Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Or Maybe Nobody Will Care

Chantal Hebert outlines the political upside for Harper in picking a brawl with the provinces over setting up a national securities regulator. I, on the other hand, see only a slappy fight amongst the four pundits who worry about such things. I see Andrew Coyne whipping out his spread-sheet, and demonstrating why people call him "the journalist guy that knows math". As for the rest of us, the indifference is palpable.

C'mon, Chantal, its cold out. Bring back Julie Couillard.

8 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

That's Chantal, BCL.

Heh. My word verification is "menses."

bigcitylib said...

Why can't she have an English name like everyone else?

Ti-Guy said...

Hébert. from a Germanic personal name composed of the elements: Heri, hari (army) + berht(bright, famous).

She's probably more Ur-English than you are.

rabbit said...

Missing in your analysis is the point that these fragmented security domains are expensive and wasteful, and serve no good purpose.

Being able to invest and seek investment efficiently is important to Canada's economic well being. And it certainly should be the PM's role to make Canada behave like a country rather than a loose conglomeration of fiefdoms.

In other words, it's not just a "slappy fight".

bigcitylib said...

Rabbit, you may be right but the POLITICAL payoff for Harper in this is 0. That's my point.

Ti-Guy said...

Besides even SEC investigation wasn't able to stop Bernie Madoff.

Unknown said...

If the SEC could have been roused to perform even a basic investigation, Madoff would have been uncovered years ago.

Also, funds who invested with Madoff failed to undertake even the most basic due diligence.

If Canada had a national regulator, we'd probably end up with with lowered OSC-styled standards and investigations.

James Bowie said...

I am a strong advocate of a single regulator and Andrew Coyne. Regulation arbitrage must end.