The Globe and Mail has published an
op-ed
by FAIR Canada on burden reduction as it relates to the technological environment in which capital markets stakeholders operate, and not just the specific regulatory rules, proposing burden reduction through improvements to "outdated IT systems and platforms".
The op-ed proposes the creation of a national securities portal which would be a project of a new CDS-style entity owned by the provinces and the federal government. More specifically it proposes as a trade-off, the scrapping of the conflict-ridden national securities regulator (the CMRA) in favor of a more pragmatic and beneficial national securities portal, as a national, securities regulatory initiative and burden reduction changemaker.
The portal would be a more stakeholder friendly, holistic and modernized database, filing and information system to replace outdated IT systems and platforms. Such initiative would benefit registrants, companies and investors by addressing fragmented, outdated, complicated and inconsistent systems. It would also resolve or avoid the decades old conflict over a national regulator, which national regulator would be at best be hybrid and partial, rather than national, excluding important Canadian jurisdictions that have refused to participate. The latter is a view echoed by many in financial services - that a national regulator may never come to fruition and many wouldn't want it to.
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