Canada's investment industry regulator says new legislation in B.C. will give it the teeth it needs to collect millions of dollars in unpaid fines from financial wrongdoers.

The amendments to the Securities Act, introduced in the legislature last week, will allow the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and the Mutual Fund Dealers Association (MFDA) to use court orders to enforce penalties.

"It means that the regulatory process, the disciplinary process, has integrity and has teeth," IIROC's president and CEO Andrew Kriegler told CBC News.

"Before, it was possible for people who had been prosecuted and fined to simply quit the industry and walk away."

Rule-breakers in B.C. currently owe the regulator $4.7 million in unpaid fines dating back to 2008, but the new legislation does not allow IIROC to use court orders to retroactively enforce those penalties.

Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and P.E.I. already allow IIROC and MFDA to turn to the courts to enforce fines, and IIROC says it has seen higher rates of fine collection in those provinces. Manitoba introduced similar legislation last month.

According to IIROC, the amendments to B.C. law will particularly protect seniors, who are the largest source of complaints about shady investment deals. About 30 per cent of prosecutions involve seniors.

"Retirees in British Columbia need to trust that they — and their investments — are protected from rule-breakers who prey on older investors," Laura Tamblyn Watts of CARP (formerly known as the Canadian Association of Retired Persons) said in a press release.