TSX Group CEO Barbara Stymiest called on the country’s securities regulators to speak with one voice for Canada and to differentiate us from other markets, such as the United States.

Today at a speech in Winnipeg to the Canadian Club, Ms. Stymiest discussed the competitive pressures facing the Canadian capital markets. She said having 13 voices instead of one, recommending solution to the complex regulatory hurdles currently facing the securities industry, weakens Canada.

“Now is the time for those who care about these issues and understand how pivotal they are to our place in global markets, to speak up. Now is the time for businesses to measure the effect of the changes that are imminent and make clear what those changes will do to their businesses,” she said.

“While we are a vast country in physical terms, we are small in terms of the world’s capital markets,” said Stymiest. “American markets have 56 percent of the world’s market capitalization. We have just two percent.” Regulatory fragmentation, she claims, needs to be addressed and we must determine how we balance local needs and national priorities.

A week ago, a white paper on securities regulation in Canada, which is the follow-up to last spring’s national symposium, concluded that Canada faces a diminished role in global capital markets unless a more effective securities regulatory structure is identified and implemented. The paper, by Douglas Harris of the Capital Markets Institute (CMI) at the University of Toronto, analyzed current proposals for reform in an attempt to determine their strengths and weaknesses.