Friday, April 22, 2005

Here is what one expert feels about the regulators.......and he is probably right

(The below was sent to me by an industry expert who has worked tirelessly for a decade or more to improve conditions for Canadian investors, and who now lashes out at OSC Chairman Brown saying he is now prepared to "listen")

So all my letters, e-mails, telephone calls, formal complaints, appeals and media statements - plus political lobbying and participation in public hearings (federal and provincial) fell on deaf ears??? But now, on the way out the door, Brown wants to know my "tales of unfair treatment, lost savings and roadblocks to restitution"????!!!!

"Brown said he is responding to complaints brought forward by the Small Investor Protection Association and individual investors who appeared before an Ontario legislative committee last fall."

He didn't hear them (or know about the problems they had experienced) before then??? He didn't respond before then??? He didn't direct the IDA to do it's job better and correct the issues identified in audits and studies - as well as by individuals who appealed their arbitrary and capricious decisions to the OSC????

But hearing it all again in a townhall setting, it will finally register, and he will act in the month left in his tenure as head of the commission????

I, and many others, have referred complaints to OBSI - Lauber - what a joke. He has no power to force a settlement. And he is on the way out the door too!

The IDA is - as everyone should know - a bigger joke - because it makes bigger claims for itself.

My rule of thumb in life is to NEVER believe a word anyone says, but to believe everything they do (or don't do). What Brown, Oliver and Lauber - OSC, IDA and OBSI - have NOT done, speaks volumes.

I despise pseudo-consultation. I despise people who talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. And I am not alone. I have dealt with literally hundreds of abused small investors over the years - from coast to coast - many elderly or disabled - and their stories are the same. SROs are in the business of blowing smoke...not of addressing valid complaints.

The public and even investors at large buy into it because of multi-million dollar ad and "educational" campaigns and their innate trust of Canadian institutions...until it's too late. When they inevitably get gored, they wake up to the fact that there is no effective mechanism of redress - except in the most unusual circumstances.

If Brown doesn't know that by now, he has not been doing his job. To try to white-wash his tawdry performance over a number of years with one last PR "dog and pony" show is pathetic. That the media - thus far - seems to be buying in - uncritically - reflects their gullibility (some might say, culpability).

Yes the market (index) goes up and the market goes down; stock values go up and down. We are all adults here - we understand that. The result is acceptable and understandable - gains and losses to the investor.

It is the other stuff - the monkey business - that has made Canada the laughing stock of the world, the Switzerland of North America. When the Americans had to come up and force our regulators to do something about Hollinger, was I the only Canadian to be mortified????

Yes, a townhall show-and-tell by a "lame duck" OSC head will solve all of the well-known and well-documented problems in the financial services sector???!!! And I have several bridges over the St. Lawrence I'd like to sell you --- from Bre-X to Hollinger, nothing has improved. But this town hall charade will stand Bay Street on it's head - right :-( NOT.