Did you know that Canada is weird when it comes to security regulations? Well it is. Canada is the only G8 country who doesn't  have a national security regulator. To understand what I mean, take a look at the USA: they've got the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). Canada has by contrast the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) except the CSA doesn't have any real power. They're kind of just a volunteer board of people from all the separate jurisdiction regulators. The true regulation is administered in every province and territory (called jurisdictions). As an example, in Ontario where I live, it's the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) that lays down the law.

Well all of this may soon change. Finance minister Jim Flayerty is talking that this will change any day now. In the past there has been a lot of resistance to this change, because it has been expected that the new national regulator would be based somewhere in Ontario (probably TO?). The problem is that the OSC is by far the toughest for Investment Dealers to do business. Ontario seems to have the most stringent rules. For this reason, all the other jurisdictions don't want to move to a national regulator for fear of having some of these tough rules imposed on them also.

It will be interesting to watch and see what happens.