Free Canada GAC Sanctions Check

Global Affairs Canada maintains the Consolidated Canadian Autonomous Sanctions List. It covers individuals and entities designated under Canada's own sanctions laws: the Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA) and the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, often called the Sergei Magnitsky Law.

United Nations Security Council sanctions reach Canadian law separately, through regulations made under the United Nations Act. Those designations are screened through the UN list rather than this one, so a complete Canadian screening program checks both.

Canadian sanctions apply to any person in Canada and to Canadians outside Canada, including Canadian companies. In practice that means Canadian banks, payment firms, exporters and professional firms, and foreign businesses whenever their dealings run through Canada.

Listed persons are subject to a dealings prohibition: you must not deal in their property, enter into or facilitate transactions related to it, or make goods or financial services available to them. Wilful contravention of SEMA is a criminal offence.

Confirm the identifiers against the listing first: many hits on common names are false positives. For a confirmed match, stop the transaction and freeze the property. SEMA regulations require you to disclose property you believe belongs to a listed person to the RCMP or CSIS without delay. The Minister of Foreign Affairs can issue permits for activity that would otherwise be prohibited.

The list changes whenever new regulations or amendments are made. There is no fixed cadence, and changes often coordinate with the United States, the United Kingdom and the EU. The official source is the Global Affairs Canada sanctions page on international.gc.ca. SanctScan refreshes the dataset daily.