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INVESTOR RIGHTS MONITOR
Insights You Can Use, Advocacy You Can Trust.
July 2026
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Who Are Markets Supposed to Serve?
As a small organization, FAIR Canada does not have the resources to do everything we would like. One thing we strive for, though, is to do more investor-centric research. Rather than assuming what investors think or need, we try to invest in research to understand their experiences and priorities, enabling us to better represent their interests. This month, we released the results of an independent survey and focus group study — conducted by Innovative Research Group on our behalf — asking 1,500 Canadian retail investors how they experience and rank the outcomes that securities regulation is designed to deliver. The survey featured in this issue covers what they said, and I encourage you to read it.
What I want to raise here is something the data touches on but does not fully capture. We are in a period — and Canada is not alone in this — where much of the energy in parts of the industry and among some regulators is focused on product innovation and expanding retail investor access to complex and illiquid investments. The words "innovation" and "democratization" are used constantly. The pitch, stripped to its core, is that ordinary investors are calling for greater access to opportunities in new, innovative products or in private assets available to wealthy investors, and that industry is responding to that demand. I understand why that argument has political traction. Better Markets, a U.S.-based financial reform organization, offered a blunter reading in March 2026: the push has nothing to do with democratizing investing and is instead about an industry that needs new revenue streams to sustain its own growth. Whether or not one accepts that characterization entirely, the underlying tension deserves honest examination.
What is sometimes overlooked is that wealthy investors have access to high-quality advice and a greater capacity to absorb market downturns. Retail investors, particularly do-it-yourself investors, are exposed to greater risks when complex products are readily available without the benefit of a suitability assessment or a clear understanding of the product. They are also more susceptible to shocks. The Bank for International Settlements raised related concerns about what happens when illiquid private credit assets are made accessible through vehicles promising retail investors ready liquidity. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority completed a multi-firm review of private asset valuations in 2025 and found that conflict-of-interest management and valuation independence both needed improvement, explicitly stating that those gaps mattered more given the growing retail exposure to private assets. Amit Seru at Stanford has warned that this kind of retail expansion could turn private equity into what he has called a systemic risk machine. Professors Clayton and de Fontenay at Brigham Young and Duke make a related but distinct argument: broad retail access is likely to erode the very performance advantages that made private equity attractive in the first place, rather than protect investors who have been shut out of it. Both arguments, made by finance academics rather than investor advocates, are at least as important as the political pitch for innovation and democratization.
Financial history has something to say here as well. The global financial crisis, including the asset-backed commercial paper crisis in Canada and the broader collapse of structured credit markets in 2007 and 2008, provides a valuable lesson. The crisis did not result from a shortage of innovation. It resulted, in part, from complex instruments being sold to investors who did not fully understand what they held, in conditions where distribution moved faster than the discipline to ask whether the products served investor needs. The products today are different. The regulatory environment is different too. I have no interest in overstating the risk today. But the pattern is similar: access to innovative products being trumpeted as an investor win, and policy positions becoming hardwired before the evidence comes in to judge those claims. Our research gives Canadian regulators and policymakers something concrete: direct evidence of what investors themselves say they want, and it is not new, complex products. What they want is to be treated fairly.
JP Bureaud, CEO, FAIR Canada
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What Investors Want — and Why It Matters for the Regulatory Agenda
Too many regulatory debates proceed on assumptions about what retail investors want — assumptions that tend to reflect what the industry says, or what regulators infer from market activity. FAIR Canada commissioned new research to test those assumptions directly. We asked 1,500 Canadians how they rank the outcomes that securities regulation is designed to produce. The results are instructive — particularly for those currently shaping the policy agenda.
Fair treatment ranked first among all eight outcomes tested, with 56% of respondents placing it in their top three. Regulatory compliance ranked second at 53%, and advisor qualifications third at 49%. Innovation and new product development came second-to-last and last, ranked in the top three by 21% and 13% of respondents, respectively. When asked to rank their priorities, a majority chose fair treatment, compliance, and qualified advisors. That ordering should inform where regulatory energy goes.
