The Expert Panel on Securities Regulation in Canada today released what it has heard from Canadians about securities regulation over the last three months.

“When we launched our consultation process in April, we wanted to get the thoughts of a broad cross-section of Canadians on how to improve securities regulation in this country,” says Tom Hockin, Panel chairman. “The response we received was both impressive and thought provoking.”

The panel, which was appointed in February by the federal Minister of Finance to recommend ways to improve securities regulation in Canada, spent the last several months consulting Canadians both in person and through the Panel’s Web site.

The Panel held a series of cross-country, face-to-face meetings involving a wide range of stakeholders in Canada’s capital markets.

The Panel today released a summary of these consultations, which its says reflects “the themes, issues and a range of answers to questions posed by the Panel in their public consultation document.”

As well, the Panel invited input through its Web site. Some 70-plus formal submissions have been received, it says

All documents are now available on the Panel’s Web site at www.expertpanel.ca

“Our listening exercise has stood us in good stead as we get down to the work of writing a final report and delivering a draft common model securities act to the ministers by the end of the year,” says Hockin.