Move over G7, you leading lights of global financial power, the Financial Services Leadership Council has arrived. Late last month, a crew of homegrown financial heavyweights got together in Toronto to discuss, of all things, the prospect of turning the city into a five-star financial centre.

The list of private-sector attendees alone conjured images of luxurious limos and gourmet lunches that even the prime minister might have trouble summoning. In this case, the politicos were definitely overshadowed. Really, what sort of cachet could blokes like Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty muster when bank chairmen, insurance CEOs and the heads of market-moving pension plans are in attendance?

The occasion was equally unlikely: the first meeting of the council (it almost has a Tolkien-esque ring) to discuss the Sisyphean task of turning T.O. into one of the world’s top ranked financial centres. This rather unCanadian-like ambition is the brainchild of the Toronto Financial Services Alliance, a private/public group created in 2001 that’s been rather quiet until now. The current initiative got its kick-start from Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, who corralled the private-sector luminaries at the Toronto Club last year and asked for ideas that would boost the job-making potential at King and Bay.

The alliance now says it wants to do what no federal, provincial or municipal government has ever succeeded in doing, despite decades of trade missions, trade deals and talk about trade: turn Canada into an international business destination in its own right.

There’s no doubt that doing so would mitigate a host of chronic Canadian ills, both in southern Ontario and in other regions across the country that would benefit from the spinoffs. Who can deny the value of improving the supply of full-time, skilled jobs, staunching the relentless national brain drain and reversing the slump in public revenues caused by an embattled private sector.

The plan, at least on its face, looks promising. In a report prepared by the Boston Consulting Group and released earlier in November, members of the alliance called for enhancing several areas of expertise in the financial services sector in which Toronto already excels. They include: a global institute for risk management; entrenching Canada’s reputation for mining and energy financing; further developing the city’s expertise in retirement financing; and expanding related areas such as investment fund administration, financial data networks, law, accounting, and actuarial, customer and credit-rating services.

What’s appealing about this initiative is that it’s rooted firmly in the realm of practical realities, not vague political imperatives. Even suggesting that Toronto should be given extra help — because that makes the most sense — would be difficult for almost any politician. But so pragmatic is the report that it even dares to make an issue of a gaping hole in the city’s infrastructure that amounts to a national embarrassment in this age of global connectivity: the lack of a high-speed transit link between the country’s busiest airport and its busiest urban centre.

The initiative is getting a big leg up from the financial crisis, which left Canadians, a typically modest bunch, with their chests puffed out over the performance of their grey, cautious, highly regulated — and wonderfully safe – banks. Being known for hockey and mountains and health care is nice. It’s time that smart, savvy and rich were added to the lineup. IE