Securities • Issues & Advocacy

Federal NDP calls for a Canadian Securities Commission

Party launches campaign to crack down on corporate criminals

Ottawa (25 May 2007) - The New Democratic Party is calling for a Canadian Securities Commission with clout to replace the toothless network of provincial securities commissions that now 'protects' private investors in Canada - including worker pension funds.

The proposal is the centrepiece of a national campaign launched by the NDP on Thursday to put a brake on corporate crime in Canada.

“Since the Bre-X scandal ten years ago, there have been dozens of corporate swindles that have bilked average Canadians out of millions of dollars and no one is in jail because we don’t have the laws to put them there,” says Winnipeg MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis, the NDP finance critic.

“We must overhaul corporate accounting practices and insider trading laws, and introduce accountability provisions. We must demand better from our public companies. The ‘wild west’ of financial markets must find a new sheriff,” she says.

Canada lags behind the world

Canada is the only G8 countries that has not done anything in recent years to toughen its laws on corporate accountability.

“Germany, France and the U.K. all have new laws in the post-Enron era,” notes Wasylycia-Leis. “The United States and Australia introduced tough legislation on accounting and whistleblowers, both under conservative governments. We’re calling on victims of corporate crime to take the lead and join us in fighting for reform. That’s the only way this minister will act.”

The campaign coincides with the Conrad Black trial. The Toronto tycoon is currently in the midst of a multi-million-dollar trial in Chicago. At the heart of the case are tens of millions of dollars in tax-free "non-compete payments" that prosecutors allege were paid fraudulently to Black and his associates.

The Ontario Securities Commission - which sets the standard for other securities commissions in Canada - has distinguished itself by doing virtually nothing to call Black to account throughout his long and controversial corporate career.

Wasylycia-Leis said the NDP campaign has three key elements:

Protecting Canadian Investors by:

• Establishing a Canada Securities Commission to which all provincial securities commissions would have to report;

• Creating new accounting oversight committees with independent auditors;

• Forcing Canadian executives to face higher standards of disclosure, and,

• Ensuring that independent corporate board members are truly independent.

Fighting for Canadian workers by:

• Pushing for genuine whistleblower protection, and,

• Establishing new rules for corporate perks and disclosure.

Policing the financial 'Wild West' by:

• adopting an expanded and independent mandate for the RCMP's Integrated Market Enforcement Team (IMET);

• Raising Canadian corporate accounting practices and laws to tougher international standards, and,

• adopting laws to prevent non-compete payments.

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) has long supported the concept of a national securities commission to assist in protecting Canadians from white-collar fraud and corporate wrong-doing. NUPGE

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