The Alberta Securities Commission announced that it is increasing certain fees by 20%.

The ASC reports that an order-in-council was issued on August 23, approving its request for a 20% fee increase for certain activities. The fee increase will be implemented over a three-year period commencing October 1.

The commission published a proposed fee increase schedule for comment in May and conducted two public consultation sessions in June. “We received two written comments accepting the fee increase and comments from mutual fund representatives during public consultation,” it says.

“The mutual fund representatives’ concerns centered around the rising costs to mutual fund registrants from all sources, additional oversight costs arising from MFDA fees without compensating ASC fee reductions and the lack of direct correlation between ASC fees charged and demonstrable service from the ASC,” it said.

“After considering all comments and the very modest fee increase targeted for registrants in general, an increase of $50 per registrant over a period of three years, the ASC decided to proceed with its proposed fee increase schedule,” it explained.