Three bank CEOs gave slightly different scenarios for big bank mergers at today’s banking CEO conference hosted by Merrill Lynch in Toronto.

TD Bank CEO Charlie Baillie was the most pessimistic, suggesting that if the political climate allowed it, the big banks would be before the government with merger proposals. “If we had a reason to believe it would be approved, we’d be there,” said Baillie.

Baillie said that putting any big merger to a public referendum would probably lead to its rejection, and the banks would be no different. He suggested that a lot of work has to be done to convince the public before big mergers are politically viable.

Royal Bank CEO Gord Nixon sounded a slightly more optimistic note. He said that Ottawa at least now appears to accept the business rationale for mergers. But he agreed with Baillie that the case still needs to be made for the country.

Bank of Montreal’s CEO Tony Comper was most optimistic. Comper said that he believes that there has been a change in Ottawa’s mood toward mergers. He pointed out that when mergers were shot down the government was in the middle of the MacKay Task Fore and redrafting financial services legislation. Now that is complete, and a merger approval process has been established, Comper believes that mergers can be done. “Are they just going to put this merger approval process in place and not use it?” he asks.