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“First of all, you’ve got the big job with the legislation and the regulations, but then you’ve got a very heavy task of trying to move out in building this thing,” he says. “The deadline for getting this up and running in the middle of 2015 . . . . It’s hard to believe that will happen. So, we’re obviously going to get slippage in deadlines.”

But, he adds, “hopefully, towards year-end next year, it might be going.”

Who will be next to join the Cooperative System, up and running or not? Five provinces may grow to six or seven in the coming year, with the likely addition of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The three territories still appear hesitant about the idea and determined to give it more study — and that could take them past 2015.

For sure, there will be no Alberta and no Manitoba, at least not in the next two or three years, depending on which way the local political winds blow, and — most certainly — no Quebec.

“We [have] made clear that Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba are not going to join the Cooperative Capital Markets Regulator,” Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao said after meeting with his provincial counterparts in Ottawa on Dec. 15.

“Those three provinces together account for almost 50% of capital markets activity in Canada. So, we cannot ignore that either,” he pointed out.

“Whatever happens we have no intention, of course, of putting up obstacles [to the Cooperative System].”

A spokesperson for Alberta Finance Minister Robin Campbell says that, “based on consultations with industry, it is clear that industry representatives in all three provinces do not support the [Cooperative System] initiative, preferring a provincially-led approach instead.”