Canada Grapples With Growing Perception of Corruption: Report

The justice statue outside the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Canada is facing an “increasing perception of corruption,” a Public Safety Canada report says. The report suggests that “establishing a strong ethical tone at the top may be a useful tactic” to address the issue, without providing specific cases.

“The country has experienced a relatively consistent drop in its score over the past two decades, indicating increasing perceptions of corruption,” the federal department said in a Dec. 8 report, titled “Methods of Preventing Corruption: A Review and Analysis of Select Approaches.”

The report highlights Canada’s declining global ranking on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), a metric for assessing public sector corruption created by Transparency International, a Germany-based advocacy group. In the most recent 2022 evaluation,  Canada scored 74 out of 100, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

In the 2022 CPI rankings, Canada ranked 14th among 180 countries, sharing this spot with Estonia, Iceland, and Uruguay. It came behind Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, and Australia.

In response, Public Safety Canada’s report reviews literature on methods to prevent corruption. It identifies four key approaches for tackling the issue: value-based, compliance-based, risk management, and awareness and participation-based strategies.

One approach highlighted in the review is the “tone at the top principle,” emphasizing the importance of having strong anti-corruption values at the senior level of an organization.

“Organizational culture starts at the top,” Public Safety Canada says. “Establishing a strong ethical tone at the top may be a useful tactic for organizations to implement in an effort to prevent corruption.”

Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration, starting in 2015, Canada reached as high as eighth place in 2017 in the global CPI ranking. However, its CPI score has steadily declined during this period, with a 3-point drop in 2020. This decline coincided with the SNC-Lavalin Group scandal that year, during which the Prime Minister’s Office was allegedly involved in an attempt to quash a fraud prosecution of the Québec engineering company, as reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

Money-Laundering

Public Safety Canada highlighted that Canada’s plunging score has been attributed to major political scandals, money laundering, criticism from international organizations regarding Canadian whistleblower protections, and outdated access to information legislation, citing Transparency International.

In an analysis of its 2022 CPI, Transparency International drew attention to corruption concerns related to money laundering and the harbouring of corrupt assets, which the organization pointed out as a prevalent issue in many high-performing countries including Canada.

The analysis referenced the Cullen Commission, an independent inquiry spearheaded by B.C. Supreme Court judge Austin Cullen. Launched in May 2019, the commission investigated alleged money laundering in Canada and its connections to various sectors in B.C., including casinos, the real estate market, luxury car sales, and illicit drug trade. The commission also examined the potential involvement of a Chinese gang known as the Triads in these activities.

“Even in countries where key professions are under anti-money laundering obligations, compliance remains patchy—especially in the real estate sector,” Transparency International says in its Jan. 31, 2023 analysis.

“In Canada, an independent commission looking into British Columbia’s money laundering problem has found that real estate professionals rarely report suspicions of money laundering to the authorities because many cannot even recognise it in the first place.”

Additionally, Transparency International highlighted the abuse of anonymous legal entities in Hong Kong for corrupt practices. The report noted that Hong Kong authorities have opted not to impose sanctions on corrupt Russian elites. It drew on a 2022 Voice of America report, which revealed that tycoons with Kremlin ties allegedly used shell companies in Hong Kong for money laundering and asset concealment.

It further referred to a 2022 report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. The report revealed that a Chinese man, allegedly involved in one of China’s largest military corruption scandals, had invested millions in luxury real estate in Vancouver, and used Hong Kong-registered shell companies to transfer money to Canada.