Quebec On The Wrong Side Of Regulation

Who would have thought that the words "regulate" and "Quebec" would be mutally exclusive on creating a national securites regulator?

Note to self: Canada is the only G7 country without a single national federal securities regulator. Not sure if this is a bad or good thing (thought I would say it's needed and actually good for investors) but it does make doing business with Canada much harder as there are 10 different regulators to deal with. Quebec claims it will hurt our economy (you know, the one which takes in more than it gives out to Canada, the one with the highest concentration of union members on the continent, the one with where the "shining" light or darling is a corporate bum in Bombardier and a nationalized outfit monopolizing electricity in Hydro- Quebec, the one that lost all its major corporations to Toronto in the 1970s because of the political situation and the one that no longer has the Montreal Stock Exchange - that one) or what's left of it. Hate to say it but it's already damaged.

Now. If Quebec was a bastion of free market principles where the intrusion of the Feds would disrupt a good thing, then yeah, count me in as supporting this. But that's not the case here.

I witnessed first hand how counter-productive the Canadian financial markets are. When I was a broker Albertans weren't licensed to trade in Quebec and vice-versa because of some stupid, parochial battle played between two - all things considered - tiny minnows on the world stage. Just dumb. What do you expect from a country that still has inter-provincial barriers and is still "studying" how to reduce them. Sign a free trade deal with the Americans, Mexican and Chileans but among us we act like independents. Lame.

Once again from the top: What hurts Quebec, and everyone outside these borders knows it, is our own insularity.

Keep those transfer payments coming in though!