Minority government need not stall regulatory reform, says TSX boss

(July 12, 2004) Skeptics believe the Liberal party’s current minority position in Ottawa means a freeze on efforts to reform the country’s fragmented securities regulation system. But TSX president Barbara Stymiest is keeping up the pressure, urging Ottawa to keep its commitment to work toward a single regulator.

“This is a matter, not of politics, but of governments meeting their responsibilities,” Stymiest said last Friday in a speech to the Canadian Securities Traders Association in Kananaskis, Alberta.

The TSX head admits that regulatory reform is not a high-profile political issue, noting that the topic was not even mentioned during the federal election campaign, but she says businesses in every province want a better system.

“If the provinces are listening to their business constituencies, they would know the strength of the support that is out there for a simpler, less costly system,” she says. “Solving this problem has little to do with there being a minority in parliament.”

Stymiest says the best approach now would be for Ottawa to put the reform issue on the federal-provincial agenda at the first ministers level, “most usefully after Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and the other provinces have talked their way through their differences this summer.”

Ontario recently released a draft proposal for a single securities regulator, with one set of rules and fees. It seems unlikely Quebec and the western provinces would support such an approach, but at least it’s a start, Stymiest says. “I hope the other provinces will respond positively with an eye to reshaping Ontario’s ideas toward the compromises that will meet the needs of all jurisdictions.”

Stymiest says the provinces have managed to compromise in the past and on much tougher issues than securities reform, including healthcare, pensions, education, energy and the constitution.

“There are no reasons for inaction on the choices Canadians made on June 28,” she says. “The parliamentary universe may have turned in the sky, but the problems, if anything, are more urgent than they were before the election.”

Filed by Doug Watt, Advisor.ca, doug.watt@advisor.rogers.com