On July 24, 2015, the Council of Ministers for the participating jurisdictions held its inaugural meeting and announced a critical development toward the implementation of the Cooperative Capital Markets Regulatory System (the "CCMR"). At the meeting, William A. Black was named as the first chair of the expert board of directors of the Capital Markets Regulatory Authority (the "Authority"). As we described in an earlier blog post, the nominating committee was appointed in April 2015 with the mandate of recommending candidates for the initial board of directors of the Authority. Mr. Black was selected as the chair of the board of directors by the Council of Ministers on the recommendation of that nominating committee.

In addition, the Council of Ministers announced the incorporation of the Capital Markets Authority Implementation Organization, which will assist in the transition to and implementation of the Authority.

The appointment of Mr. Black and the introduction of the Implementation Organization are key steps toward making the goal of the CCMR a reality, and show that the participating jurisdictions continue to push toward this objective. As a part of this announcement, the Council of Ministers also repeated its intention to release revised consultation draft provincial and federal legislation, together with draft initial regulations, for public comment this summer. Osler will continue to monitor these developments and will be providing comment in response to the impending release of the draft legislation and regulations. In the meantime, market participants can expect that momentum toward the ultimate goal of a streamlined and harmonized capital markets regulatory system will continue to build over the coming months.

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