It was licensed under all Canadian provincial securities regulators (except Quebec, where it cooperates with the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) instead).
Its members consisted of the distribution side of the industry that typically provide mutual funds and exempt fixed income products to Canadians through financial planners.
It worked in parallel to another Canadian SRO, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), which was responsible for the distribution of equities, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and other exchange traded products such as closed-end funds.
[1] The MFDA was created in June 1998 through an initiative by the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) in response to the rapid growth of mutual funds in Canada in the late 1980s.
[3][4] The MFDA regulated the operations, standards of practice and business conduct of its members and their representatives with a mandate to enhance investor protection and strengthen public confidence in the Canadian mutual fund industry.