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5 Comments

news

Duly Quoted: George Smitherman

By Torontoist

“I say to the federal government: my Canada includes Toronto and so should yours.”
—George Smitherman, reacting to the news that the federal government’s proposed new securities agency will not have its headquarters in Toronto, or any headquarters at all, but instead a decentralized set of regional offices.

Comments

  • http://undefined CanadianSkeezix

    Toronto should be careful what it wishes for.
    Being named the HQ might be good for bragging rights, but it would likely be a Pyrrhic victory. If this new regulator is going to have any kind of official headquarters, the feds will undoubtedly spread the largesse across various regions — Toronto will be HQ, but Montreal will be officially in charge of this, Calgary in charge of that, etc. Power may end up getting spread so thin, such that fewer decisions are being made in T.O. than were made when the OSC ran the show in this town.
    However, if there is no official headquarters, power and staff may simply naturally flow to where the business activity is taking place — other regional offices will have their specific areas of expertise, but the bulk of the regulator will operate out of Toronto. Having no official headquarters may actually be a way of ensuring that Toronto becomes the unofficial headquarters.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    I actually agree with Smitherman when he says:
    “You wouldn’t locate the headquarters of the National Energy Board anywhere other than Calgary. If a new national securities regulator is to be created, its headquarters must be in Toronto,” Smitherman said.

  • rek

    In Stephen Harper’s Canada, Lake Ontario extends up to the 905.

  • http://undefined Robsonian

    I mean, a couple of things:
    1) They’re going to have a chief regulator. Doesn’t that regulator have to live (and work, and sleep, and eat and stuff) somewhere? Wouldn’t it be best if that regulator had, I don’t know, an office and like, a staff? Wouldn’t it be tempting to call that place a headquarters? As CanadianSkeezix points out, isn’t that place going to be Toronto anyhow?
    2) I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a better example of a Canadian politician (or party) twisting out of a sticky situation by pulling some really transparent bullshitty explanation out of their ass since, earlier today (!!) when I read about Tories on the Commons Committee on Public Safety filibustering Majority Opposition calls for Parliament to take up the matter of the G20 by suggesting the NDP were pro-Anarchist by virtue of their holding the same interest in a public examination of the decisions and the plans that surround the G20 as (gasp!) Amnesty International Canada. I know some of you are confused because you never thought you’d see an Anarchist organization with a Secretary General and an international hierarchy, and a budget, and ads, and stuff; and I know you’ll all think it’s odd that a bunch of anarchists would, I dunno, try to get a Parliamentary Committee to look into the matter of the G20, because anarchists don’t tend to support Constitutional Monarchies, the concept of Sovereignty, or a code of laws and quasi-democratic procedure, but Dean Del Mastro implied as much last night and he wasn’t alone (http://tgam.ca/cvc).
    3) I mean, it’s all just so blatantly political. They know the concept of a National regulator is a touchy subject, they know picking Toronto, or anywhere(!)is going to be a major issue for Quebec and Alberta and so they decide to cap off years of discussion and planning towards a major, keystone, legislative reform by concocting a bizarre, half-assed solution to their problem, and they run with it:
    “We don’t need a headquarters for our new national bureaucracy, we’ll just have regional offices! 13 of them. Hell, while we’re at it, let’s staff them with the same ppl who are working for the various Provincial and Territorial regulators, and let’s lease the same offices! Call the Dept. of Signs! Have them knock out some new logo, or something. Hot damn, we’re done!” they could have said. Maybe.
    4) Come to think of it, that’s all we can really expect from Canadian Politics these days. Whether it’s McGuinty jumping away from sex ed. curriculum reform like it was on fire, to Mayor Miller jumping up in front of the microphone to simultaneously congratulate our police and point out that we can’t possibly second guess them, Politics in Canada is shot through (shot to pieces) with examples of a fundamental and pervasive lack of courage and of conviction.
    It has all made me somewhat of a callous cynic, and that’s too bad.

  • http://bit.ly/accozzaglia accozzaglia

    So the idea is to offend Toronto so as not to offend Calgary, Montréal, Vancouver, Edmonton, or Québec. Ottawa is, naturally, exempt, and Winnipeg is, naturally, ignored. How long will it take for the CPC-voting suburban ridings of the 905 to realize that when this government in Ottawa snubs Toronto, it also includes all of the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area, if not most of southwest Ontario’s economic engine?