What Alberta’s Amended Securities Act Means for Greenwashing, Finfluencers & Safe Harbour

Alberta’s recent amendments reflect a dual regulatory strategy: strengthening protections for issuers making climate-related or sustainability disclosures, while increasing regulatory tools to combat financial misinformation, particularly from non-traditional actors like “finfluencers.” These changes generate both opportunities and risks for issuers, institutional investors, market intermediaries, and regulatory bodies.

First, the extension of safe harbor and defences under the Securities Act, particularly for climate-related disclosure, aims to reduce legal uncertainty for companies engaging in voluntary ESG reporting. Previously, exposures existed under misrepresentation or liability theories, especially for forward-looking statements (e.g. net-zero commitments, emissions targets) not mandated by securities rules. By enabling regulations to specify when disclosures or omissions will not carry liability, the amendments seek to balance innovation in disclosure with liability management.

However, these safe harbours are dependent on future regulations. As of early January 2026, Alberta has not published any detailed regulations, consultations, or guidance for how or when those defences will apply. This regulatory gap leaves reporting issuers exposed and creates drafting and disclosure risk: statements absent regulatory protection may still trigger liability under existing laws or the Competition Act.

Second, raising the ASC’s authority to act against online misleading information via “finfluencers” or social media signals a recognition of evolving investor-risk vectors beyond formal securities filings. The power to halt trading for up to 15 days enhances the regulator’s capacity for rapid intervention when misinformation enters the market. This could deter irresponsible communication, but may also introduce potential conflicts around freedom of expression, evidentiary burdens, and definition of misleading content.

Third, the Alberta amendments are embedded in a broader Canadian context. The federal Competition Act has already introduced anti-greenwashing provisions, including penalties for false environmental claims and expanded private rights of action. While Alberta’s safe harbour protections seek to insulate issuers from some types of liability, they do not shield them from liability under federal law. Moreover, the Competition Act’s vague standards (e.g. “adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology”) are subject to constitutional challenge as of late 2024. This interplay underscores areas of legal uncertainty.

Strategic implications for issuers include needing to review draft disclosures (particularly forward-looking climate commitments) to ensure they comply with existing safe-harbour and “reasonable investigation” defences; to monitor upcoming Alberta regulations; and to assess exposure to both securities-based and competition-based claims. Investors and analysts may also need to adjust risk models to account for regulatory enforcement of finfluencer activity and the potential for trading halts. Lastly, regulators elsewhere may monitor Alberta’s implementation as a template or warning.

Key open questions remain: what standards the regulations will adopt for determining “good-faith climate disclosure”; how specificity vs vagueness in defining misleading statements will be resolved; what evidentiary thresholds or processes will govern halting of trading; and how overlap with federal competition law and freedom of expression jurisprudence will play out.