Bourque and Neale are both giving high exposure to the Captain’s Quarters post on the Income Trust trading scandal that shines a spotlight on the lack of action by chief of the OSC – and consistant Liberal party donator- W. David Wilson .
The Medisys trades may only have been the tip of the iceberg, according to a CQ reader with knowledge of Canadian financial markets, and a check on the winners from the run on income trusts on November 23rd might demonstrate why Canadians may not get an investigation at all — at least until the Americans decide to check into the action.
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It turns out, however, that David Wilson has more reason to recuse himself than just his party affiliation. Wilson received his appointment as chairman of the OSC after working as CEO of Scotia Capital Markets until his official appointment to the OSC on November 1, 2005, just twenty-two days before this event. Why is this important? One of the revelations to come out in the last couple of days is a previously undisclosed meeting that Finance Minister Ralph Goodale held with Investment Dealers Association earlier on the 23rd. Shortly after this meeting ended, unusual volumes began trading in income trusts such as Yellow Pages, Aeroplan, Superior Plus, and BCE (a dividend equity).
A look at the trades for November 23rd shows that Scotia Capital played a large role in moving the shares of these products. Look at Yellow Pages as an example; in the PDF, Scotia Capital is broker #85. SC starts off by selling large chunks of Yellow Pages at $14.12 right from the opening bell. Through 10:30, they’re still primarily selling even though the price has moved up to $14.36. Beginning at 11 am, they suddenly begin buying in small amounts, and then at 11:26 start buying in higher volumes — almost 20,000 between 11:26 and 11:29, even though the price had moved up to $14.50. SC sells off a couple of thousand shares later in the hour at $14.65, and then nibbles most of the next couple of hours. At 14:22, SC suddenly starts selling again at $14.60, dumping several thousand shares while the price drops a few cents. Starting at 14:57 and continuing through the end of the session at 16:00, the stock explodes in volume, with a number of players pushing the stock price over $15.00 by the closing bell.
Do you have a financial advisor? Ed’s post might be worth printing off and sending to them, along with a question asking why you should have confidence in Canadian investments.
Kate, why not start a petition to have this investigated.
I wonder why CNN’s Lou Dobbs hasn’t picked up on this. He loves this sort of stuff. He’s always highly regarded in the business community in New York.
ROB TV may be interested in Captain’s Quarters findings and conclusions thus far? ROB would have resources to research this US impression of investing in Canada?
gawd this country needs some INDEPENDENT investigators.
Is everyone a Liberal party stooge ??
Where’s the RCMP Commercial Crimes Unit – oh ya I forgot, they seen to be available only when Liberal Prime Ministers want to whitewash innocent people.
Isn’t ROB TV owned by the CTV conglomerate? They know about this, you can bet on it. That’s as incestuous a community as the media/Liberal party. You can bet that if the Tories do get elected, this will be ripped wide open, as will just about every other file touched by the Liberals.
Alan Eagleson was nailed for defrauding Canadian hockey players by the *US* justice system. If the Canadian government is tied to Oil for Fools, China, North Korea and Maurice “The Rocket” Strong then, perhaps, they can deliver some US style smackdown against Vinnie Barbarino and crew with Scott Feschuk in the role of Arnold Horschak.
Canada has jumped the shark.
Mainstream news media . . . more willful blindness, this time involving powerful financial interests AND government.
Is it any wonder that corruption has been able to thrive for twelve years in government?
Exposing and highlighting the criminal aspect of this Liberal government is not in our news media’s playing deck.
Canada desperately needs a regime change.
I work for an IDA firm that competes with Scotia Capital. The information here is interesting but hardly conclusive evidence that only someone at the OSC leaked the Goodale announcement a day early. The change in volumes in many Income Trusts and dividend paying stocks suggests the leaks were much more wide spread than this article suggests. There may well have been an OSC leak to Scotia Capital but a deeper look suggests that there were many other leaks as well.
If there are leaks you know there will be Liberal administration and insiders at the bottom to catch the cash.
It all started with a simple typo. Innocently, an ‘n’ was erroneously inserted, resulting in ‘ethnics’, and the Liebranos have not looked back since.
ROBTV is very, very, very well aware of this. I’ve provided links to video from friday, also available at mkbraaten.
BellGlobeMedia has a number of people working on this, though who knows what they will eventually produce. I much prefer the idea of going the CNN/CNBC/SEC/USDOJ angle. Patrick Fitzgerald or Elliott Spitzer may be interested, or someone of their ilk. I will send them some information and advise everyone else to provide as much information as they can. Further, it would be a good idea to find US investment advisors or investors who may have been harmed. Contacting mass tort stock firms like Milberg (http://www.milbergweiss.com/) or Lerach (http://www.lerachlaw.com/) could also be productive. These guys are complete sharks, but their firms are based on flimsy suits against firms whose stocks drop, alleging corruption. This case has many US investors, US listed stocks, and much more evidence of possible wrongdoing.
