Article content

What should we expect from the looming provincial one-man commission of inquiry into money-laundering?

Named on May 15 by Premier John Horgan, Commissioner Austin Cullen is charged with looking at the full scope of money-laundering including through the real estate sector, gambling, financial institutions and the corporate and professional sectors.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Ian Mulgrew: Money-laundering inquiry should focus on real estate sector Back to video

He’s also supposed to examine regulatory authorities and barriers to effective law enforcement.

Even with the ability to compel witnesses and order the production of documents and records, the retired associate chief justice of the B.C. Supreme Court would have to be Superman or the Flash to do that in roughly 21 months.

The province is to be commended — no other jurisdiction is even attempting to move the yardsticks forward like this on such an amorphous issue. Pretty well everything including housing unaffordability and the opioid crisis has been blamed on money-laundering.