QUEBEC CITY – Canada’s Finance Ministers hoped to solve a 40-year-old dispute as they met in Quebec City on Monday to talk about creating a national securities commission.
Each province currently has its own securities commission with a mandate to oversee and regulate the stock market and distribution of financial products and services in order to protect Canadians from fraud.
READ MORE: Finance Minister Flaherty announces new stock market watchdog
But the Harper government wants create one unified system, based out of Toronto, to reduce costs, improve efficiency and better manage systemic risk.
Ontario and British Columbia are already on board and at a meeting in Quebec City, the two provinces made a joint appeal.
“Imagine a country of 35 million people today in this world with 13 separate regulatory regimes,” said B.C. Finance Minister Michael de Jong.
“In an age where fraud knows no boundaries, I think we have an obligation to find efficiencies on behalf of the taxpayers.”
But B.C., Ontario and Harper hit a wall with Nicolas Marceau.
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“It has never been shown in any manner that the current system isn’t working well,” argued Quebec’s Finance Minister.
“It has never been shown.”
Both Quebec and Alberta are fiercely opposed to having a single watchdog.
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Their finance ministers argued that they would lose thousands of jobs to Bay street.
“For us in Calgary, it’s a sizeable part of what Calgary does,” said Alberta Finance Minister Doug Horner.
“If you think about the oil and gas sector, we manage billions of dollars of capital through the city everyday.”
Marceau argued that Montreal’s bustling financial sector represents 150,000 jobs and six per cent of the province’s GDP.
The debate could soon turn into a bitter constitutional battle, as Quebec plans to challenge the new regulator under the Constitution.
“It’s a competence that belongs to Quebec,” said Quebec Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Alexandre Cloutier.
“Of course, when the federal government does not respect the rule, it would be at least appropriate that we were advised before.”
Quebec maintained that the Harper government is steam-rolling ahead with a project that has already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Those who support the project said they hope to have the new national regulator up and working by July 2015.
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