Canadian Securities Administrators put climate and enhanced diversity disclosure on hold

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) has paused its work to develop new mandatory climate-related disclosure rules and amendments to existing diversity disclosure requirements. According to a release published on April 23, 2025, this approach is being taken “to support Canadian markets and issuers as they adapt to the recent developments in the U.S. and globally.”

Stan Magidson, Chair of the CSA and CEO of the Alberta Securities Commission was quoted in the release as saying: “In recent months, the global economic and geopolitical landscape has rapidly and significantly changed, resulting in increased uncertainty and rising competitiveness concerns for Canadian issuers. … In response, the CSA is focusing on initiatives to make Canadian markets more competitive, efficient and resilient.”

The CSA indicated in its release that it will monitor regulatory developments in climate-related and diversity-related disclosure, expecting to revisit these issues in future years, while continuing to monitor issuer disclosure and working to address misleading disclosure, including greenwashing.

Climate-related disclosure

Climate-related risk was clearly identified as a material risk subject to disclosure under securities laws in 2010 with the issuance of CSA Staff Notice 51-333 – Environmental Reporting Guidance. With limited additional guidance, but significant market pressure to disclose information on climate-related risks, issuers often relied upon third-party sustainability disclosure frameworks (including those published by the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures [TCFD], SASB and more recently the International Sustainability Standards Board [ISSB]) to prepare their climate-related and broader sustainability disclosure. 

In 2021 the CSA published consultations on Proposed National Instrument 51-107 Disclosure of Climate-related Matters, which was based on the TCFD disclosure model. This proposal received a significant volume of public comments, including comments from those who strongly supported the proposal and those who took the opposite view, but was never issued in final form.

The April 23 release highlights the fact that securities legislation already requires disclosure of material climate-related risks in the same way that issuers are required to disclose other types of material information and encourages issuers to refer to sustainability standards issued by the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board (CSSB) when preparing their disclosures. The CSSB issued two sets of standards in December 2024: one setting out general standards for sustainability disclosure and one focussing on climate-related disclosure. The CSSB standards are nearly identical to those previously issued by the ISSB.

Diversity disclosure

Since 2005, reporting issuers have been required to make corporate governance disclosure under National Instrument 58-101 Disclosure of Corporate Governance Practices against recommended governance practices set out in National Policy 58-201 Corporate Governance Guidelines (NP 58-201). In 2014, most CSA jurisdictions adopted amendments to Form 58-101F1 that required non-venture issuers to disclose information on their policies, considerations and targets for women in board and executive officer positions, and to disclose the numbers and proportions of women in those roles. 

Since January 2021, distributing corporations under the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) have been required to disclose more detailed information about “designated groups,” which means women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities.

On April 13, 2023, the CSA published a Notice and Request for Comment on proposed amendments to Form 58-101F1 and NP 58-201. The proposed amendments envisioned two possible models, each of which was endorsed by different provincial regulators.

Regulators in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories proposed a model that would require an issuer to disclose its approach to diversity for the board and senior management, but would not mandate disclosure about any specific groups, other than women. An issuer would be left to determine the groups whose representation on its board or in senior management positions form part of its diversity strategy.

The Ontario Securities Commission preferred the approach to diversity disclosure adopted under the CBCA, and suggested a model that would have required reporting on the representation of five designated groups, being women, Indigenous peoples, racialized persons, persons with disabilities and LGBTQ2SI+ persons, on boards and in executive officer positions. The remaining provincial regulators did not indicate a preferred approach.

Following the April 23 CSA release, neither of these two approaches will be pursued (for now), but non-venture issuers will continue to be required to disclose on the representation of women on boards and in executive officer positions based on existing requirements.