Task force to review OSC’s policy-making powers

Ontario’s Ministry of Finance and the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) are setting up a joint task force to review the OSC’s policy-making powers.

The task force, which will consult with interested groups, is expected to report by March 1, 1994, enabling the ministry to introduce changes to the Securities Act in the legislature’s spring session.

“Securities regulators are increasingly being challenged by a rapidly changing financial system,” Finance Minister Floyd Laughren said in announcing the joint effort.

“Recent court decisions, although narrowly confined to their facts, highlight the need for a review of the Securities Act to ensure that securities regulators have the legislative mandate they need to protect investors and the integrity of our capital markets.”

Penny stock dealers in the province recently challenged the OSC’s authority to introduce a new policy which would address perceived abuses in the marketing of highly speculative securities.

In August, the Ontario Court of Justice, although recognizing the OSC’s concerns, decided that the OSC did not have adequate authority under the Act to implement the policy.

Ronald Daniels, a corporate law professor at the University of Toronto, will chair the task force. The other members are: Elizabeth Atcheson, assistant deputy minister of policy at the Ministry of Finance; Leslie Milrod, director of the OSC’s Office of the General Counsel; and Shane Kelford, policy adviser to the Minister of Finance and a securities lawyer with Blake, Cassels & Graydon.