Canada’s portfolio managers and investment counselors are urging the federal and provincial governments to move forward “with a sense of urgency” on the proposals recommended by the Expert Panel on Securities Regulation.

The panel, chaired by investment fund industry veteran Tom Hockin, released its report on Monday.

“Canadian investors cannot wait any longer for the creation of a single national regulator,” Katie Walmsley, president of the Investment Counsel Association of Canada, said Tuesday. “We have been in a constitutional quagmire on this issue for decades and we believe the ‘opt-in’ approach recommended by the Hockin report is the only way this is going to move forward. We urge swift action.”

“The opt-in solution that has been endorsed in the Hockin Report would provide national consistency in regulation, enhanced enforcement, lower regulatory costs — and could still address regional sensitivities,” Walmsley said.

“If there is a silver lining in this economic downturn it may be that it has created a sense of urgency to improve capital market protection and enforcement and our belief is this can happen through a single regulator,” she added.

The ICAC has long advocated the need for a national securities’ regulator and has participated actively in promoting the concept.

In its July submission to the Expert Panel on Securities Regulation, the ICAC supported the creation of a separate national regulatory system that would enable securities issuers and registrants to be registered with and subject to the jurisdiction of a federal regulator. Such a system would then exclude provincial jurisdiction over those participants who opt-in. The ICAC believes a federal regulatory system with a provincial opt-in would overcome perpetual political and legal wrangling that has left investors at risk.

While the organization, which represents Canadian investment management firms with over $700 billion of assets under administration, say it would prefer to see a national regulator created as a result of federal/provincial collaboration, it feels the country can no longer wait for governments to solve their differences.

“Canada cannot remain out of step with the rest of the world as the only industrialized country that is part of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) that does not have a single regulator. This is a time to be working together internationally and to do this we need to be unified locally. While we recognize there will be political resistance to the recommendations of the Hockin report, the benefits far outweigh the costs,” said Barb Lockhart, ICAC’s chairwoman and sr. vp finance and administration of McLean Budden Ltd.

IE