Canada

TECHNICAL COMPLIANCE ANNEX
terrorist organizations on financial and procurement infrastructures.
Criterion 30.2— All national, provincial and municipal police forces are authorized, under the CC, as
“peace officers” to conduct parallel financial investigations related to their criminal investigations.
They may refer the ML/TF case to other police units for investigation, regardless of where the
predicate offense occurred.
Criterion 30.3— All police forces are empowered to identify, trace, seize, and restrain property that
is, or may subject to forfeiture, or is suspected of being proceeds of crime. They are empowered with
a wide range of measures under the CC (see Criterion 4.2).
Criterion 30.4— Other agencies, including the CRA (Income Tax Act), Competition Bureau
(Competition Act, ss.11-21) and Environment Canada (Environmental Protection Act 1999), have the
authority to conduct financial investigations related to the predicate offenses that they respectively
specialize in. In addition, law enforcement agencies in Canada have the authority under Common
Law to investigate crime and criminal offenses such as ML. They may seek judicial authority to seize
and freeze assets. For the CBSA, although it does not have the responsibility for pursuing financial
investigations of predicate offenses included in the Immigration Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), the
Customs Act and border related legislations, a referral mechanism is in place for RCMP to follow up
on the financial investigations. PCMLTFA, s.18 authorizes the seizure and forfeiture of cash by CBSA.
Section 36 of the same Act also authorizes the disclosure of the information to the RCMP for criminal
investigations into ML or TF.
Criterion 30.5— All police forces are responsible for investigating corruption offenses (CC, ss.119-
121 and Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, s.3). As mentioned in R.4 and above, they have the
powers to identify, trace, and initiate the freezing and seizing of assets.
Technical compliance Annex
Weighting and Conclusion:
Canada is compliant with the R.30.
Recommendation 31 - Powers of law enforcement and investigative authorities
In its 2008 MER, Canada was rated C with former R.28. Minor changes have since been implemented
in the Canadian legal framework as well as in the standard.
Criterion 31.1— a) CC, ss.487.014 (production order) and 487.018 (production order for financial
and commercial information) empower a justice or judge to order a person other than a person
under investigation to produce specified documents or data within the time to any peace or public
officer. S.487.018 production order for financial data is also available to compel a particular person
or entity to disclose the identity of the account holder of a given account number.
b) Search warrant under CC, s.487 is available for peace and public officers to search any prescribed
places for available information.
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