Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, believes that Canada should have a single regulator.

Speaking at the Ontario Securities Commission’s Dialogue with the OSC today, Levitt suggested that Canada probably should have a single national regulator. He noted that the U.S. could do with fewer regulators too, and that it probably doesn’t need both the SEC and the CFTC, for example.

Ideally such a body would be created by political consensus, Levitt suggested. However, he noted that often politicians don’t come to such consensus without being forced into it by some crisis — and Canada probably isn’t at that point yet.

His position on the national regulator was revealed in the Q&A session after his prepared remarks, which focused primarily on accounting standards setting bodies.