While many in corporate Canada hope that a single securities regulator is just around the corner, Canada’s dominant trading exchange, TMX Group, remains agnostic on the issue.

Speaking to the UBS Global Financial Services Conference in New York today, the TMX Group’s chief financial officer, Michael Ptasznik, expressed doubt that a single regulator is imminent.

In response to a question on the subject, Ptasznik told the conference that there has been movement towards a single regulator at the federal level, but he said he isn’t sure whether this will achieve anything. Moreover, he said that the exchange is comfortable operating within the current framework.

Despite being widely criticized as inefficient, Ptasznik said that the existing system has delivered benefits due to the various provincial regulators developing specialities — derivatives in Quebec, venture listings in the West, and senior listings in Ontario. And, he expressed the hope that any new model preserves the advantages of the current system.

Ptasznik said that the exchange doesn’t have a position on whether a single regulator should be adopted, and that its biggest concern is that, whatever the model, that its issuers have easy access to capital. “We want to remove any barriers for our listed issuers to be able to access the marketplace,” he said.

Its other main regulatory issue is ensuring a level playing field with the various other alternative trading systems that have launched in the Canadian market, he added.

IE