Canada’s financial services regulators say that the only way that any off their efforts would benefit the industry is through co-operation.

In a panel discussion today at the Investment Funds Institute of Canada conference in Toronto, senior regulators said their collective priority remains to preserve the integrity of the markets even if they do not always agree how to do so.

That Ontario will not participate in the passport model is old news, but it is not in anyone’s interest for Ontario not to co-operate with the rest of the jurisdictions that are.

Moderator Keith Damsell, manager of corporate communications at Franklin Templeton Investments Corp. led off by asking Doug Hyndman, chairman, British Columbia Securities Commission, about the workings of the passport model, and Ontario’s place in it. “It is a political issue that we don’t decide,” said Hyndman. But all parties involved would work together in order to best serve the investor.

To this David Wilson, chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission, agreed, adding that “the government of Ontario, not the OSC decided to opt out of the passport model” several years ago. “The Ontario government has not changed its mind.” It still needs to see a commitment to working towards a single regulator before it will sign on.

Thus the process is an exercise in “harmonization,” said Bill Rice, chairman and CEO of the Alberta Securities Commission, who rounded out the panel.

Under the passport model, once a prospectus is cleared by one member organization, the others will clear it “without any further human intervention.” Hyndman continued that those pushing for a single regulator had been sucked into a “grass is greener” mindset. “The United States has 53 regulators” while Australia has a single regulator and sophisticated network of regional regulators, a system Hyndman describes as expensive, but then so are 12 regulators, passport model or no.

The passport model was not the only hot button issue. Damsell, who is joining the IFIC public relations committee in October, took the panel to task regarding point of sales disclosure for the retail sale of mutual funds. He said that the new policy, under which the investor will receive a two-page plain language document instead of the longform prospectus which will be optional, would be onerous on the advisor. The “time crunch” it would cause would result in a “smaller palette” for the retail investor.

Rice asserted that this would cause no such problem and instead allow “investors to make informed decisions” as prospectuses were no longer a viable vehicle of information for the average investor. Prospectuses “are voluminous, intimidating and we know they are no longer read” said Rice. “Disclosure is not being consumed by its intended recipient.”

Wilson added that regulators had gotten very positive feedback from their focus groups. Investors appreciated the two-page “Fund Facts” document, which explained the fund’s historic performance on one side and the fees attached to it on the other.

Damsell rebutted that IFIC researched showed that investors were happy with the advice they were getting from their advisors, reflecting comments made earlier today by IFIC president and CEO Joanne De Laurentiis that while “the industry has long been in favour of a simpler and more meaningful disclosure document” IFIC maintains “some grave concerns about the very rigid delivery requirements.”