The federal Wise Persons’ Committee on Securities Regulation has launched a new Web site that makes all of the submissions it has received publicly available.
There are currently 48 submissions to the committee, with comments coming from regulators, SROs, trade associations, banks, investor advocates, dealers, pension funds, money managers; law firms, and corporate issuers.
In its submission, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada says that the industry requires nationally uniform regulation. “The form of a new regulatory framework must be dictated by and subject to the achievement of this objective. We urge the Committee to focus on this fundamental goal and not to become distracted by trying to select the best form among competing regulatory models,” it says.
Market Regulations Services, it its submission, proposes that reassessing the regulatory approach based on risk “may well be the key to successfully dealing with Canada’s regulatory structure”.
The CPP Investment Board presents its own governance model as a possible inspiration for an innovative solution that reconciles differences and could be adaptable for a national securities commission, or a governance oversight body for an integrated multi-jurisdictional regulatory system.
Regarding a national securities commission, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan proposes that “One model could be the establishment of a single commission model in which the provincial and territorial governments elect members to participate in a single regulator that will administer one set of rules.”
In its response to the Wise Persons Committee’s call for input how to reform the securities regulatory system, the Investment Dealers Association declines to choose a favourite model.
The IDA suggests that, “An efficient and well functioning regulatory structure in Canada can be developed from any of the proposed regulatory constructs”. It says that a national regulator, the pan-Canadian model, and an improved version of the current system all “have the potential to achieve the necessary efficiencies and cost savings, the needed flexibility and responsiveness to market changes, and the appropriate regional balance among the regions of the country.”
However, the IDA shrinks from making a decision about which model best meets its criteria.
“The single national regulator requires boldness of vision by federal and provincial governments, and extensive negotiations among all levels of government. The pan-Canadian and harmonized models, derived from the existing regulatory framework, also involve extensive negotiation and accommodation by provincial governments to recoup the needed efficiencies and cost savings,” it says.
“The risk is that in the interests of expediency, governments will embrace a watered down derivative model and, in the haste to achieve concrete results from difficult debate and needed compromise, negotiations will yield a model that falls short of the conditions required for efficiency and cost-effectiveness.”