The financial fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hit home a long-standing problem in Canada, according to internal government documents: regulators don’t have basic information about who really owns key companies and assets.
As Canada ramped up economic sanctions against Russian elites last year, officials across the Western world realized it’s impossible to crack down on wealthy beneficiaries of the invasion if the actual — or beneficial — owners of businesses are obscured by layers of front companies or other accounting tricks.
Transparency advocates say Canada had long ignored probing shady investors using anonymous holding companies to buy valuable assets; their money
