Auditor General Karen Hogan participates in a news conference after delivering nine performance reports to the House of Commons, at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa, on Oct. 29, 2026. The Canadian Press/Justin Tang
Canada’s auditor general says Canada’s financial intelligence agency has struggled to effectively limit money laundering within Canada and provide law enforcement agencies with timely intelligence.
She said it has also taken FINTRAC too long to provide intelligence to law enforcement agencies, diminishing its usefulness to them.
“Weak oversight due to inadequate tools and delays in providing financial data and information—known as financial intelligence—to law enforcement agencies and other authorized recipients limited FINTRAC’s ability to help detect, prevent, and deter money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities,” the report said.
The report cited a 2020 estimate from Criminal Intelligence Service Canada that between $45 billion and $113 billion is laundered through Canada each year.
FINTRAC is responsible for developing financial intelligence for law enforcement and other authorized recipients, as well as overseeing businesses’ compliance with anti-money laundering laws.
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The auditor general said that partly because of “weaknesses” in its information technology system, FINTRAC took an average of about four months to provide financial intelligence when law enforcement flagged a concern. A survey of recipients of this intelligence found that half said they received the information too late to be useful, while just over a third said the intelligence “often” helped identify new leads.
“If law enforcement agencies do not receive timely, actionable intelligence, this limits their ability to freeze assets, intercept transactions, or apprehend suspects to prevent money from being moved or laundered,” the report said.
The report also found that the share of intelligence FINTRAC generated on its own initiative and shared proactively with law enforcement declined from 38 percent in 2021-22 to 23 percent in 2024-25.
Hogan recommended that FINTRAC develop service standards and speed up the delivery of financial intelligence. She also recommended that the agency improve its performance reporting by “shifting its focus from outputs to outcomes,” and “ensuring that reporting demonstrates the actual impact and results of its activities.”
The ministers also cited a recent evaluation by the Financial Action Task Force, saying FINTRAC’s intelligence was used in 94 percent of law enforcement investigations into money laundering and criminal possession offences.
FINTRAC said in its annual report released Oct. 26, that it had issued 122 financial intelligence disclosures in the past year supporting police investigations into extortion, and identified 336 subjects of interest in connection with such cases. The agency also revoked the registrations of 82 money services businesses during the fiscal year, up from 12 the previous year.
