By a more than 4:1 margin, CEOs and business leaders on the COMPAS panel embrace the recently announced formation of a Transition Office leading to the creation of a National Securities Regulator. They predict a bright future for the new regulator. Indeed, their predicted score for its future performance is far higher than the performance scores they give for Canada’s securities laws until now, the Ontario Securities Commission, U.S. securities laws, or the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Panelists want the new regulator to focus on all four of their main concerns, namely:

• Tougher action on corporate misrepresentation and fraud
• Simplification of rules by getting rid of the interprovincial hodgepodge
• Oversight over potential conflicts of interest between rating agencies and their customers to prevent mediocre investment instruments from being mischaracterized as triple A
• Strong regulation of the “shadow banking sector”

These are the key findings from this past week’s Internet survey of CEOs and business leaders on the COMPAS panel. The weekly business survey is undertaken for Canadian Business magazine under sponsorship of BDO Dunwoody LLP.

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