Industry and Technology Committee on June 11th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Lawton.

Mr. Paterson, I'm going to try to take advantage of what was a stable connection so that I can honour my commitment to provide Ms. Borrelli with those 60 seconds. We're going to try this again.

Ms. Borrelli, I'll give you an opportunity to ask a question and get a response from Mr. Paterson. Then I'll go to Mr. Joseph.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Thanks.

Mr. Paterson, I've heard from seniors who've been convinced to install remote access software, and, once that happened, they ended up losing quite a lot of money. What technical safeguards could help detect that this kind of thing is happening? Should banks or payment platforms be required to add extra verifications in that regard?

[Ian Paterson]

Education is key. Beyond education, technical safeguards, such as using built-in firewalls, can certainly play a role to identify, specifically, remote access types of tools. Those can be identified and stopped at the operating system level. Beyond that, coordination with payments companies will certainly help in this regard.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Do you have any idea of any programs that can help teach seniors how to do this?

[Ian Paterson]

Unfortunately, this is only one of several scams that exist. Romance scams, unfortunately, are another one that will often target seniors. As some of the members mentioned, it is a whack-a-mole game. Holistically, education on scams that can occur is something that should happen, and it is the first line of defence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Ms. Borrelli.

Mr. Joseph, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will first address Mr. Jude Pinto, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the witnesses for their presence.

Mr. Pinto, we know that most fraudsters or organizations that defraud people living in Canada do not themselves live in Canada, but in other countries. I don't know if you have any data on this. Can you tell us which country tops the list?

[Jude Pinto]

I don't have that data in front of me. We do have an active research department that uncovers these. If I could bring back information and share it, through the chair, that would be ideal.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Pinto.

I'll continue along the same lines as my colleague, but I'll go a little further when it comes to deepfakes, which can now very convincingly mimic a person's voice or image. They are increasingly being used in fraud and scams.

In your opinion, what threat does this phenomenon pose to Canadians, and what measures should be prioritized to address it?

[Jude Pinto]

If I could play back the question, it's about things like deepfakes being technologically adept and, increasingly, creating victims in Canada.

From a Payments Canada perspective, the best contribution that we think we need to grow, from the infrastructure out, is that centralized reporting on the types of fraud and looking for the trends that are happening so that the entire payments ecosystem can benefit. Then, secondly, as we successfully identify and/or prosecute any one of these actors who are committing these frauds, we'd make that knowledge available to everybody through our risk list.

I'm not in a position to comment on the best ways to protect it at the front end, where the exchange is happening. It would probably be better for that to come from my colleagues.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Corrigal-Brown, we know that fraudsters targeting Canadians are increasingly operating from abroad. What would be your key recommendations to the federal government to effectively reduce this type of cross-border crime?

[Sarah Corrigall-Brown]

That's a great question.

It is challenging for us to take action against foreign people who are accessing Canadians from abroad. That's one of the reasons we work very closely and have memorandums of understanding with European and American regulators and regulators in Asia and Australia. We work closely with them in order to share information and to try to identify people who are outside our country, and then they can be prosecuted in their country.

I would say that the reality is that, as we've heard from other people, in some ways detection, prevention and disruption at the front end by working through.... The way that fraudsters are accessing Canadians is through the Internet. It's through technology providers. This kind of thinking around what the federal government can do in terms of legislation, in terms of thinking about interventions at that level and being able to access actors in this country—

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Forgive me for interrupting.

How many minutes do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You have 45 seconds left.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

So I'm going to ask you one last question, Ms. Corrigall-Brown, since you mentioned prevention.

The 2025 budget announced the creation of the Canadian Financial Crimes Agency, while the spring economic update launched an anti-fraud strategy. In your opinion, what impact will these initiatives have on the prevention, detection, and prosecution of financial crimes in Canada?

[Sarah Corrigall-Brown]

I think it should be holistic. We strongly support both of these initiatives. Taking action at the front end in order to have an anti-fraud strategy where you are empowering investors, informing them and educating them, and where you are disrupting the activity at the level that it's happening, is essential. The fact is that the fraud will happen, and we need to demonstrate that we are watching and that there's integrity in our markets. That's why we very strongly support the financial crimes agency at the federal level to show that we are taking enforcement action and that there will be consequences. I think that creates an atmosphere where we may be a less attractive place for people to come in and target.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Joseph.

I would like to thank all the witnesses.

Thank you very much to all of the witnesses for availing yourselves to us today. We appreciate the insight and the guidance that you have given us as we continue this important conversation.

Colleagues, I'm going to suspend briefly in order for us to get prepared for the next hour. In about five minutes time, we will resume.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, welcome. We are going to continue into the second hour. Thank you very much to Mr. Lynam, who has joined us from the RCMP as the director general for the Canadian anti-fraud centre. I think your testimony today is going to be quite crucial to our understanding of the role that the federal government plays in addressing this challenge.

Mr. Lynam, you'll have up to five minutes. You are the only witness that we have on this panel, which will allow us to get into the depths of your expertise.

Colleagues, I did mention to a few of you just before gavelling in here that we are slightly behind. We are sitting for three hours today, which will butt up against the beginning of question period, so there may be a slight reduction in this hour and in the next in the amount of allocated time, but we will ensure that everybody has their opportunity to speak.

With that, Mr. Lynam, again, thank you for joining us. The floor is yours, sir.

[Chris Lynam, Director General, Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear today. I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Anishinabe nation and recognize the enduring presence of first nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

My name is Chris Lynam. I am the director general of the national cybercrime coordination centre and the Canadian anti-fraud centre at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Financial fraud and scams represent a significant, evolving and increasingly complex threat to Canadians and to our economy, with major impacts felt across the country. In 2025 alone, the Canadian anti-fraud centre received reports of fraud and cybercrime losses totalling over $700 million. This marks eight consecutive years of record losses, and we assess that this represents only a fraction of the actual losses that are being felt.

