Canadian Corporate Governance Reforms

The corporate governance landscape in Canada is continuing to evolve. Over the past week, the Ontario Securities Commission and the Toronto Stock Exchange confirmed that they will be releasing for comment new rules and guidelines respecting corporate governance matters. It appears that these initiatives will involve a reallocation of responsibility between securities regulators, with the Commission beginning to assume greater responsibility for corporate governance in respect of certain matters that previously had been within the purview of the Exchange.

With certain provisions of Bill 198 now having been proclaimed and the Commission having been granted expanded rulemaking authority, it is expected that the Commission will publish for comment before the end of June a package of rules that parallel those of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 relating to CEO/CFO certification, an accounting oversight board and audit committees. Recently, David Brown, the