The Canadian federal Department of Finance recently released a discussion paper which reviews, and proposes possible changes to, Canada's anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-terrorist financing (ATF). The paper is part of the consultation process designed to feed the mandatory five-year review of Canada's Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. This legislation, as discussed in Chapter VII of our book, is part of the network of Canadian laws that implement obligations under various suppression treaties (such as the Terrorist Financing Convention and the UNTOC), as well as the international best practices regime established by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The consultation paper is wide-ranging and contains numerous proposals for expanding the reach of the legislation, to entities such as companies operating private ATM machines, certain forms of gambling, dealers of valuable items, company service providers, etc. It examines problems related to identifying beneficial ownership of companies and looks at interesting problems like politically exposed persons, the regulation of "structuring" (usually called "smurfing") and the sharing of information between the government and private parties.
Feedback to the paper must be provided by April 30, 2018. An excellent overview of the paper, by Jacqueline Shinfield of the Blakes law firm, can be found here. On a side note, the role of lawyers in the AML/ATF matrix, and particularly the balance of obligations to uphold the law and maintain client confidentiality, continues to be controversial.
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