The key here is the target. When you're focusing on individuals, there's a particular logic. The real issue is what happens when the target is a state, is another government.
It seems to me that what one wants to do is to recognize the crucial role of these kinds of measures that are able to target individuals, and in particular individuals operating on Canadian soil, and to distinguish that action as a policy tool from the kinds of broader measures that we normally talk about when we are referring to broader sanctions: that is, sanctioning other states or communities where the government can in fact impose countermeasures on Canadians operating in their territory or simply tit-for-tat measures that are imposed by governments such as, let's say, the Government of the Russian Federation. It imposed almost exactly the same kind of tit-for-tat measures against the United States after the Magnitsky Act, although they added the ban on Russian adoptions by Americans.
I think the key here is to distinguish between an act that is targeted against another state, another government, and policy measures that are directed toward individuals.