What Canadian law actually provides
Fraud sits across criminal, regulatory, civil and consumer-protection law in Canada. Each has different burdens of proof, different clocks, and very different odds of returning money.
How to use this page
The provisions below are summarised in plain language and simplified. Criminal liability, limitation periods and consumer-protection rules turn on the facts and on your province or territory, and Quebec's civil law system differs structurally from the common-law provinces.
A summary cannot tell you where your own case sits, because it does not know your facts. Book an appointment and we will work through it with you.
The offences most often engaged
You do not need to identify the right section to file a report — police do that. But knowing the vocabulary helps you describe what happened in terms an investigator can act on.
Fraud
The core offence: depriving someone of property, money or a security interest by deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means. Where the subject matter exceeds $5,000, it is straight indictable with a maximum of 14 years. At or under $5,000 it is a hybrid offence with a lower maximum.
Fraud over $1 million
Where the total value of the offences exceeds $1 million and the Crown proceeds by indictment, the court must impose a minimum of two years' imprisonment.
Aggravating factors
Directs sentencing courts to treat as aggravating: the magnitude and duration of the fraud, the number of victims, the offender's failure to comply with licensing requirements, and the impact on victims given their age, health and financial situation.
False pretences
Obtaining property or credit by a knowingly false representation of present fact, made with intent to induce the other person to act on it.
Identity theft
Obtaining or possessing another person's identity information in circumstances giving rise to a reasonable inference that it will be used to commit an indictable offence involving fraud or deceit.
Identity fraud
Fraudulently personating another living or dead person with intent to gain advantage, obtain property, cause disadvantage, or obstruct justice.
Extortion
Inducing a person to do anything by threats, accusations, menaces or violence — relevant to sextortion and to impersonation scams that threaten arrest or deportation.
Unauthorized use of a computer
Fraudulently obtaining a computer service or intercepting a computer function — engaged by remote-access and account-takeover scams.
Laundering proceeds of crime
Dealing with property knowing or believing it derives from crime. Relevant to money-mule exposure: victims recruited to forward funds can face investigation, so obtain legal advice early rather than waiting.
Beyond the Criminal Code
Several of the most useful levers for victims sit outside criminal law entirely — in securities regulation, banking rules, privacy law and the victims' rights framework.
Canadian Victims Bill of Rights
SC 2015, c. 13, s. 2
Gives every victim of crime in Canada statutory rights to information, protection, participation and restitution within the criminal justice system, plus a right to make a complaint where those rights are infringed. It does not create a cause of action, but it obliges agencies to engage with you.
Restitution orders
Criminal Code ss. 737.1, 738–741
On sentencing, a court may order the offender to repay readily ascertainable losses. The court must consider restitution in fraud cases and give reasons if it declines. An unpaid order can be filed in civil court and enforced as a civil judgment. The offender's inability to pay is not, on its own, a reason to refuse the order.
Victim impact statements
Criminal Code s. 722
You have the right to file a written statement describing the physical, emotional and financial harm you suffered, and to read it aloud at sentencing. Courts must consider it.
Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act
PCMLTFA / FINTRAC
Requires banks, money services businesses and virtual-currency dealers serving Canadians to register with FINTRAC, verify identity, keep records and report suspicious and large transactions. A platform absent from the FINTRAC registry is operating outside the Canadian regime.
Provincial securities legislation
e.g. Securities Act (Ontario); CSA members
Trading or advising without registration, and distributing securities without a prospectus or exemption, are provincial offences carrying administrative penalties, disgorgement and cease-trade orders. Investment fraud should be reported to your provincial commission in addition to police.
Financial Consumer Protection Framework
Bank Act, Part XII.2
Governs how federally regulated banks must handle complaints, including timelines for a final decision. Since 1 November 2024, OBSI is the single external complaints body for all such banks.
PIPEDA and provincial privacy law
PIPEDA; Quebec Law 25; AB & BC PIPA
Organisations must safeguard personal information and report breaches posing a real risk of significant harm. Where a breach enabled the fraud, a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner — or the provincial regulator — is a separate track worth using.
Competition Act
ss. 52, 74.01
Prohibits knowingly or recklessly making materially false or misleading representations to promote a product or business interest. Enforced by the Competition Bureau, criminally and civilly.
The remedies that actually move money
Criminal proceedings punish. Civil proceedings recover. If meaningful sums are at stake and there is any identifiable asset or intermediary, the civil track is usually where recovery happens.
Norwich order
A pre-action disclosure order compelling an innocent third party — a bank, a crypto exchange, a telecom — to identify an anonymous wrongdoer or trace where funds went. Often the only way to put a name to a wallet or an account.
Mareva injunction
A freezing order restraining a defendant from dissipating assets pending judgment. Granted ex parte in urgent cases, but it carries a duty of full and frank disclosure and usually an undertaking as to damages.
Anton Piller order
A civil search order permitting entry to preserve evidence at risk of destruction. Exceptional, expensive, and reserved for strong cases.
Tracing and constructive trust
Equitable claims that follow the value of your money into whatever it became, and can give you priority over other creditors of the recipient.
Knowing receipt and knowing assistance
Claims against third parties who received your funds, or assisted the scheme, with the requisite knowledge — sometimes the only defendants with assets left.
Unjust enrichment
Where a recipient was enriched at your expense with no juristic reason, restitution may be ordered even absent dishonesty on their part.
These are urgent, technical applications, usually brought without notice to the defendant. In Ontario the Commercial List has particular expertise in them. They are also costly — counsel will normally want to see that the target has traceable assets before recommending the spend.
The clock you cannot afford to miss
Civil claims expire. The basic limitation period in most common-law provinces is two years, and it generally starts when you knew or ought to have known you had a claim — not when the money left.
Common-law provinces
Typically two years from discovery, subject to an ultimate long-stop period that runs regardless of discovery — fifteen years in Ontario, ten in Alberta and British Columbia.
Quebec
Under the Civil Code, the general prescriptive period for personal actions is three years, running from the day the right of action arises.
Concealment
Fraudulent concealment can postpone the running of time, since you cannot discover a claim deliberately hidden from you. Do not rely on it as a plan — treat the earlier date as real.
Practical takeaway: assume your clock started the day you realised you had been defrauded, and get advice well before the two-year mark. Missing a limitation period ends the civil claim permanently, no matter how strong it was.
Tax treatment of losses
How a fraud loss is treated for tax purposes depends on its character — a capital loss on a disposed investment is treated differently from a theft of funds, and different again where the "investment" never existed. Crypto adds a further layer, since the CRA generally treats cryptocurrency as a commodity.
This is fact-specific and mistakes are expensive. Speak to a CPA or a tax lawyer before claiming anything, and keep the evidence package you built for the police report — it is the same documentation they will need.