Securities regulators share interim progress report on three-year business plan

The Canadian Securities Administrators has published an interim report on its progress in meeting the strategic priorities listed in its 2019-2022 business plan.

The business plan covers the CSA’s objectives over a three-year period, including commitments to continue safeguarding investors from unfair and fraudulent practices, to ensure the smooth functioning of capital markets and to maintain the confidence of investors in the integrity of the markets.

The interim report gives an update on the CSA’s achievements so far under the business plan, as well as its accomplishments beyond the business plan. Within the past year, the CSA members have published the final versions of the rule amendments to implement the “Client Focused Reforms” and the rule amendments preventing mutual and other investment funds from paying upfront sales commissions to dealers, which would result in the end of or restrictions on deferred sales charges.

The CSA members also continued working on extensive reform to ease the regulatory burden for market participants. The CSA’s progress on certain strategic priorities in the plan are still in their exploratory phase, with further work to be done in the upcoming years.

The CSA also detailed the response of its members to the COVID-19 pandemic. The CSA announced various regulatory reliefs and released guidance for the benefit of market participants and investors impacted by the public health crisis. These COVID-19-related measures include publishing investor alerts, creating an information hub, increasing short-term borrowing limits, offering blanket relief for regulatory filings and temporary relief to companies with delayed annual meetings.

“Despite such unprecedented events, we were able to stay the course in what we set out to undertake in the 2019-2022 Business Plan,” said Louis Morisset, chairperson of the CSA and president and chief executive officer of the Autorité des marchés financiers. The members of the CSA were able to react to the COVID-19 outbreak in a prompt and harmonized way, said Morisset.

The interim report then discussed the policy initiatives and regulatory changes which the CSA intends to work on within the next year.