The Canadian Securities Administrators has adopted a pilot project that will permit qualified venture issuers listed on the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. or the CNSX Markets Inc. to voluntarily adopt a semi-annual financial reporting framework (SAR Pilot).
The SAR Pilot exempts such issuers from having to file first- and third-quarter financial reports under National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations. The framework’s adoption is subject to the terms and conditions in Coordinated Blanket Order 51-933 Exemption to Permit Semi-Annual Reporting for Certain Venture Issuers.
The CSA published the pilot for comment on October 23, 2025. It said most commenters supported the SAR Pilot, with feedback indicating that it would significantly ease the regulatory burden for smaller venture issuers while protecting investors.
Stan Magidson, CSA chair and chair and CEO of the Alberta Securities Commission, described the pilot as “a great example of harmonization by Canada’s regulators to support the competitiveness of Canadian capital markets, particularly for smaller venture issuers” in a statement.
The CSA said insights from the SAR Pilot would be applied to a wider rule-making project involving voluntary semi-annual financial reporting for eligible reporting issuers while the blanket order remains in force.
Earlier this month, Ontario Securities Commission, the Autorité des marchés financiers, and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization greenlit an experimental research project, Project Samara, to review a novel financial services platform. The project will assess an RBC-run platform that uses distributed ledger technology to support end-to-end transactions throughout the bond lifecycle, including “tokenized” bond issuance by EDC, bidding, coupon payment, redemption, secondary trading, and the settlement of bond trades using digital representations of wholesale Canadian dollars created and managed by the BoC on the distributed ledger.
Last December, the CSA partnered with the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization on an initiative that disabled thousands of scam sites and platforms. It also launched a retail committee to review retail investors and retail investment advisers’ access to consolidated real-time market data.