The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions has published some of the proposed regulations required under the financial services reform bill.

A set of proposed regulations as a result of Bill C-8 were pre-published in the Canada Gazette, Part I on August 4, for a comment period of 30 days. This is the first of several packages of regulations that are being proposed or modified as a result of Bill C-8, An Act to Establish the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada and to amend Certain Acts in Relation to Financial Institutions. The regulations must be in place before firms can begin operating under their requirements.

This first package includes regulations that are essential to the operation of Bill C-8 and must be in place when the provisions of the bill are brought into force. So, it is expected that this package of regulations will be accompanied by an order bringing the FCA Act into force upon final publication.

A key characteristic of the legislation is the use of regulations to provide for a more flexible regulatory framework for the financial sector. This allows the government to make modest policy adjustments to the framework in response to significant changes taking place in the global environment in which financial institutions operate. Many regulations are being proposed or modified in order to achieve this policy objective of creating a more flexible regulatory regime.

Of the 75 regulations included in this package, 37 flow from the restructured permitted investment regime. Another 18 regulations are primarily related to the new holding company regime. Six regulations flow from the creation of the new Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. Another six regulations are related to the changes to the foreign bank regime in order to place foreign banks on an equitable footing to domestic banks. The remaining eight regulations relate to various other policy objectives of the FCA Act.