In addition to identifying the outcomes that matter most to investors, the research also sheds light on whether the system is delivering on those outcomes. Most notably, while fair treatment ranks as the most important outcome, nearly three in ten investors with an advisor are either unsure or unconvinced that their advisor consistently puts their interests ahead of the advisor's own. This finding highlights a gap in an area investors value most.
The private assets data from our research is also revealing. FAIR Canada has raised concerns about expanding retail access to private markets in previous issues — the March and April newsletters covered the structural liquidity risks and the inconsistent compliance record around suitability. At the time, we questioned the claims that retail investors were demanding greater access. We now have the numbers to back it up. Only 10% of respondents said private assets would definitely be a good fit for them, even after receiving a plain-language explanation of what these products are and what risks they carry. Investors with ten or more years of experience — those best placed to assess the risks — were the most skeptical, with only 5% saying they would definitely suit them. On the broader question of product restrictions versus leaving investors to choose for themselves, 51% supported regulators' ability to restrict high-risk products to protect average investors, versus 43% who opposed such restrictions.
Lastly, it's notable that nearly one-third of survey respondents were unsure whether a regulator oversees financial investments in their province, and only 16% could name their regulator without prompting. That finding is significant in its own right. For a regulatory system to be held accountable, its key stakeholders need to be aware of who is responsible for managing and protecting their interests within that system.
These findings should inform how regulators think about fair treatment, not just product access this year. The full report is available on our website.
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OBSI at Thirty: Still Waiting for the Authority to Do Its Job
The Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments turns thirty this year. It has built a credible reputation as an independent, professionally run dispute resolution service. It has also spent all those thirty years without the power to make binding decisions.
An investor who prevails at OBSI can still walk away with less than OBSI recommended — sometimes substantially less — because the firm can simply decline to follow the outcome. Between 2019 and 2023, 33 cases resulted in investors receiving $1.1 million less than OBSI recommended. In 2024 alone, two cases left investors nearly $300,000 short of what the ombudservice said they were owed. Each of those gaps exists for one reason: the absence of binding authority.
OBSI is currently undergoing an independent external review. FAIR Canada submitted formal input in April, arguing that binding authority is not a refinement to an otherwise adequate system — it is the precondition for the system working as it is supposed to. An ombudservice whose recommendations a firm can set aside offers investors a process, not a remedy.
This issue connects directly to the complaint-handling reforms FAIR Canada has been pressing more broadly, including our call for a national 60-day standard for dealer responses to investor complaints. Timely resolution and binding decisions are essential features of an effective dispute-resolution system. A process that takes too long can cause undue stress and financial hardship and may lead investors to abandon their claims. Likewise, a process that produces non-binding outcomes may fail to deliver meaningful redress.
Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Manitoba have enacted legislation that would make OBSI decisions binding and enforceable as court orders. These governments deserve credit for moving forward with a crucial investor protection measure. However, most provinces, including the larger ones, have yet to take any legislative steps. This risks creating a fragmented, unharmonized complaint handling system in Canada. The external review is an opportunity to plainly state that this would be a travesty for investor protection in Canada.
Read our April 24 submission to the OBSI external review here.
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Fix the Framework First: A White Paper or a White Elephant?
Advocis recently published a white paper recommending that other provinces adopt Ontario's title protection model for financial planners and financial advisors. FAIR Canada has argued at length why Ontario's framework fails investors and why exporting it nationally does not resolve the underlying problem.
The Advocis paper acknowledges, and this is notable, that title protection "is not a complete substitute for advice regulation." The paper also cites Ontario's own Investor Advisory Panel without challenge that title protection "does not itself regulate the full activity of giving advice or guarantee consumer loss recovery mechanisms." If even the framework's own proponents accept the idea that it does not regulate financial advice or provide meaningful consumer protection, the real question is whether the framework was ever the right approach, not whether it should be exported to other jurisdictions.
The structural deficiency in Ontario is familiar. Multiple credentialing bodies issue designations under widely varying standards, and all of them entitle the holder to use the same title. Someone qualified only to sell life insurance or mutual funds can present themselves to clients as a financial advisor. Investors looking for comprehensive advice have no way to recognize the limitations of a financial advisor's qualifications from the title alone. What credentialing body membership reliably produces are fees paid to the credentialing bodies, which are ultimately borne by the clients the system is presented as serving.
