Issue 1September 15, 20264 min read
On the Record, Issue 1
Rules, privacy, Microsoft and the map, from 15 August to 11 September 2026.
I am opening On the Record with Issue 1 of the Northern Catalyst monthly note on the rules, the tools to help your work remain compliant, and the work that stays with you. This issue covers 15 August to 11 September 2026.
The rules
Key checks included CIRO's publications(external site, opens in a new tab) and the Ontario Securities Commission's CIRO rule review listing(external site, opens in a new tab) for the period. Neither carried a new rule or guidance on client records, know-your-client, know-your-product, suitability or the use of AI. The Canadian Securities Administrators published nothing new on registrants' use of AI, and none of the disciplinary decisions CIRO announced in those weeks turned on an advisor's records.
Privacy
Bill C-36 would repeal the privacy part of PIPEDA and replace it with a new Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act. It had its first reading(external site, opens in a new tab) in the House of Commons on 15 June 2026. The House rose for the summer three days later and returns on 21 September, so second reading has not begun. PIPEDA remains in force.
The tools
Microsoft plans to let Copilot write a Teams meeting summary without saving a transcript or recording. It is built for organizations whose policies limit or prohibit keeping transcripts. Its current schedule starts worldwide rollout in mid-October 2026 for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) licence (Message Center MC1275312, roadmap item 558286(external site, opens in a new tab)). A meeting could then end with an AI summary and no transcript to check it against.
Having worked with general-purpose meeting summaries previously, what they produce and what an advisor's file needs have not been the same thing. A summary is written for someone catching up, not for someone who has to show later what was discussed and why the advice followed. That gap is what the Northern Catalyst Meeting Documentation Agent was built to close, and it runs inside the Copilot licence a firm already has.
The recap Copilot will soon be producing in Teams may be close enough on its own, and for a meeting where no transcript is captured it is a reasonable starting point. The test is the same either way: read the summary against what your record has to contain, and add what is missing while the meeting is still fresh. If you would like the Agent set up in your own Microsoft 365 tenant, the Advisor Copilot Toolkit page explains what that involves.
The map
Each issue of this note reports against a map of the work an advisor personally owns: the meeting record, the reasoning behind a recommendation, the KYC and review registers, privacy duties, the governance of any AI you use, the Microsoft tools all of it is produced in, and a file a successor can rely on. Its name is Your Side of the File, because the dealer holds part of the file and this part is yours. The first entries are being written now, starting with the meeting record, and this note will let you know when each one is ready.
The licence map that comes out of that work is the first thing I expect to publish under Your Side of the File, and I will send a line when it is live.
A note from my own work
I've been surprised by how unclear it is what each Microsoft licence provides a firm. It feels almost as if you have to purchase first and then discover what's available in the account. Even after mapping what each licence includes, the answers keep shifting and need checking again. My hope is to make it clear enough that buying becomes a confident decision, and that an advisor can plan how the firm uses what it already pays for.