OSC’s Investor Advisory Panel Releases 2020 Annual Report

TORONTO – The Investor Advisory Panel (the IAP) today released its 2020 Annual Report summarizing its activities, submissions, consultations, and meetings during the calendar year.

In 2020, the IAP focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on retail investors, and the implications of several recommendations made by Ontario’s Capital Markets Modernization Taskforce in its interim and final reports. Additionally, the IAP continued to focus on what it considers to be critical areas of investor protection, including: credentialing, competencies and misleading titles; discontinuing embedded commissions such as deferred sales charges (DSCs); addressing the risks of syndicated mortgages; implementing the Client Focused Reforms; strengthening the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI); understanding the impact of disruptive trends in the investment space on retail investors; and prioritizing the improvement of investor outcomes equally with burden reduction and cost saving in the framework review of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA).

With the assistance of the Investor Protection Clinic at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, the IAP conducted a study in 2020 of the mandates of securities regulators in multiple jurisdictions to determine whether, and to what extent, they include fostering market growth and capital formation, and promoting competitive markets. The study found that several regulators have mandates to foster capital formation and competitive markets, some stating expressly that such efforts be undertaken in a manner consistent with investor protection, while none had overt mandates to foster growth of their capital markets. 

“The findings of this study informed our view that a mandate to foster the growth of capital markets goes beyond what’s considered appropriate for securities regulators,” said IAP chair Neil Gross. “We were pleased to see that the Taskforce’s final report recommends a more conventional aim of fostering capital formation.”

About the IAP
The IAP is comprised of nine members appointed by the Chair of the Ontario Securities Commission following a public application process and on the advice of a selection committee consisting of two Commissioners and a Vice-Chair. Members of the IAP are appointed for terms of up to two years, with possible reappointment for one additional term. (See the 2020 IAP Annual Report for biographies of IAP members).