Jul 15, 2016
An expert advisory panel has proposed “sweeping changes” after reviewing the mandates of Ontario’s key financial regulatory agencies. In her article “Ontario urged to boost financial protection for consumers,” Toronto Star’s Dana Flavelle overviews some of the panel’s recommendations outlined in its Final Report, which include an overhaul of the province’s financial regulatory system and the creation of a “super agency that would be more powerful, more flexible and more accountable” than the three extant agencies in order to provide better protection for investors, borrowers and retirees.
The report was co-authored by Osler litigation partner Larry Ritchie, who was appointed by Finance Minister Charles Sousa in early 2015 to conduct the review along with two other panelists, former insurance and pension industry executive George Cooke and personal finance writer James Daw. The panel was asked to review the mandates of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO), the Financial Services Tribunal (FST) and the Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario (DICO), organizations that regulate auto insurance, pension plans, mortgage brokers, insurance companies, loan and trust companies, credit unions and caisses populaires.
According to the panelists in the report, “[w]ith financial services and pensions sectors changing at a rapid pace, we need a regulator that is sufficiently independent, flexible, innovative and expert. We do not believe a thorough transformation could be accomplished within the current regime. So we have recommended a new, independent and integrated regulator called the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA).”
The proposed FSRA would replace FSCO, with responsibility for regulation of market conduct, pension plans and prudential matters, and incorporate the regulatory functions of DICO. Accountable to the Ontario Minister of Finance, the agency would also have its own corporate identity, be self-funded and operate independent from government.
For more information on the panel’s Final Report and its recommendations, read Dana Flavelle’s full article “Ontario urged to boost financial protection for consumers” in the Toronto Star.