What securities oversight means for DC plans
The Ontario Securities Commission's latest annual summary of its Investment Management Division highlights continued work on fund liquidity risk management and an expanded Investment Fund Survey, both of which feed directly into obligations pension and benefits advisors already navigate when they oversee the underlying investments inside DC plans and group RRSPs.
The report, covering fiscal 2025-2026, points to ongoing policy work on ETF investor access, a proposed streamlined Fund Report meant to improve investor disclosure, and continued liquidity risk management work meant to ensure funds are "better equipped to manage market stress and meet investor redemption requests." The OSC's Investment Fund Survey has also been expanded to capture data from fund managers not registered in Ontario, broadening the picture of the Canadian investment funds landscape.
That liquidity focus lines up with obligations pension plan administrators already carry. OSFI's own guidance on pension investment risk management calls for "sufficient look-through to the underlying holdings of investment funds", with liquidity risk named specifically as a category plan administrators need to monitor and report against.
The survey expansion matters beyond Ontario's own oversight, too. Data from the Investment Fund Survey feeds the CSA Systemic Risk Committee's annual capital market reports on mutual funds, ETFs, hedge funds and private asset funds across Canada, meaning broader manager coverage improves the data foundation regulators, and by extension plan administrators doing manager due diligence, are working from.
Raymond Chan, the OSC's Senior Vice President of Investment Management, said the division is aiming for "risk-based oversight, data-informed decision-making and ongoing stakeholder engagement" as the sector evolves.
For advisors overseeing DC plan investment menus or group RRSP fund lineups, the report is worth reading less as a securities-regulator formality and more as a signal of where fund-level liquidity scrutiny is heading, scrutiny that plan administrators are already expected to look through to under their own pension regulatory obligations.
