The Trudeau government is taking steps to make expanded financial transaction surveillance powers ‘permanent.’ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada speaks at a press conference in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on February 11, 2022, as truckers and their allies continue to demonstrate against Covid vaccination mandates.
While all eyes were on the forceful police sweep of a trucking convoy in Ottawa this week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration was quietly pushing to expand surveillance authorities at the federal level. Trudeau government is taking steps to make expanded financial transaction surveillance powers ‘permanent.’
Here’s finance minister Chrystia Freeland announcing their effort to keep the surveillance power “on a permanent basis.” She says it’s a way to “increase the quality and quantity of intelligence…and make more information available to support investigations by law enforcement.” pic.twitter.com/BuZLLbi6t0
— Nate Hochman (@njhochman) February 21, 2022
The Trudeau government’s financial attack on truckers has been extensively chronicled. The move to place crowdfunding and payment service providers — two of the most prominent pathways for financial transactions on the Internet — under the permanent jurisdiction of a centralized government body is an underreported component of this broader assault on Canadian civil freedoms.
The government is utilizing the Emergencies Act to widen “the scope of Canada’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing provisions so that they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they utilize,” according to Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland.
All types of digital transactions, including cryptocurrencies, must be reported to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada under this new authority. (For example, “Fintrac”). “All crowdfunding sites and the payment service providers they employ must register with Fintrac as of today, and they must report big and suspicious transactions to Fintrac,” added Freeland.
She described the decision as a measure to “reduce the risk” of “illicit finances” and “improve the quality and quantity of intelligence received by Fintrac and make more information available to support law enforcement investigations.” At the news briefing, Trudeau stood behind Freeland and nodded his head in agreement.
The trucker convoy, which had gathered to protest coronavirus restrictions, “highlighted the reality” that digital assets and finance mechanisms “weren’t seized” by Canada’s pre-existing surveillance capabilities, according to Freeland. “The government will also bring forth legislation to extend these authorities to FinTrac on a permanent basis,” she said.
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