Introduction

• Author: Anita Anand
• Pages: 1-9

• 1

Introduction

A. Background

For years, scholars in Canada have debated the merits of, and

the necessity for, a national securities regulator in this country.

Now that the Supreme Court of Canada has opted not to endorse

the Securities Act proposed by the federal government, this long-

standing debate can take one of two turns: We can continue to

work with the current, fragmented system, or we can take up the

Supreme Court’s call to work together to achieve a national model

based on cooperation. The papers in this volume underscore the

potential for cooperation consistent with the latter alternative.

While diverse in viewpoint, they emphasize — explicitly or im-

plicitly — that the status quo is unacceptable as a model of secur-

ities regulation in Canada.

Prior to the decision in Reference Re Securities Act, when

I taught securities regulation and discussed the structure of the

regulatory regime with my students, I explained that the one

issue that has not been resolved is whether a federal or national

securities regulator is constitutional. Now, even after the Court’s

decision, we still have no answer to this question. The federal

government posed a very narrow question: Did the proposed

Canadian Securities Act fall within the legislative authority of

the Parliament of Canada?1 Everything turned on the proposed

1 Reference Re Securities Act, 2011 SCC 66 at para 1 [Securities R eference].