The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has released its 2026 annual service commitment review, including a summary of changes as of July 1, providing the expected timelines for market participants, such as investors and registrants, when interacting with the OSC.
Through its comprehensive review, the OSC compared its service standards and benchmarks with the standards of its counterparts in other provinces or territories.
“Several factors are considered as part of the OSC’s annual review including reviewing the practices of other leading securities regulators, volume changes, and ongoing workloads related to regulatory operations,” the OSC stated.
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In its news release, the OSC clarified that it may introduce further changes to its service standards as needed throughout the year to reflect the current market conditions and other relevant factors.
The OSC noted that it will post quarterly reports on its website to share its performance in terms of its service standards. These quarterly reports will explain why the OSC has not been able to reach any of its targets.
The OSC stated that its service standards remain unaltered if not addressed in its summary of changes.
Summary of changes
In an overview of the changes as of July 1, the OSC shared that it has adjusted:
- its response target for service standard 2.1 to raise the target to 90 percent from 80 percent of all investing and personal finance questions received via InvestingQuestions.ca within 10 working days
- its target for service standard 6.3 to state that the OSC will give notice within 90 working days, down from 120 days, for making a decision on routine applications relating to new business submissions
- its response target for service standard 1.2 to provide that the OSC will answer 80 percent of calls to its Inquiries and Contact Centre within 120 seconds, not 60 seconds
Regarding this third change, the OSC said it seeks to maintain the level of its service delivery amid the growing number of investor complaints and inquiries and increasing complexity and length of calls.
Another change replaces the word “review” with “examination” for service standard 7.5 under compliance examinations for registrants.