Session 3 Focus on Compliance and Enforcement

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www.strategis.gc.ca/corporations
CORPORATIONS CANADA
FOCUS ON COMPLIANCE AND
ENFORCEMENT

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PRESENTATION
• The Canadian Landscape
• What we do
• Why we do it
• How we do it
• Measuring Compliance
• Where do we go from here

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The Canadian Landscape
• Corporations Canada is a branch of Industry
Canada, the federal government department
dedicated to serving business interests in
Canada
• Our headquarters are in Ottawa, the capital city
of Canada, and we have satellite offices in three
other cities
• We have a staff of approximately 100 people

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The Canadian Landscape
• Constitutional Reality
• 13 jurisdictions
• Corporations Canada leader on the
highway of corporate reality

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What we do
• We administer the federal corporate law
framework under which federal
corporations operate
• Our main lines of business include:
– Incorporating businesses and approving
changes to corporate structures
– Providing corporate information to the public
– Monitoring compliance and policy
development with regard to the statutes that
we administer

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What we do
• We generate between $8M and $10M
through user fees every year
• We process in excess of 250,000 requests
per year
– in 2005-06, we processed 25,000
incorporations and over 120,000 annual
returns
– 70,000 telephone inquiries

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What we do
• We make sure that corporations file
required information with us
– Annual returns
– Changes to important information
• Changes to corporation names
• New directors
• Changes of address

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Why we do it
• So the people who need necessary
information can
– get it quickly and easily;
– be sure that it is accurate and reliable; and
– ensuring that Canada has a strong and
efficient marketplace economy

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How we do it
• We have five techniques:
– A. Awareness
– B. Facilitation
– C. Reminders
– D. Audit
– E. Dissolution

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Technique (1)
A. Awareness…
We make tremendous effort to inform
corporations of their filing obligations
– Information brochure sent on incorporation
– Information booths/publications
– Website: www.corporationscanada.ic.gc.ca

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Technique (2)
B. Facilitation
We continuously strive to find new ways
to make the filing obligations easier to
meet
– New user-friendly forms
– Information kits, policies on how to file
– Telephone assistance 1-866-333-5556
– On-line filing is easier and cheaper

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Technique (3)
C. Reminders
We remind them of their filing obligations
on a regular basis
– Friendly reminder notices for annual returns
are sent to each corporation before they are
due

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Technique (4)
D. Audit
Our targeted audit program identifies and
addresses over 4,000 delinquent
corporations per year

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Technique (5)
E. Dissolution
Our dissolution program automatically
dissolves corporations who have not filed
annual returns for more than two
consecutive years

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How we are doing
• In 2002, before we implemented a lot of
these techniques, the compliance rate for
filings was mediocre
– approximately 47%
• In 2005, the compliance rate for filing is
closer to 80%

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Compliance –
The Future
Our goal for the future: To continue to improve
upon and add to our compliance techniques
– We will use technology and other tools to find new
and better ways to inform corporations of their filing
requirements and to make filing easier
– We will improve our reminder notice program, our
audit program and our dissolution program to be
corporation specific and to address other persistent
problems

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Compliance is key
This is key to ensuring certainty in the
Canadian marketplace and creating a
business environment that supports
innovation and economic growth in
Canada