The Investment Dealers Association of Canada is offering a new service that will allow investors to review the disciplinary histories of brokers online.

The IDA’s new service offers an online database of its disciplinary decisions and reasons, assorted discipline-related notices to the public, and press releases since 1997.

The IDA is also offering paper-based services that provide history as far back as 1984. Investors that use the paper-based service can also obtain registration information and firm-specific information.

The IDA’s online offering only relates to its disciplinary actions. For registration information, the site links to the sites of the three regulators that currently offer online registration information: British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

“We wanted to help investors perform ‘due diligence’ by making it easier to find out if their investment advisor is registered or has a disciplinary history,” said Paul Bourque, the IDA’s senior vice president member regulation, in a statement. “Checking the background of your investment advisor has always been smart, and now it’s simple.”