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Alert: Supreme Court of Canada Finds Proposed Canadian Securities Act Unconstitutional

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December 22, 2011

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On May 26, 2010, the Canadian federal government released the proposed Canadian Securities Act (the Act) which would, among other things, create a national securities regulator in place of the existing provincial and territorial securities regulatory regimes. Today, that legislation was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.

 

First, decisions by the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Quebec Court of Appeal in the spring of 2011 found that the proposed Act exceeded the constitutional authority of the Parliament of Canada as it infringed upon the provinces’ powers under Section 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867 to regulate property and civil rights.

 

The federal government referred to the Supreme Court of Canada the question of whether the proposed Act is within the legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada. In a decision released today the Supreme Court found that the proposed Act, viewed as a whole, does not fall within Parliament’s authority under Section 91(2) of the Constitution Act, 1867 to regulate trade and commerce, and that it is therefore not constitutionally valid as presently drafted.

 

Click here to read the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision.

 

Watch for our full analysis of this case to be published soon.

 

 

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