The Canadian Securities Administrators are reviewing the prospectus regimes in Canada, in search of greater harmonization and simplification.

National instruments govern the short form, shelf and PREP prospectus regimes. However, the long form prospectus regimes are not uniform. The Ontario Securities Commission’s local rule is replicated or made available in the other CSA jurisdictions through a variety of local orders, rules and policies, but some jurisdictions also maintain older long form prospectus regimes as an alternative.

The CSA’s plan is to harmonize the long form prospectus regime across Canada as expeditiously as possible. An additional objective is to incorporate any necessary changes into the prospectus rules to harmonize them with changes to continuous disclosure requirements currently under consideration. The CSA say, “We anticipate that these changes will reflect a more flexible approach to the use of U.S. and international accounting and auditing standards.”

The CSA is seeking comments on how the existing prospectus regimes are working and any suggestions on how they can be improved. It plans to publish the amendments to the prospectus regimes and requirements concerning acceptable accounting standards for a 90-day comment period in the summer of 2002. It hopes to implement the revised prospectus rules by Spring 2003.