Legislation to form a new national securities regulator will be put forward to parliamentarians within weeks, Canada's finance minister says.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, shown delivering a speech last month, has long been an advocate of a national securities regulator. (Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press)

Plans are in the works to send a draft bill to lawmakers and to the Supreme Court in "a matter of weeks," Jim Flaherty told reporters Monday.

"Our government is moving to a national securities regulator. Legislation will be ready within a matter of days."

Ottawa is seeking the Supreme Court's judgment on the issue because provincial powers, led by Alberta and Quebec, have balked at the idea of a centralized body holding dominance in their jurisdictions.

Canada is the only G8 country without a national securities regulator, and Flaherty is just the latest in a long line of finance ministers who have tried to establish one, only to be stymied by provincial fears it will be dominated by Ontario and may be against their interests.

Should parliamentarians approve the bill and it receives support from Canada's top court, the regulator could be supervising securities and business issues nationwide within three years.

Longstanding issue

As recently as March, in the federal budget, the Conservative government pledged to move forward on plans for a national regulator, with or without provincial support, by introducing legislation in the spring. A transition plan for how it might work would then be tabled by the Canadian Securities Transition Office in the summer, the budget said.

"We have Canadian securities regulators now that are provincial and so it's a provincial responsibility," Flaherty told reporters in Cambridge, Ont., on Monday night. "This is one of the challenges I have in the Canadian situation."

He pitched the utility of such a regulator by citing a situation that has made news in recent weeks — the scandal surrounding U.S. investment firm Goldman Sachs Inc.

The Wall Street titan faces a suit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other U.S. regulators surrounding its actions selling a variety of mortgage-backed securities that allegedly saw the firm profit as it knowingly sold failing assets to clients.

The SEC has filed fraud charges and other countries are contemplating doing the same, but Canada is helpless to follow suit without a national body, Flaherty said.

"[But] I would be very surprised if they, particularly the Ontario Securities Commission, were not engaged on it," Flaherty said.

With files from The Canadian Press