An employee passes a stock board at the Toronto Stock Exchange.Kevin Van Paassen
There's prestige, national pride and billions worth of stock trading on the line.
But is there a strategic interest in keeping TMX - owner of the Toronto Stock Exchange - firmly in Canadian hands?
Thanks to a mixture of history and happenstance, Canada treats a clutch of industries as national treasures. Think of banks, broadcasters, cable companies, newspapers, airlines and liquor stores.
Stock markets aren't on the list.
Indeed, there's no clear federal policy on what we should or shouldn't protect, and more importantly, why they're even worth fighting for.
In the aftermath of last fall's controversial decision to block Anglo-Australian BHP Billiton's bid for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Ottawa promised to articulate its approach to foreign investment. So far, however, Industry Minister Tony Clement hasn't fully explained its decision, leaving the distinct impression that Ottawa viewed Potash Corp. as a unique - and political - case and that the country remains open for business.
The lack of clarity is counterproductive, argued Finn Poschmann, vice-president of research at the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto. He said a clear, rules-based system takes politics out of the mix and tells the world - and Canadians - why decisions are made.
"If the goal is clear and well-understood, it's easier to make decisions … and to explain your actions to investors and to other governments," he explained.
One area where there's been a lively Canadian debate about foreign ownership is in the area of cultural industries. And the conclusion is that we do so because Canada lives next door to a much larger and globally dominant culture that might obliterate us if we didn't promote our own voices and media outlets.
Elsewhere, there's been virtually no discussion. Do we protect liquor stores to grab the profits or to control distribution of a potentially dangerous substance? Do we keep foreigners from owning our banks in order to protect consumers and borrowers, or for blatantly protectionist reasons?
The economy is evolving rapidly and what we have long deemed strategic, such as airlines or broadcasters, might no longer be so vital.
"Regulation needs to evolve over time," agreed Brian Richter, assistant business professor at the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business.
Vast areas of Canada's economy remain wide open to foreign investment, including our land and our resources. And these may become much more valuable in a world of scarcity. Fertilizer produced from potash is one. Oil, uranium or hydroelectric power are others.
Large chunks of the economy are already in foreign hands. Roughly 22 per cent of Canadian business assets are owned by foreigners, and nearly 30 per cent of profits, according to Statistics Canada.
But Prof. Richter said it makes little sense to layer foreign-investment controls over already heavily regulated industries, such as airlines, banks and even natural resources.
"The nationality of an owner is unclear when other regulations exists," he said.
Provinces control mining companies' access to resources, for example, through leases and royalties as well as labour and environmental laws.
Mr. Poschmann goes a step further. He said the whole notion of a strategic asset or resource is intellectually vacuous.
"There aren't many strategic assets that can't be controlled through ordinary legislative and regulatory means," he said. "We've spent a lot of rhetoric at the Department of Finance over the years about making Canada open for business. So it's rather backwards to choose policies aimed at chasing it away."
And what about intellectual property? Companies that develop new technologies spawn vast networks, or clusters, of companies and expertise. Think of Bombardier or Research in Motion. Losing those companies could trigger a loss of brain power, intellectual property and companies that feed off these multinationals.
Ottawa did nothing as Nortel, once Canada's most prolific patent filer, was dismantled and sold off in chunks. RIM now holds the mantle as Canada's biggest generator of intellectual property.
Also unclear is whether maintaining domestic control guarantees that an asset is truly protected.
Indeed, foreign partners can sometimes ensure survival. In today's rapidly evolving financial-services marketplace, where stock markets are becoming virtual, the TSE may lose market share and become irrelevant if it doesn't link up with foreign partners.