Minister of Finance and National Revenue Francois-Philippe Champagne outside the ministry's offices in Montreal in December, 2025.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Ottawa will announce Thursday a “follow-the-money” strategy to target economic crime, including a “Countering Extortion Partnership” with financial institutions, government and police forces to boost information sharing to fight extortion.
According to a senior federal government official, the announcement will not involve new money, but the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FinTRAC) will commit to shifting its resources to increase its focus on tracking extortion.
This will include FinTRAC issuing a “Targeted Indicator Profile,” or TIP, that will help financial institutions better recognize patterns linked to extortion.
The Globe and Mail is not identifying the official because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.
Surrey, Brampton mayors call for Ottawa to declare extortion crisis a national emergency
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and other federal ministers will announce the new partnership involving police, banks and other organizations, and aimed at preventing extortion and fighting organized crime.
Also scheduled to attend the morning news conference in Mississauga are Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Nick Milinovich, FinTRAC chief executive officer Sarah Paquet, and the city’s mayor, Carolyn Parrish.
Mr. Champagne announced plans in October to create a new Financial Crimes Agency and promised to introduce legislation in the spring to establish the new organization. While the new agency was referenced in the budget, it was not included in Bill C-15, Mr. Champagne’s first budget bill, which is currently before the House of Commons.
According to the budget, the new body will be Canada’s lead enforcement agency on complex financial crimes, including money laundering, fraud and online financial scams.
Organized crime is top of mind in the Greater Toronto Area. Earlier this month, police in Ontario announced they had laid charges against 27 people, including seven Toronto officers, in connection to a corruption probe tied to an alleged plot to kill an Ontario corrections officer.
B.C. mayor says 20 additional RCMP officers to support anti-extortion operations
Mayors of some cities across Canada – including Brampton, Ont., and Surrey, B.C. – have said the recent wave of attempted extortions, shootings and arsons aimed at South Asian business owners should be declared a national emergency.
There were 133 extortion threats reported to Surrey police in 2025 and 49 shootings. Surrey Police Service Chief Norm Lipinski has said he’s concerned the crime wave is far from breaking. The police chief has said the city needs help from Ottawa and the province, calling the situation a crisis.
The federal budget included a pledge to hire 1,000 new Royal Canadian Mounted Police personnel. The government has said that 150 of the new RCMP hires would focus on financial crimes.
The last federal election campaign saw several close races throughout the Greater Toronto Area’s suburban 905 region. The Liberals lost a handful of seats there to the Conservatives, and strategists from both parties have said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s tough-on-crime message helped his party in those ridings.
Since then, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government has made a point of emphasizing crime-related policies. This has included Bill C-14 on bail reform, which recently cleared the House of Commons and is now before the Senate.
Mr. Poilievre, who has described C-14 as weak, watered down and “better than nothing,” urged Mr. Carney to go further in a letter made public in January.
At the time, he wrote that the government has failed to act while “crime and extortion are raging out of control.”