David Brown, Chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission made a pitch today for a single “Pan-Canadian” securities regulator administered by the provinces.

Brown delivered his argument in this morning’s keynote address at the annual Dialogue with the OSC conference being held in Toronto.

In his address, Brown drew attention to what he called one of the biggest disadvantages facing Canada’s securities industry — a regulatory system hobbled by excessive cost and complexity.

Brown stated, “Quite simply, we have too many regulators. Too many regulatory structures. Too much overlap and duplication.”

Brown noted that the securities industry must deal with 13 separate regulators, and 13 different approaches to regulatory policy and investor protection.

Brown touched on Ontario’s efforts to merge to provincial regulators — the OSC and the Financial Services Commission of Ontario — into one body, before outlining how the Canadian Securities Administrators propose to bring uniformity to securities regulation, and reduce the number of decision makers overseeing the industry.

This spring the CSA established a national task force made up of securities commission chairs, vice chairs and commissioners to draft a model securities statute. The statute will be based on the best-in-class provisions from each of the provincial securities acts. Steve Sibbold, of the chair of the Alberta Securities Commission, is leading the project.

As for reducing the number of decision-makers, Brown said, “The logical result would be a Pan-Canadian commission, created by the provinces and territories. Responsibility for administering securities laws would by each to the Pan-Canadian commission.”

Brown stated that a national regulator need not be a federal body, given Canada’s constitutional division of powers, and regional sensitivities.

He added that the provinces that have already moved to integrate their regulators into single body would add their knowledge to the efforts to create a single Pan-Canadian regulator.

“We need a new regulatory structure to fit the new realities of the marketplace — a marketplace based on both heightened competition and unprecedented convergence among financial sectors,” Brown concluded.