OSC provides update on burden reduction consultation

TORONTO - The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) today released an update on the progress of its wide-ranging consultation on ways to further reduce regulatory burden and improve the investor experience. The OSC’s ongoing and unprecedented consultation includes engagement across four channels, including an online burden reduction survey, an internal staff suggestion campaign, meetings with industry associations and investor advocates, and a series of public roundtables.

Registration is now open for the first public roundtable on March 27, 2019, which will include remarks by the Ontario Minister of Finance, the Honourable Vic Fedeli. The roundtable will consider regulatory burden and its impact, how to measure, set priorities and maximize the impact of burden reduction initiatives, and high-level themes important to burden reduction that emerged in the comment period.

The preliminary agenda for this event is now available on the OSC’s website. Please check regularly for the final agenda and a complete list of panelists. The event will also be available as a video webcast, as well as teleconference (audio-only). The event access link and conference call details will be available at OSC Speeches & Events as of March 20, 2019. Additional public roundtables are scheduled for May 6 and May 27, 2019 in Toronto. 

Other burden reduction highlights include:

• Ongoing review by the OSC of more than 59 comment letters received to date from market participants and investors. 
• Generating more than 70 suggestions from employees in an internal ideas campaign, the first of this nature for the OSC, recognizing that staff have regular interactions with market participants and investors that uniquely position them to offer high-quality feedback on opportunities for burden reduction.
• Development of a framework to measure and analyze burden reduction that will be discussed at the first of three public roundtable meetings planned.
• OSC’s regulatory branches have begun developing and implementing branch-specific burden reduction plans, to be discussed at upcoming roundtables.

The OSC also announced today that Naizam Kanji is serving as Special Advisor to the Chair, on Regulatory Burden Reduction. In this newly created role, Mr. Kanji is leading the OSC’s efforts on burden reduction and coordinating its efforts with those of the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA).

The OSC established a Burden Reduction Task Force in the fall of 2018 to eliminate unnecessary requirements and streamline existing processes in Ontario’s capital markets while protecting investors and the integrity of our markets.

The mandate of the OSC is to provide protection to investors from unfair, improper or fraudulent practices, to foster fair and efficient capital markets and confidence in the capital markets, and to contribute to the stability of the financial system and the reduction of systemic risk. Investors are urged to check the registration of any persons or company offering an investment opportunity and to review the OSC investor materials available at www.osc.ca.

 

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