Canadian Securities Transition Office Dissolved

Summary#

This is the Order Dissolving the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office. It dissolves the federal office known as the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office effective March 30, 2023, after the office had already stopped operating on March 31, 2022.

What it does#

• Formally closes the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office as of March 30, 2023.
• Says any remaining money in the office, after paying debts, will be transferred to the federal government.
• Removes the need for the office to keep filing annual reports and audited financial statements, or to keep paying officers to manage the office.
• Notes that the office’s work and records were moved to the Department of Finance Canada for possible future use.
• Recalls that the office had provided funding of $30 million to the Capital Markets Authority Implementation Organization (CMAIO) between 2016 and 2021, and that a proposed additional $12 million in Budget 2021 was not approved.

Who's affected#

• The federal bureaucrats and managers who ran the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office (their role ends).
• The Department of Finance Canada, which now holds the office’s work and records.
• Governments and regulators involved in the Cooperative Capital Markets system, including British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, Yukon, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador — these provinces and territories were participants in the work the office supported.
• The Capital Markets Authority Implementation Organization (CMAIO), which had already paused operations and been wound down before the order.

If it is unclear who else might be affected (for example, private-sector firms or investors), the order itself does not spell that out.

Why it matters#

• It ends a 13-year federal office that was set up to help create a national securities regulator. That work and any remaining funds are now folded back into the federal government.
• In practical terms, it stops further administrative costs tied specifically to maintaining the Transition Office and removes its separate reporting duties.
• The government says it will keep working with participating provinces and territories on a cooperative securities system, but the order does not itself create new securities rules or set new timelines.