Best of luck all
Drop an email to NRO’s Larry Kudlow and he can sic his fellow rottweiller Jim Cramer on it. I’d like to see Cramer loose in Parliament during Question Period.
Never mind.
I lobbed the first emissile myself.
Stay tuned.
The really sickening thing about this situation is that we will never be able to make it stick to Goodale. The media and business community in Regina are so deep into Ralph’s pocket that they will brook no criticism of him. You could videotape Ralph throwing babies off a building, but if you tried to use it in a campaign, the headline would read “Opposition Uses Smear Tactics On Goodale.”
On the other hand, it is Christmas. If anyone’s in the mood for some purely non-political Christmas blogging, check out my 12 Gags of Christmas series.
This notion that the OSC tipped off Scotia Capital is nonsense.
Look, the information was out there. I don’t think anyone with a modicum of wisdom, except for Paul Martin and Ralph Goodale, denies there was a leak of some sort. More than likely, it was a bunch of dumb political aides who didn’t realize that telling Bay Street groups about dividend tax cut before the markets closed would impact investors’ portfolios.
As I said on my blog, unless a Bay Street trader comes forward and says, “yes there was a leak, and here are the emails…”, this is not going anywhere.
But yes, this story shows the third-world law enforcement we have in this country. And the point about Allan Eagleson is noted. Also, how about Conrad Black and Garth Drabinsky.
The OSC is a toothless tiger, and the RCMP a bunch of keystone kops.
If this happened in the United States, you would bet your last dollar that Elliott Spitzer, the SEC and hordes of reporters from all the major dailies would be on to this like peanut butter on bread.
By the way, people should be calling the OSC and ask why it is not doing anything. Maybe David Wilson needs a wake-up call.
1-877-785-1555.
The bastards will stonewall until the election is over.
But, we can vote with our money. Move assets out of Canada.
The Canadian dollar has risen from about 62 1/2 cents on the U.S. dollar to around 86 cents today. And SHAKEN is going to move his assets out of Canada? Are you naturally stupid or did you have to practice to get this dumb?
Actually Don, now that the canadian dollar has risen to a 15 year high it is the ideal time to convert to foreign holdings. You finally get a fair exchange rate and as a result realize more foreign currency for your C$ assets.
When the C$ is low you get screwed on your assets. Now actually is the time to sell them.
So reasses your vitriol and think before you post.
Hey Colin,Don must have gone to the Lie-beral School of Business.
After that last post I doubt he went to any school.
OK, genius Don – how much upside do you think is left for a currency with a rigged investment system? Librano corruption will further marginalize the country outside our own borders. As the impact of this scandal is grasped in world money markets, Canada will be seen as less of a safe haven. Perfect time to liquidate and move it offshore.
If Alberta had a currency, I would park it there. Until then, I’ll have to invest in the US fencing product sector.
I just retired from a Bay Street firm. What many have missed is that the fact of leaking the information, known as selective disclosure, is as much of a crime as trading on it. Whether the Libs actually profited from the trustgate leak, they are the only logical source of that leak.
All this stuff on CBC and in the papers about the alleged lack of proof is BS from Liberal sympathizers who don’t know securities law. The fact that a few people expected the Libs to change their minds on trusts doesn’t explain the huge jump in trading volume just hours before the announcement.
If any public company had experienced this kind of trading activity before a major announcement, somebody would be fired or eventually go to jail. The laws apply equally to government officials.
As for the OSC, they never comment on a case before delivering a verdict, but they must be looking into this. I think the SEC angle is also worth pursuing.
What makes Shaken think that Alberta would be a safer place to park his money? Obviously he has not been folloing the problems the the security guys have been having. The top guys should be approved by the Legislature after public hearings to be sure that they know what their job entails. The wage rates that they work under certainly are high enough that they should not be playing the market that they are supposed to be regulating.
Hint: When the U.S., China, and India etc. buy increasing dear resources, oil, gas etc. they have to buy what currency to pay for it?
Independent Alberta dollars I am hoping Don.
By next month?
Like I posted at Bourque’s Voy forum…lawwles land; it’s everyman for himself.
sad..truely sad.
Shaken: You’re wasting your breath – Dumb Don from Winnipeg is a Liberal hack who passes the cold prairie nights by trolling through the blogs yapping away with neither the brains nor intelligence to back up anything he says. Tonight, for instance, he’s a financial expert. Hang on for a little while though …… Clueless Cameron will be showing up to agree with everything Dumb Don says.
i’m glued to Bourque, he’s authoritative. but who’s neil news ? what next, my ten year old’s schoolyard musings ?
Don demonstrates that he has all of the intelligence of a bull frog who’s been run over on the road and dehydrated by the hot summer sun.