The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) released its Annual Priorities report in April for the 2026 fiscal year (April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026). Its priorities were divided across three key themes: integration, regulatory delivery and operations and advancing CIRO's Strategic Plan.
With respect to its integration priorities, CIRO notes its consolidation of the Investment Dealer and Partially Consolidated Rules and the Mutual Fund Dealer Rules into one harmonized rulebook, including the publication for comment of its Phase 5 of the consolidated rules. The entire rulebook will be republished for comment prior to finalization. CIRO notes it is working on proposed amendments for Phase 2 of its continuing education harmonization efforts.
In terms of regulatory operations, CIRO has been addressing public comments on the proposed enhanced cost reporting rules. It is also collaborating with the Canadian Securities Administrators to publish the results of their joint Client Focused Reforms Phase 2 Sweep. CIRO continues to review its requirements for custody and segregation of crypto assets and is collaborating with theAutorité des marchés financiersand other industry stakeholders to reduce the redundancy currently found in various complaints handling regimes.
CIRO is involved in at least two important initiatives relating to access to advice; one involves finalizing guidance on the use of tools and alerts for order-execution-only dealers, and the other is the development of potential rules for on-line advice. CIRO is also exploring how it can support open banking in Canada.
Of interest to many of our readers, CIRO is continuing to consider its approach to advisor incorporation issues (i.e. directed commissions), which is another key priority for the organization and its members.
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