Former Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins says this country needs to build a framework to make cryptocurrencies “as safe as our financial system.”
In an opinion piece published in The Financial Post newspaper, Wilkins argues that the cryptocurrency space is advancing in a largely unregulated way, with few guardrails for financial stability, investor protection and market integrity. That means it’s not “entirely safe,” she writes.
To address this issue, Canada needs “clear and proportionate legal and regulatory frameworks,” she said, adding that the nation can look to efforts by the Bank of England for its regulatory response to digital coins and tokens.
“Canada needs to be as ambitious in creating modern legal, policy and regulatory frameworks for the crypto ecosystem,” writes Wilkins, who was senior deputy governor at the Bank of Canada from 2014 to 2020.
Her comments come a week after Conservative lawmaker Michelle Rempel Garner called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to start taking digital currencies seriously. Rempel Garner’s proposed law would task the finance minister with setting up a national framework to woo cryptocurrency investors.
There’s been an increase in scrutiny of digital coins and tokens in Canada due to fundraising in Bitcoin (BTC) by some organizers of the trucker convoy that’s been occupying Ottawa for nearly three weeks now.
In invoking emergency powers to quell the protests, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government will specifically target cryptocurrency platforms as part of its bid to choke off the flow of money to the demonstrators.
