Supreme Court Holds National Securities Act to be Unconstitutional

In a long-awaited decision released yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously held that the proposed Canadian Securities Act is unconstitutional as presently drafted, frustrating the hopes of those (including the federal government, the Province of Ontario, the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, among other intervenors) who had sought to replace the current system of 13 different provincial and territorial securities regulators with a single national securities regime.