OTTAWA: Canada is seeking novel powers to seize and sell off Russian oligarchs’ assets to compensate Ukraine for war damages, while announcing Wednesday sanctions against 203 people in the breakaway Donbas region.

It would become the first G7 nation to permit such asset forfeitures, and is proposing allies follow suit, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters in Ottawa.

“There was a weak link in (our) sanctions package, which was the ability for the government to be able to sell the assets that were seized and afterwards to use the profits to compensate the victims of this war against Ukraine,” she said.

The proposed changes to its sanctions regime outlined in a budget implementation bill unveiled Tuesday, she said, “will go a long way” to addressing that issue.

Parliament has started debating the measure and voting on proposed amendments. Its passage into law is assured with a small leftist party’s backing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government.