the “Interpretive Note”) that sought to garner input to refine its terminology and application to the NPO sector.
With regard to the role of NPOs in terrorist financing, the FATF previously released “The FATF Typologies Report on Risk of Terrorist Abuse in Non-Profit Organizations” (the “Typologies Report”) in June 2014, which identifies factors that contribute to abuse of NPOs (as discussed in our July/August 2014 Charity & NFP Law Update). The Typologies Report was a precursor for the preparation of a recently revised best practices paper published by the FATF in June 2015, “Best Practices Paper on Combatting the Abuse of Non-Profit Organizations (Recommendation 8)” (the “Best Practices Paper”) that discusses strategies for implementing the recommendation (as discussed in our July/August 2015 Charity & NFP Law Update).
A more extensive analysis of the changes to the more complex Interpretive Note to Recommendation 8 will follow in a future Update.