CANADA: Agreement to establish single market regulator

Friday September 20 2013

Canada agrees to establish single market regulator. The Ministers of Finance of British Columbia, Ontario and Canada have announced that they have agreed to establish a cooperative capital markets regulatory system and invite all provinces and territories to participate in the proposed system.

The single cooperative securities regulator will administer a single set of regulations and be operationally independent and self-funded through a single set of fees. It will be directed by an expert board of independent directors with broad capital markets-related expertise. A Council of Ministers of all participating jurisdictions will oversee the cooperative system.

The regulator will have an executive head office in Toronto and a nationally integrated executive management team, ensuring policy leadership from regulatory offices.

The federal finance minister’s original plan for a national regulator, released in 2010, suffered a setback when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled a year later the proposal was unconstitutional because it encroached on provincial jurisdiction. The case turned on whether the federal government has the authority to create a national regulator under a section of the constitution that gives Parliament the power to regulate trade and commerce.

Other states, including Alberta and Quebec, who rejected the initial proposals for a single regulator, have expressed scepticism on the latest move and are unlikely to support the plan.

Click on the above link for the press release.