Victim compensation

The Civil Forfeiture Act and Victim Compensation

The Civil Forfeiture Office (CFO) seeks to obtain the forfeiture of property that is either the proceeds of unlawful activity or is as an instrument of unlawful activity.

The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that the purpose of civil forfeiture is to:

• Take the profit out of unlawful activity;
• Prevent the use of property to unlawfully acquire wealth or cause serious bodily harm; and
• To compensate certain victims of crime and fund crime prevention initiatives

A person may qualify as an eligible victim as defined  section 80 of the Civil Forfeiture Act and as a result may be entitled to receive compensation. An eligible victim is someone who suffered a financial loss as a result of certain unlawful activity that in turn is associated to certain funds forfeited by the CFO in relation to that same unlawful activity. The person cannot have been directly or indirectly engaged in the commission of that unlawful activity.

This includes individuals who have been directly impacted by the fraudulent activities of others such as stock fraud but may also include someone who was injured by a motor vehicle and the vehicle was subsequently forfeited by the CFO.

The CFO will initiate a compensation review when there is reason to believe that there may be eligible victims who can apply for compensation.

If you believe you are an eligible victim, please contact our office for further information.

Additional Victim Compensation Resources and Programs

If you have been impacted by a crime such as a stock or security fraud and you are not deemed an eligible victim under the Civil Forfeiture Act, you are encouraged to contact the B.C. Securities Commission as you may still be entitled to compensation.

If you are a victim, immediate family member, or a witness to a violent crime who has been injured physically or emotionally, financial assistance or other benefits may be available through the Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP) to assist in your recovery, where same or similar benefits are not available from another source.

For assistance identifying other victim support services in your area, you may wish to contact VictimLinkBC – a toll-free multilingual, confidential service that provides information and referrals to all victims of crime, and immediate crisis support to victims of family and sexual violence (including victims of human trafficking exploited for labour or sexual services). VictimLinkBC staff can also connect you to a network of community, social, health, justice and other resources, including victim services and counselling. The service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and can be reached by phone or text message at 1-800-563-0808 or by emailing 211-VictimLinkBC@uwbc.ca .