In a paper to the Queen’s Annual Business Law Symposium, noted securities lawyer Joe Groia suggests that the powers of the Ontario Securities Commission should be curbed rather than beefed up.

Groia suggests that the OSC may be engaged in an impossible task. “Perhaps the Committee on Corporate Disclosure was right when they proposed in their Interim Report that the difficulty in regulating the capital markets is that it is ‘largely an attempt to modify human nature’.”

“No one has told us how giving the OSC even more power will accomplish this,” offers Groia. “Perhaps we are looking to the wrong solution. Perhaps we need less rather than more government intervention.”

“Our humble solution is this. Lets get back to basics. The OSC sets policy, regulates transactions and market participants, and when there is a need for remedial or enforcement measures to be taken, let that job fall to the courts and to the judges — as it has for hundreds of years. After all, what can the OSC and the Canadian capital markets lose except cases that should not be won anyways,” he argues.

“Most importantly, let’s talk about the role and value of integrity and honesty in the marketplace and how we all have a role to play in lowering investor expectations, increasing their education, and restoring real values to Bay Street. At a time when our business leaders should be standing up to be counted they remain strangely silent — or committed to letting the government do the job.”