Mar. 13, 2007: Money & Drugs

Securities Investigation, RCMP - IMET, Backdating, RIM, Balsillie

Canadian seniors group calls for enforcement reform -- Is it time for a national securities cop?

It isn’t that Canada doesn’t have securities laws; it has lots of them. But there seems to be a problem with enforcement. , By David Clarke, March 12, 2007, via newsbeat1

www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti
cle?AID=/20070312/FREE/70308027

OTTAWA — [....] Even the Mounties agree that reform is needed.

“We’re one of the only Western countries without the authority to compel people to talk,” Superintendent John Sliter, director of the RCMP’s integrated market enforcement branch [IMET], said at a conference last month.

Although provincial securities commissions have the power to require witnesses to provide evidence during investigations, Canada’s criminal authorities have no similar powers.

Does that strike you as strange? Consider what they investigate, to say nothing of the knowledge of accounting they would require. This is not ordinary police work; it is very specialized.

The branch’s teams have tackled most of Canada’s biggest securities investigations, including those involving Nortel Networks Corp. of Brampton, Ontario, Royal Group Technologies Ltd. of Woodridge, Ontario, Portus Alternative Asset Management Inc. of Toronto, and Norbourg Asset Management Inc. and Norshield Asset Management (Canada) Ltd., both of Montreal.

But the RCMP has charged no one in the cases under investigation.

Accounting Problem at RIM results in Balsillie relinquishing his position

Mr. Balsillie, a Harvard business graduate says RIM was tripped up by complicated accounting rules around the issuance of stock option grants that were different in the U.S. and Canada.

Business as usual at RIM, Balsillie says -- despite "So did we do backdating? Yeah. We did backdating."

Relinquishes chairman post; co-CEOs will pay for cost of internal review , Simon Avery, Tech Reporter, Mar. 2007

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
LAC.20070306.RRIMBALSILLIE06/TPStory/Business

[....] Jim Balsillie resigned as chairman of the BlackBerry maker after taking responsibility for errors that will lead to an approximate $250-million (U.S.) restatement of earnings. It is also still possible that the bookkeeping problems could lead to disciplinary action by securities regulators in the United States and Canada, which are conducting their own separate reviews of how RIM accounted for its stock option grants.

... Waterloo, Ont., ... "We're still co-CEOs. [....]

Balsillie says RIM was tripped up by complicated accounting rules around the issuance of stock option grants that were different in the U.S. and Canada. [....]

backdating [....]

Would it not be elementary to think that backdating is not quite the thing to do? It is obvious to me that stock options that could be dated whenever you wished, would be dated so as to make the most money ... but that is in the eyes of a member of the non-RIM stock owners. Perhaps it is more complicated if you own the company.


More here: Balsillie steps down as RIM chairman

www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.ht
ml?id=f87e86ed-070e-4e68-a55e-6e8c1117f33e



Neighbourhood Druggies

Parents: "These drugs are widely available at school dances," reveals Det. Sgt. David Malcolm. "They're widely available at raves."

Accidental Find Leads Cops To One Of The Biggest Drug Busts In Toronto History , Monday March 12, 2007, via newsbeat1

www.citynews.ca/news/news_8688.aspx

It is, by any measurement, a staggering find.

Toronto Police have confirmed they've helped make one of the biggest Ecstasy busts in the city's history.

[....] What they found inside stunned everyone involved - at least 140,000 Ecstasy pills and 214 kilograms of MMDA, worth an estimated $21.4 million on the streets. [....]

Link for this:

How to Spot An Ecstasy Lab In Your Neighbourhood

It goes on all the time behind closed doors. And those doors may be closer to your home than you think. No one who lived near the house where one of the biggest drug busts in history was made last week seemed to have any clue about what was going on inside.

Yet there are ways to spot an Ecstasy lab and the suspicious activity it causes. Here's what to look for:

Do not miss reading that list from the Abbotsford B.C. Police Dept.

Feb. 26, 2007: RCMP, Language, Privacy, Rights

Federal watchdog and RCMP battle privacy protection , Carly Weeks, CanWest, February 23, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=
715e2a5f-137c-41cc-95df-eb5e28935259&k=80826

OTTAWA - The federal privacy commissioner is squaring off against the RCMP for urging the government to adopt changes that would legally compel companies to give police personal information of employees and customers without their knowledge or consent - changes the office says would invade the privacy of Canadians.

The RCMP is also seeking changes to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) that would prohibit banks, employers and other institutions from letting Canadians know the police is [sic] looking at their personal information without the RCMP's permission.

[....] In fact, the clause is the "single largest impediment" to the force's child-exploitation investigations, Supt. Earla-Kim McColl with the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Centre, told committee members earlier this week. For example, she said Internet service providers often refuse to provide personal information to the police when conducting investigations into suspected pedophiles, she said.

Most of us would have no problem with efforts to track pedophiles; however, rights tend to expand ... and expand ... What if a government were to become hostile about an individual's internet use ... say, for dissemination of information, not of prurient interest, perhaps information that would impact the political. There has/had been no effective whistleblower legislation and that may have served the purpose of those involved in wrong-doing or corruption. What if a whistleblower used the internet to inform, even though doing right for the good of the country? Would that person have any right to privacy if someone powerful, maybe someone in government, wanted information? Could a powerful government individual use the RCMP or CSIS to curb the flow of information? To shut down any further inquiry? (Remember the APEC - pepper spray affair? What happened to various whistleblowers' careers?) Where would the power lie in a conflict over privacy and someone's power to command?



RCMP and language ... rights

Once something is declared a "right", then the rest have only the right to bow in the face of a juggernaut ... and to pay. Whatever the actual need, if something has been declared a "right" for a favoured group, then it gets funding. This amounts to garnishee of one group's tax funds to satisfy an ever-expanding concept of what a right to service involves for another group. Not enough money for health care? Whatever ... money will be available to expand bilingual rights services. Does it seem entirely democratic to you?



RCMP officers patrolling TCH should be bilingual -- Senate , Campbell Morrison, February 23rd, 2007, Canada East / Daily Gleaner A3

www.canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/
article.php?articleID=105777

OTTAWA - A Senate committee is recommending that the government should force the RCMP to provide service in English and French along the entire length of the Trans-Canada Highway under its protection.

The Senate standing committee on official languages concluded that the government's response to losing a Nova Scotia court case was inadequate and minority-language groups deserved a better response.

The Federal Court of Canada found that Donnie Doucet's right to service in French was violated when he was pulled over by an English-speaking officer in 1998 for speeding on the Trans-Canada Highway near Amherst, N.S.

The federal government amended the regulations governing the service of language by adding the need to provide bilingual service if the RCMP detachment is responsible for an entry point of an officially bilingual province.