Foreword

• Author: Peter W Hogg, QC
• Pages: 9-11

• ix

Foreword

Peter W Hogg, QC

Professor Anita Anand, the editor of this collection of papers,

had a constructive idea after the decision in the Securities Refer-

ence (2011) came down. She commissioned a group of outstand-

ing scholars and practitioners to prepare papers on the future of

securities regulation, she organized a conference, and she is now

publishing the papers. The collection is very interesting and use-

ful, as I will explain.

My own reaction to the decision was not in the least con-

structive. I was upset. I had been convinced for years of the policy

reasons for a national securities regulator, and until the deci-

sion of the Supreme Court I was convinced that Parliament had

the power to create a national securities regulator. And I was

one of the counsel who represented the Government of Canada

in the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing the case for a nation-

al securities regulator. The decision leaves Canada as the only

country in the 107-member International Organization of Secur-

ities Commissions without a national regulator. (Canada is repre-

sented by Quebec and Ontario, neither of which has any power or

mandate to speak for Canada as a whole.) I cannot pretend to be

an unbiased observer, but it seemed to me that the Court in the

Reference was wrong to treat the securities market as still pre-

dominantly of local concern, and wrong to apply a kind of squat-

ters’ rights doctrine to maintain exclusive provincial jurisdiction

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