Provinces start to ease restrictions
PANDEMIC RULES
Relaxed COVID-19 restrictions went into effect Monday in Quebec, Alberta, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
In Quebec, non-essential stores, personal-care salons and museums reopened across the province, while in six, less populated regions, gyms and in-person restaurant dining also reopened.
Alberta restaurants reopened for in-person dining, and one-on-one training at gyms were allowed to resume.
In New Brunswick, COVID-19 restrictions eased in two regions where case numbers have been high.
The Edmundston region came out of lockdown to enter the red level of the province's COVID-19 response plan at midnight, while the Moncton region dropped from red to orange.
There were two new cases of COVID-19 in New Brunswick Monday — the smallest daily increase since New Year's Day.
There are 182 active cases in the province.
In Nova Scotia, relaxed restrictions on organized gatherings went into effect Monday, allowing retail businesses and fitness facilities to operate at 75 per cent capacity, up from the previous limit of 50 per cent.
IT WILL ONLY END ONCE THERE IS WIDESPREAD ACCESS TO VACCINES.
The province had eight active cases of COVID-19 as of Sunday and one new one on Monday.
In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe was under pressure to tighten restrictions.
The province has one of the highest rates of active cases per capita in the country, with a seven-day average of 223 new cases each day and a population of just over one million people.
Only bingo halls and casinos have been closed since the daily case numbers began rising last fall.
“It's easy for some to stand up and say, `We need to lock everything down,' when they have the opportunity to work from home,” Moe told delegates in an online speech.
“The fact of the matter is, is thousands of people in Saskatchewan do not have that opportunity.”
Moe said many employees working for businesses that remain open to customers can't do their jobs elsewhere and his goal is to keep as many people working as possible through the pandemic.
Sports teams aren't allowed to play games and households can't have guests over, but businesses are allowed to have customers at reduced capacity and with other restrictions in place.
Health officials say the province's COVID-19 caseload is slowly dropping, but at a pace that's still adding pressure to hospitals and intensive-care units.
“The reality is this: No matter how severe lockdowns and public health measures are, they are not going to end this pandemic,” Moe said.
It will only end once there is widespread access to vaccines, he said.
To date, the province has administered nearly 43,000 doses to critical health-care workers and seniors living in long-term care and smaller communities.
The British Columbia Securities Commission hopes to unveil new rules this summer to beef up the regulator's power to pursue those who use social media channels to manipulate stock prices and markets.
The rules haven't been finalized, and would have to be approved by the B.C. government, but they could go as far as requiring anyone recommending buying or selling securities on social media platforms to disclose whether they have long or short positions, said Peter Brady, executive director of the BCSC.
He said the regulator's focus is on how to manage conflict of interest, a “big underlying issue” when it comes to recommending stocks that has become even more important with the proliferation of social media. “The pump and dump game has changed,” Brady said in an interview, adding that traditional enforcement tools “may not be up to the task in a world dominated by social media.”
The capital market watchdog's plan to introduce rules for all social media platforms is noteworthy amid recent volatility in previously underwhelming stocks such as GameStop and AMC, which appears to have been driven in no small part by retail investors across North America responding to videos on YouTube and postings on the social media platform Reddit.
Brady said the B.C. securities regulator, no stranger to wild stock swings and promotional activity, is looking at a number of new enforcement tools following a wave of “problematic promotional activities” over the past few years, much of it involving cannabis and blockchain companies, and battery metals such as lithium and cobalt. In addition to the rules that would specifically target disclosure on social media, legislative amendments to the provincial securities act passed last March relieved the BCSC of the need to establish that a misrepresentation had an effect on share price, a change that lowers the burden of proof for the regulators and makes enforcement easier.
The BCSC only has to prove that a statement or omission would be “important” to a “reasonable Investor” in determining whether to trade a security.
“If we don't have to prove market impact, then we can be more effective in combatting misleading statements (including) on social media,” Brady said. “Maybe you would never be able to show that that lie is going to move the stock.”
He said there has not yet been a test case of the lower threshold, and it is too soon to say if any of the new powers sought by the watchdog could be used to intervene in current cases of trading volatility, which bled from stocks including GameStop, BlackBerry Ltd., and Bed Bath & Beyond into the silver market last week. “We don't know exactly what's going on with GameStop. It's very early,” Brady said, noting that individual facts and jurisdiction would determine the course of any enforcement action. “Putting that aside, the new tools, this sort of `don't lie' provision, it could apply,” he said, “if the investigation supports it.”
As others have suggested, Brady said Canadian regulators could also attempt to deal with the novel situation by using a discretionary power that allows them to make orders that are “in the public interest” even if there isn't a specific breach of securities law. On the books since the 1960s, this power has historically been reserved for conduct that rises to the level of “abusive” to investors or the capital markets.
In a joint statement last week, Canada's provincial securities regulators and the national investment industry regulator said they are monitoring the volatile trading and what's driving it.
“(We) will take appropriate regulatory action to protect investors if we identify that abusive or manipulative trading activity may be taking place,” the Canadian Securities Administrators and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada said in the statement.
Social media “scrapers” are among the tools already being used by regulators across the country to sift through online activity and unearth potential market misconduct. This is done using key word searches, including company names, Brady said.
He added that the watchdogs also rely on tips, as they contemplate new powers to respond to questionable social media posts.
“The simple idea is this: Somebody shouldn't be able to lie on social media about a stock,” he said.
We can be more effective in combatting misleading statements.