On June 7, 2023, the federal government published a Consultation Paper seeking comments on potential changes to Canada's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing (“AML/ATF”) regime with the aim to provide to keep the AML/ATF Regime current in response to market developments, as well as new and evolving risks.
Stakeholders should provide their feedback on various areas including:
Federal, provincial, and territorial collaboration
Investigation and prosecution of the offence of laundering proceeds of crime (e.g. third-party money laundering…)
Offences for other economically-motivated crime (e.g. “phishing” or “spoofing”...)
Sentencing for laundering proceeds of crime
Access to subscriber information under the Criminal Code
Electronic devices (e.g. inclusion of a power to search a person for a thing or property…)
Digital assets and related challenges (e.g. seizure and restraint of digital assets including cryptocurrency for evidentiary purposes or as offence-related property…)
Keep open accounts under investigation
Mandate and structure of the Canada Financial Crimes Agency
Information sharing (e.g. private-to-private information sharing; public-to-private information sharing)
Information sharing between the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) and reporting entities
Database of Politically Exposed Persons and Heads of International Organizations
Modernizing data collection authorities (e.g. to enable the acquisition of publicly available, including commercial...)
Sharing information between FINTRAC and other regulators
Training
Review existing reporting entities
Payment Service Providers (distinction from money services businesses)
Virtual currency, digital assets, and technology-enabled finance (e.g. crypto-mixers /crypto-tumblers, decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, fintech, privacy-enhancing coins, tokenized assets…)
Regulatory compliance framework (e.g. role of the compliance officer, recording, publicizing violations and penalties; administrative penalties against individuals, reporting, money services businesses and foreign MSB registration framework…)
Restriction of third-party cash deposits
Comments on the proposals must be submitted by August 1, 2023.