MacKay, Hopkins named to board

Saskatchewan lawyers Harold MacKay of Regina and Nancy Hopkins of Saskatoon have been named to the Capital Markets Regulatory Authority’s initial board of directors, the provincial Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority (FCAA) announced last week.

What: The Capital Markets Regulatory Authority will be the single regulator administering the proposed provincial-territorial cooperative capital markets regulatory system, which will regulate financial services and investment industry participants and their activities in five provinces and one territory, plus the federal jurisdiction.

Who: MacKay is counsel to the law firm MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman in Regina, the firm’s former managing partner, and has over 40 years of corporate legal practice, public policy development and corporate governance experience.

MacKay is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan and Dalhousie University’s law school. MacKay served as vicechair of the Wise Persons’ Committee on Securities Regulation (2003) and chair of the Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services Sector (1997) and lead director at the Bank of Canada (1999-2002). MacKay was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2002.

Hopkins is a partner at the Saskatchewan law firm McDougall Gauley. Hopkins has 35 years’ experience in the practice of business law. A graduate of the University of Saskatchewan, Hopkins has served on the boards of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Cameco Corp. and the University of Saskatchewan.

What they’re doing:

MacKay and Hopkins are among 15 prominent Canadians named to the authority’s initial board of directors by the ministers responsible for capital markets regulation in British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Yukon, along with federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

Among the directors are:

chair William Black, former president and CEO of Maritime Life and John McCoach, outgoing president of the TSX Venture Exchange.

What it means:

The appointment of the board of directors marks an “important step in creating the co-operative system that will better protect investors, foster greater market efficiency and strengthen Canada’s capacity to manage systemic capital market risk on a national basis,” according to Capital Markets Implementation Authority Organization.

Participating jurisdictions will endeavour to enact the uniform provincial-territorial Capital Markets Act and the complementary federal Capital Markets Stability Act by June 30, 2018, with the authority expected to be operational in 2018.