Canadian securities regulators have moved closer to improved transparency in the over-the-counter derivatives market as they updated the model rules for a new derivatives trade reporting regime which were published late last year; and several regulators proposed their own local rules.

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) Thursday published updated model rules for the reporting of derivatives transactions to trade repositories.

And, at the same time, three members of the CSA — the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the Manitoba Securities Commission (MSC) and the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) — published harmonized province-specific rules based on the updated model rules for comment.

The OSC indicates that its proposed rules define the types of contracts or instruments that are required to be reported to a trade repository; establish requirements for the operation of trade repositories; and, sets out requirements for transaction data reporting.

If adopted, this will effectively implement Canada’s commitment at the G20 to require all OTC derivative transactions to be reported to trade repositories, while also providing the OSC with “an essential tool to identify and address systemic risk and market abuse.”

Regulators in the jurisdictions that didn’t publish proposed local rules today still need legislative amendments to be implemented before they can publish their own province-specific rules, the CSA notes. So, instead of proposed rules, they also issued a multilateral staff notice along with the updated model rules.

The comment periods for both the proposed province-specific rules and the updated model rules are the same (ending Sept. 6) and all comments received will be considered before any amendments are made to any of the rules, the CSA says. When final amendments are made, the intention is that each province will publish substantially similar final province-specific rules or multilateral instruments resulting in harmonized requirements that will be applicable across the country.

“It is intended that there will be the greatest degree of harmonization possible among all Canadian jurisdictions in respect of derivative rules, even though they will be based on local statutes,” said Bill Rice, chair of the CSA and chair and CEO of the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC). “This publication includes rules classified as either province-specific or model for the reason that necessary supporting legislation is presently in place in some jurisdictions but not others.”