ST PETERSBURG: Canada's ruling Conservatives will table legislation in the fall to tighten controls on anti-terrorist funding, officials said on Saturday, a week after 17 al Qaeda inspired suspects were arrested.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty takes on the presidency this month of the Financial Action Task Force, an international body that combats money-laundering, and Canada faces a health check of its domestic anti-terror laws in late 2007.
"We'll be moving forward ... and making sure we have our Canadian legislation in line this year, with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force," Flaherty told reporters after a meeting of G8 finance ministers in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A bill is likely to be presented to parliament in the fall that aims to improve on existing legislation, ministry officials said. The Conservatives, who unseated the previous Liberal government in a January election, have significantly boosted policing resources in their first budget.
But Flaherty has admitted the country still has problems controlling money-laundering and counterfeiting. The government initiative is a logical follow-up to a process of consultations and a "white paper" on anti-terrorist financing and money-laundering the government presented in 2005, the officials said.
The white paper mentions Canada's burgeoning diamond industry as one source of illicit financing. The arrest of 17 men in Toronto on June 3 on charges of plotting bombings in major Canadian cities and training militants make the task all the more urgent but are not the reason for the new legislation, officials said.
One member of the ring faces accusations he planned to behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper, according to his lawyer.
