TORONTO – Ontario’s auditor general found that the province’s securities regulator has failed to alert the public to many potentially risky investments and failed to collect most of the fines it imposed over the past decade.
Bonnie Lysyk says in her annual report that her office examined about 35 of the 2,029 cases between 2016 and 2021 in which the Ontario Securities Commission took limited or no action after being alerted to problems by other regulators and whistleblowers.
Lysyk’s office found that in nearly half of the cases it analyzed, the OSC had enough information to issue a warning about potentially damaging activities for investors, but did not.
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When the OSC found wrongdoing and imposed fines in other cases, the auditor general found that the regulator often failed to collect the money.
Lysyk says another audit by his office revealed that the OSC imposed $ 525 million in fines between 2011 and 2021, but only collected 28 percent of that money.
She says the OSC’s collection rate is so low in part because it lacks the power to seize assets from those with unpaid fines, which is a tactic used in British Columbia.
© 2021 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca