June 8, 2011 | 13:24
Jessica Murphy, Parliamentary Bureau | QMI Agency
Canada’s patchwork securities regulation system gives the mob plenty of places to hide, a new report indicates.
The draft government report probing mob meddling in Canada’s financial sector, obtained by QMI Agency, suggests a patchwork of securities regulators across the country make it hard to pin down the amplitude of financial crime.
“Anyone wishing to understand the scope and seriousness of securities offences in Canada appears to be stuck with manually parsing the overlapping databases of regulators, and self-regulatory organizations,” according to the report, one of three commissioned by Public Safety Canada to shed light on how organized crime operates in Canada.
The final draft, likely be tabled late fall, will focus on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Montreal’s derivatives market.
The news doesn’t come as a surprise for J. Richard Finlay, who heads up the Centre for Corporate and Public Governance in the U.S.
He warns that due to our “weak system of balkanized securities regulators and lack of any federal focus on the matter, Canada makes an easy target for ill-intentioned players.”
Finlay recommends Canada adopt a national securities regulator, a proposal the Conservative government is currently trying to push forward.
The Supreme Court is set to rule in the coming months on the whether the proposal for a new Canadian Securities Regulatory Authority is constitutional.
Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec oppose a national regulator.