The OSC's Response To Reduce Regulatory Burden

The Ontario Securities Commission (the "OSC") recently published Staff Notice 11-784 – Burden Reduction (the "Staff Notice") to seek the consultation of stakeholders to address ways the OSC can reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens. The efforts undertaken by the OSC are intended to support the Ontario government's Open for Business Action Plan and can be seen as complementing the existing regulatory reduction projects initiated by the Canadian Securities Administrators (the "CSA") discussed below in the section entitled "Background".

This article begins by describing the past initiatives the CSA has taken to reduce the regulatory burden and then provides a brief discussion of the primary focus of the OSC's Staff Notice and the recently established a Burden Reduction Task Force (the "Task Force").