Fraud has become highly organized, industrialized and automated. Canadians are targeted by industrial-scale scam compounds that employ thousands of individuals and operate from various parts of the world. They also face individual fraudsters who leverage easy-to-use, low-cost, fraud-as-a-service platforms. These schemes often rely on digital platforms and leverage emerging technologies, allowing threat actors with minimal technical expertise to defraud Canadians at scale.

To provide an example, one recent phishing-as-a-service platform was used by thousands of Canada-based suspects, with almost one million Canadians falling victim to this platform alone. The threat environment continues to evolve rapidly, driven in large part by advances in technology and automation, particularly artificial intelligence. Criminal actors are using AI to generate convincing phishing messages, to draft and translate luring emails and texts, to produce deepfake impersonation and scamming videos and calls, to mine stolen data, to identify new victims and to exploit vulnerabilities in networks.

Faced with these threats, the Canadian anti-fraud centre plays a central role in combatting fraud in Canada along four lines of effort—prevention, victim support, disruption and pursuing the criminals behind these scams.

To facilitate prevention, the CAFC uses targeted messaging to promote public awareness of fraud threats on its website, via social media and through in-person engagements. The goal is to help Canadians recognize and avoid fraud and to encourage at-risk Canadians, particularly young people, not to engage in fraud and cybercrime activities.

In terms of support for victims, we assist fraud victims by providing guidance to limit further losses and, in some cases, by coordinating rapid action with partners to freeze or recover funds. We also provide tips to help victims avoid being victimized again in the future. The CAFC often receives information or intelligence about victims who do not know they are being scammed, for example, through romance or what we now call relationship fraud. In those cases, CAFC employees will reach out and warn those victims.

In terms of disruption, we work with financial institutions, telecommunications providers and digital platforms to disrupt the fraud ecosystem by identifying and disrupting the entities, tools and services—the so-called enablers—that facilitate fraud.

Then there is pursuing those responsible. Finally, we enable investigations and help partners pursue those who are responsible by providing actual intelligence and investigative leads, coordinating across multiple agencies and linking Canadian efforts with multinational criminal investigations and operations.

Reports received from members of the public and businesses that have been targeted or victimized are a key component of the CAFC's efforts. Through our modernized reporting platform, reportcyberandfraud.canada.ca, Canadians can more easily report incidents of fraud and cybercrime. Additionally, the CAFC has built extensive partnerships in Canada and around the world to combat fraud. These partnerships are vital to tackling fraud in an investigative environment that is often complex, cross-border and resource-intensive.

Finally, the CAFC continues to pursue innovative and holistic approaches to reduce the impact of fraud on Canadians. We believe that our four lines of effort approach is sound and produces tangible operational results, but we must work with more partners and do it at a broader scale to reduce the levels of fraud victimization in Canada. Rest assured that we are fully committed to this mission.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lynam.

Mr. Lawton, the floor is yours for six minutes, sir.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Lynam, for being here today.

Just as a bit of context, I've had rather a rude awakening on this issue in the last few months with a number of constituents I've spoken to who have been defrauded—in some cases, out of small amounts, and in others, out of obscenely large ones.

One case that is burned into my mind is that of a man who was in tears at a town hall I was hosting on fraud prevention alongside the St. Thomas Police Service. He had been hoodwinked for a small amount by a crypto scam. Then he was scammed again by a person purporting to be part of an agency that would help him recoup his losses. In the end, he and his wife were drained of everything they had: $80,000. When he shared his story, everyone else put up their hands because they had their own stories.

These are happening with more and more frequency. I know and truly believe that you are committed to trying to stop this as much as possible. How often can you succeed in getting money back? How often is something being recovered in these scams?

[Chris Lynam]

Thank you for the question.

Unfortunately we do hear, just as you heard from your constituents, these tragic stories of people losing their life savings. It is happening across Canada.

Unfortunately, the percentage of the incidents where we can help try to get people their money back, or at least frozen, is relatively small. Part of the challenge is that there's a lot of shame associated with reporting, and people don't report it. There is a window in some cases. If an e-transfer was made and if the victim doesn't report, that window might be over. It is a small percentage of what we see, but we do encourage people to be reporting. As we've talked about, and as we're going to talk about, prevention is really key to avoid being victimized from the start.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I'm obviously more attuned to stories that are happening locally. There was a gift card scam recently in St. Thomas, and a $20,000 cryptocurrency app fraud. Someone else put money into a platform they really didn't understand that much, and in the end had $10,000 taken from them. You have these fake investment schemes. In another one that came to us, someone was out $3,000 or so.

I know that all scams are different and whatnot, but if you can generalize even somewhat, how many of these would you say are coming from inside Canada versus from outside of Canada?

[Chris Lynam]

It is often very challenging, at the front end, to determine where the scam happens because they're scammers; they don't tell you where they're operating from. A large percentage of the various types of scams is coming from abroad.

I talked a little bit about the scam compounds. Those are often themed in things like investment scams or job scams. However, there is fraud happening that starts in this country. I talked about these fraud-as-a-service platforms, where people with very minimal technical skills can use these platforms to defraud Canadians. It is a mix of both, but the majority comes from overseas.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I mentioned earlier the man who was taken for over $80,000. The company, the fake law firm, that was responsible for this has a website that, even now, even after police have been investigating it, is still up.

If someone goes to that website, they'll see the same information he did, pictures of people who look like they're lawyers, talking about how they succeed in recouping money. Just to use that as an example—and others like it—why do these websites stay up? What is needed from a policy perspective for things that are known to be frauds, known to be scams, to be taken off-line?