What genuine consumer protection requires is regulation of the activity itself, which requires:
- Government-imposed licensing,
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A common proficiency and licensing requirements, and
- Direct compliance and enforcement by statutory regulators rather than fee-collecting private member associations.
Our 2023 Job Titles Survey documented what investors expect:
- 95% agreed that advisors sharing a title should share the same level of training and skills, and
- 77% said they wanted a rigorous, government-imposed licensing standard with post-secondary education requirements, a comprehensive licensing exam, and direct supervision of advisors by a financial-sector regulator, instead of basic courses offered by a credentialing body.
Extending the Ontario model nationally would not meet these expectations. It would only give the shortfall a wider reach.
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CIRO's Rulebook Consolidation Should Prioritize Investor Protection
FAIR Canada’s submission on Phase 6 of CIRO’s Consolidated Rulebook Project makes a broader point about what the rule consolidation should deliver for investors. A shift toward more principles-based regulation should not be treated as a move to lighter-touch regulation. If CIRO’s rules become broader and more flexible, CIRO’s operations must become stronger, more transparent, and more accountable. That means more detailed guidance so dealers, representatives, investors, and the public can understand how broad principles will be interpreted and applied; more effective compliance monitoring to assess whether firms are meeting the spirit and purpose of the rules; and rigorous enforcement when firms fall short of their investor protection obligations. Transparency is also essential across all three of these areas. A principles-based rulebook can only strengthen investor protection if it is supported by clear expectations, active oversight, credible enforcement, and meaningful public reporting.
FAIR’s submission also highlights the need for a modern registration regime that is built around the investor’s experience. The current framework still reflects historical business models more than the investor’s perspective. Multiple registrations within the same firm, and limited licensing within full-service firms, can create confusion for investors who reasonably expect that anyone presented to them as an advisor has met minimum standards to provide financial advice. Most investors do not know the difference between an investment representative, a registered representative, a mutual fund dealing representative, or an exempt market dealing representative, and they should not be expected to research the boundaries of each category. CIRO’s vision for the future should be a modern, investor-centric registration regime and not one constrained by historical product-based categories.
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Before You Invest: Is Your Advisor Actually Registered?
Our survey found that nearly one in three Canadian investors is unsure whether a regulator responsible for overseeing financial investments even exists in their province. For those investors — and for anyone engaging with an advisor they have not worked with before — there is a basic verification step that takes a few minutes and costs nothing.
The CSA's National Registration Search lets any investor check whether an individual or firm is registered to give investment advice in their province. The search shows the registration category, the province of registration, and the affiliated firm. Registration category matters: someone registered only to sell mutual funds is not legally permitted to advise on individual stocks. Running this check before transferring money is one of the simplest things an investor can do to protect themselves. Access the tool here.
Also, visit us on LinkedIn for more information, including our ‘What to Ask Your Advisor’ series, where we share helpful resources and questions to ask before hiring an advisor.
A word of caution: registration is the floor, not a quality guarantee. A registered advisor can still give unsuitable advice or hold narrower qualifications than the registration record makes obvious. But at least if an advisor is registered, you have a regulator to contact if something goes wrong.
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Building Capacity to Advance Our Roadmap
FAIR Canada is growing! We’ve added new resources to our team to strengthen our ability to deliver on the priorities set out in our Roadmap. This added capacity will allow us to undertake more investor-focused research, proactively identify emerging policy issues, and engage more with regulators, governments, and other stakeholders on reforms that better serve investors. As the regulatory environment continues to evolve, it will enable us to identify issues with existing practices, bring forward evidence-based recommendations, and advocate for changes that advance fair treatment, effective oversight, and stronger investor protection.
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Do you have feedback on our newsletter or suggestions for topics you’d like us to write about? Your input is valuable and will help us improve our newsletter content for loyal subscribers like you. Please email us at info@faircanada.ca with your comments and/or suggestions.
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