The Supreme Court of Canada has finally catapulted this country into the modern age of securities regulation — a decision that could have direct implications for the federal government’s major policy initiatives on gender diversity and the environment.
The top court’s green light for a unified, pan-Canadian securities regulator to govern the country’s financial industry ends an 80-year struggle between the provinces and the federal government.
A centralized securities regulator is intended to replace the current patchwork of provincial and territorial regulators to better assess and minimize systemic risk in capital markets, as well as improve enforcement. It will make securities rules more consistent across the country and cut through reams of overlapping red tape for businesses.
Canada is the only major industrialized country in the Group of 20 that does not have a national securities regulator. Political tensions between the provinces and the federal government, coupled with Canada’s constitutional division of powers that gives jurisdiction over matters of a purely local nature — including the authority to legislate the securities trade within their respective borders to the provinces — made it an elusive proposition.
Theresa Tedesco – CBC News – November 25, 2018.
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