The greatest impact in the securities regulation area is the impact on people who are handling their own investments. When their investments go down the tubes, they look to see what happened—whether the market was adequately regulated and whether they have recourse in the event that they have been subject to poor advice or sharp practice.
The national securities regulator purports to help with that, but in fact it is making it easier for companies to get their filings through. The sidebar recommendation for a national securities enforcement agency, which would actually enforce the regulations that currently exist and new ones that would protect the smaller investor, has not actually come to the table. Our recommendation is that the focus must be on the enforcement of the existing regulations, so that whatever good regulations you come up with, the investor is actually protected and has active recourse.
We have some concern that in this political climate there will be more cooperation but that, because it requires federal-provincial cooperation to create a national securities regulator, we may spend too much time waiting for that and not enough time on the enforcement piece.