Terrorist Financing in Canada
NIRA 2023
At ~long~ last, Canada finally updated its national inherent risk assessment (NIRA) of money laundering and terrorist financing. This risk assessment hadn’t been updated since the original was published back in 2015! 1 Today I’m going to take you on a quick tour of the terrorist financing highlights, and what’s missing. Let’s get into it.
We start off strong talking about how countering the financing of terrorism is a key priority for the Government of Canada. (Nevermind the fact that it took 8 years to update this risk assessment, or that there have been 2+1 terrorist financing convictions in Canada…)2 It’s also worthwhile noting that the NIRA relies on two 2018 reports: FINTRAC’s terrorist financing assessment, and the public report on the terrorism threat to Canada. Does this mean the NIRA is already dated? Maybe.
(Sidebar: Probably not. Terrorists only adapt their methods when they’re under counter-terrorism pressure (see my last comment), as I outlined in my recent report.)
