Smitherman says feds are ‘on notice’
admin | Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 | No Comments »With Bay Street’s towers looming in the haze behind him, the mayoral candidate said he was putting the federal government “on notice” that Torontonians expect a new national securities regulator to be located here.Anything else would be “a snub of our status as Canada’s financial capital,” as Smitherman’s press release put it.
The former provincial cabinet minister said he’s determined on the campaign trail to talk about opportunities for economic development. The regulator would bring with it “a relatively small number of jobs” but it’s an important symbol, he said.
Smitherman insisted the issue would resonate with voters across the city, and from the highest-paid executives to bank counter clerks and data processors.
“It’s the kind of thing that people expect a mayor to be standing up for,” he said.
He rejected a suggestion the regulator wasn’t a “meat and potatoes” issue. Tens of thousands work in the city’s financial sector, which is “one of the most important drivers of the Toronto economy,” he said.
“That is meat and potatoes.”
Smitherman added a dig at Rob Ford, a rival who has focused most on cutting the city’s costs: “To be the mayor of Toronto is not just to rail against the fact that there’s one person at city hall that waters the plants,” he said, referring to a Ford talking point.
Smitherman held the rooftop press conference around the same time Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was announcing the regulator would have no single city as a headquarters.
The candidate had warned creating a decentralized regulator would be a misstep, with the federal Conservatives following a “path of political appeasement” in order to get provinces besides Ontario to agree.
