Poilievre pledges to protect seniors by forcing banks, telcos to crack down on scammers

Peter Zimonjic · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 15, 2025 11:06 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising to support seniors by making it mandatory for fiscal institutions and telephone companies to stop digital scammers in their tracks. 

The program would necessitate these companies to detect, study and artifact "suspected fraud successful existent time," oregon look the imaginable of monolithic fines and/or being charged with a caller transgression nether the Criminal Code. 

"We're going to walk the 'Stop Scamming Seniors Act,' a common-sense instrumentality that forces banks and telecom companies to deploy authorities of the creation exertion to drawback scams and halt them earlier they happen," Poilievre said during a run halt successful Montreal on Tuesday.  

A backgrounder explaining the projected argumentation says seniors are the Number 1 people for integer scammers who usage phishing texts, robocalls and different tricks to fleece the aged of their beingness savings. 

"Meanwhile, the institutions champion positioned to forestall these crimes — banks and telecom companies — are not legally required to enactment fast, transparently, oregon decisively," a connection from the enactment said. 

Under the plan, corporations would beryllium required to employ the aforesaid AI tools they presently use to optimize their selling and income initiatives to way imaginable instances of fraud. 

Anyone caught committing an enactment of fraud implicit $5,000 would get a minimum jailhouse condemnation of 1 year. Those convicted of fraud implicit $100,000 would get a minimum condemnation of 3 years, portion those blameworthy of fraud implicit $1 cardinal would beryllium taxable to a five-year minimum sentence. 

Under the Criminal Code today, people convicted of fraud implicit $5,000 do not look a minimum condemnation but tin beryllium sentenced to situation for up to 14 years. Those convicted of fraud implicit $1 cardinal presently look a minimum situation word of 2 years and a maximum of 14 years.  

Poilievre's program besides calls for convicted fraudsters to wage fines that magnitude to "ten times the magnitude defrauded."

"We privation to financially cripple the fraudsters to deter their greed," Poilievre said Tuesday. 

Fining and holding companies accountable

The Conservative program calls for the instauration of a caller Criminal Code offence called "wilful unsighted profiteering from fraud" that would people firm executives "who disregard reddish flags and knowingly let scam postulation oregon activity."

Companies recovered to person wilfully neglected to instrumentality scam-prevention efforts could look fines of up to $5 cardinal per violation. 

Banks and telecom companies would beryllium required to instrumentality mandatory scam detection systems that are specially crafted to support seniors implicit 65.

Corporations would besides person to make a "senior transaction shielding protocol" that would impose a 24-hour clasp connected high-risk transactions involving seniors' accounts. The Conservatives did not item what qualifies arsenic a "high-risk transaction."

During the 24-hour hold "a verification telephone and fraud cheque indispensable occur."

Each institution would beryllium required to contented nationalist quarterly reports detailing their fraud-prevention statistic including how many scams they blocked and customers they reimbursed. 

"Our seniors merit to consciousness harmless and unafraid erstwhile they prime up their phones, iPads oregon computers," Poilievre said Tuesday. "If you are a slope oregon telco, we privation you to bash everything you tin to support our beloved seniors who built this country."