A motion passed by the House of Commons last week calling on the federal government to establish a carbon trading exchange in Montreal doesn’t mean the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange will be left out in the cold, says a WCE official.
Will Hill, senior vice-president of the WCE, said passage of the motion doesn’t commit Ottawa to take specific action.
The motion presented by Bloc Quebecois MP Bernard Bigras read as follows:
“That the House call on the government to set fixed greenhouse gas reduction targets as soon as possible so as to meet the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol, a prerequisite for the establishment, as expeditiously as possible, of a carbon exchange in Montreal.”
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Hill said the WCE believes the marketplace should decide where a climate exchange will be located and is satisfied that view was expressed during debate on the motion.
“We wanted to make sure it was debated, and it was,” he said. “We got our message across and we feel pretty confident there’s room for more than one exchange and that Winnipeg will be participating.”
Hill is also managing director of the Canadian Climate Exchange, a wholly owned subsidiary of the WCE established in 2003 to develop and implement a trading system for carbon credits.
The project has been on hold, awaiting a decision from Ottawa on how it’s going to regulate carbon emissions.
“When we formed CCE in 2003, we thought we’d be much further ahead than we are now,” said Hill. “We’re in standby mode. Until people know how much they have to reduce emissions, you can’t build a market for it.”
The Montreal Exchange (formerly known as the Montreal Stock Exchange) has an agreement with the Chicago Climate Exchange, the lone carbon trading marketplace in North America.
Hill acknowledged that could give the Montreal Exchange an advantage, but it doesn’t mean the CCE won’t be able to compete.
Each exchange carries a unique expertise, he said, and participants in the marketplace should be free to choose where they want to conduct their business.
“Competition is a very important factor in the development of new products, and competition between exchanges in this new arena should be encouraged, not stifled,” he said.
