How Safe Are Safe Harbours For Climate-Related Disclosure In Canada?

As the focus on greenwashing increases, Canadian public companies are becoming more attentive to their environmental disclosure.

In particular, issuers are questioning whether the current protections under securities laws for forward-looking information, as well as for current or historical disclosed information, should be revisited (and potentially expanded) in light of significant recent developments around greenwashing.

Those developments include the adoption of new anti-greenwashing provisions under the Competition Act and the upcoming introduction of expanded private rights of action before the Competition Tribunal as well as the possibility climate-related disclosure requirements will be adopted under Canadian securities laws.