This crisis began in the United States, and then spread to England, and then to other European countries. A major lesson to draw from this crisis is that fragmentation within the financial regulatory system will create shortfalls in many of the components of this system. In the United States, the problem began in the subprime market. The highly fragmented nature of the U.S. regulatory system is a major cause of the problem. Therefore, there was no overriding regulatory organization that had full oversight of all of the dimensions of the problem.
As I mentioned, our system performs much better. However, we must draw important lessons from this crisis, among them the fact that we must adopt a much more systematic overview of the financial system. We should have an overview of all markets, be they banks, other financial institutions, or financial markets. In Canada, the most fragmented system is the securities regulatory system. As Mr. Hockin pointed out in his report, there are many reasons underpinning our financial markets' efficiency, but it is important to maintain financial stability.