Canada's fragmented regulatory fee system costs businesses and investors too much, the Canadian Forum for Financial Markets says
Canada's fragmented system of capital markets regulation fees is driving up costs for businesses and investors, discouraging national capital formation, and undermining the country's global competitiveness, and a new industry paper is calling for substantive reform.
The Canadian Forum for Financial Markets (CFFiM), a Toronto-based advocacy group dedicated to advancing proposals for healthier financial markets, released a paper on September 22, 2026 titled Fees and Fragmentation: Lowering the Price of Capital Markets Regulation in Canada.
The report argues that Canada's patchwork system of provincial, territorial, and self-regulatory fees treats the country's capital markets as a collection of local ones rather than the national market they are, and that this costs both issuers and investors more than it should.
"Canada is competing globally for investments. We should not be adding costs simply because capital crosses a provincial border," said Laura Paglia, President and CEO of the CFFiM.
A uniquely fragmented system
Canada is the only developed country without a national securities regulator.
Its 13 provincial and territorial securities regulators, alongside the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO), each maintain separate fee schedules with differing methodologies, structures, and amounts.
According to the CFFiM report, this results in overlapping and duplicative charges that issuers and intermediaries are required to pay simply for conducting business across provincial borders. Registration fees alone vary widely: dealer registration fees range from $700 in some jurisdictions to $2,500 in others, according to the report, for what is effectively the same application process.
The scale of the system is significant. In the most recently reported fiscal year, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) generated more than $179 million in fee-based revenue, according to the report. The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) in Quebec generated $123 million, the British Columbia Securities Commission generated over $90 million, and CIRO collected over $122 million from its 250 dealer members, despite having a narrower mandate than most provincial regulators.
Firms registered as investment dealers and mutual fund dealers are required to pay fees to both provincial regulators and CIRO, sometimes for identical functions. As Wealth Professional has reported, CIRO's recent moves on regulatory fee structures have already sparked industry pushback, with dealers warning that unanticipated fee increases strain budgets and reduce capacity to serve clients.
The cost to advisors and their clients
The CFFiM paper identifies four structural problems with Canada's current fee regime: a lack of harmonisation and co-ordination across regulators; inconsistent adherence to a cost-recovery model; overlapping and duplicative fees; and a diffuse system of accountability spread across 13 separate provincial and territorial ministries.
On cost recovery, the report highlights stark disparities. The Nova Scotia Securities Commission generated approximately $23.7 million in fee-based revenue in the most recently reported year against total operating expenses of just $3.2 million, according to the report - a surplus far exceeding any reasonable cost-recovery rationale. Similarly, the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority of Saskatchewan generated more than $22 million in fee-based revenue against securities division expenses of approximately $3 million.
The report notes that surplus fee revenue in several provinces is transferred to consolidated provincial revenue funds, raising the question of whether securities regulation fees in those jurisdictions function as a form of taxation rather than a mechanism to fund oversight.
These costs, the CFFiM argues, are ultimately borne by Canadian investors in the form of higher prices and fewer investment and advice options. For financial advisors and their clients, that means less competitive products, less choice, and a system that discourages smaller issuers and dealers from operating nationally.
Wealth Professional's coverage of interprovincial trade barriers and their effect on Canada's financial industry has highlighted how regulatory fragmentation compounds economic drag, a theme that runs throughout the CFFiM paper.
What reform would look like
The report's preferred solution is a national securities regulator with a unified financial structure and a single consolidated fee schedule. The CFFiM points to the federal government's previously proposed Cooperative Capital Markets Regulatory Authority as a model worth revitalising.
In the absence of a national regulator - which has faced constitutional and political obstacles for decades - the CFFiM is calling on federal, provincial, and territorial policymakers to implement a consolidated fee schedule at a net reduction for market participants, eliminate redundant fees, adopt consistent cost-recovery principles, and establish regular national-level review of the aggregate impact of regulatory fees.
The report arrives as the federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney has made building a "one Canadian economy" a stated priority, including the passage of the One Canadian Economy Act in 2025 and a stated goal of generating $1 trillion in investment in Canada over five years.
As Wealth Professional has examined, the economic cost of fragmented domestic regulation now rivals - and in some analyses, exceeds - the cost of US tariffs on Canadian goods.
The current system disincentivises dealers, advisors, and other intermediaries from providing investment advice and services nationally, according to the CFFiM, reducing competition and limiting client access in smaller markets. A reformed fee regime, the group argues, would lower barriers to entry, support capital formation, and make Canada's markets more attractive to both domestic and foreign investors.
