Madam Speaker, in fact, it does not have to be headquartered in Toronto. It is possible that we could have a system that could actually be headquartered in Ottawa with regional offices in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Halifax. That is a very viable system.
If the member wants to get more information on this, he should talk to the chair of the body that has been overseeing this, Douglas Hyndman from British Columbia. He was initially an opponent of this proposal, but has come around and says that he wants to be a part of this. He wants to be at the table actually defining what this regulator could possibly look at. He wants to be defining the rules and regulations that would be in place across the country.
That is what provinces like Manitoba, Quebec and Alberta should do. They should state what their concerns are, bring forward their concerns, and see whether they can be accommodated within the legislation. Then they can choose whether or not they wish to participate. This is a voluntary system. If Manitoba chooses not to participate, that is up to the province of Manitoba.
The member talked about a Conservative senator who he did not name. I would just point to the former treasurer of Alberta, Jim Dinning, who spoke very forcefully in the Financial Post, May 27 of this year, saying that we need a national regulator, not a federal one. He wrote very eloquently in terms of why we do need a regulatory framework. He wrote:
But a system of 13 securities regulators can’t keep up; it’s almost built to frustrate effective action. Canada came through the past financial crisis in reasonably good shape. We may not be so fortunate next time. We need to streamline the structure to help make rapid decisions.
He went on to write:
Take for example, the regulatory response — or lack of one — to the six electronic alternative trading systems operating in Canadian equity markets for the past three years or so. These platforms have captured more than 30% of trading volume from the Toronto Stock Exchange. Yet regulators--