It's not only what Scott Brison knew in advance about the Governments Income Trust announcement, but what he said to those in the investment business on Bay Street.
Brison regrets sending income-trust e-mail
MP says he told banker he'd be 'happier' but denies advance knowledge of decision
BRIAN LAGHI , STEVEN CHASE and SINCLAIR STEWART
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
OTTAWA and TORONTO — Liberal MP Scott Brison owned up yesterday to sending an e-mail to a bank official discussing an imminent government decision on income trusts, telling the employee that he would be pleased with the outcome.
"I think you will be happier very soon . . . this week probably," Mr. Brison wrote in the e-mail, which the former public works minister released yesterday. The e-mail was written the day before the government announced it would not slap a punitive tax on the trust market, which some investors had feared.
Trading in income trusts spiked the next day, leading to an RCMP probe into whether there had been a leak from the federal government.
Had no inside info: MP
Brison defends email in income trust probe
Income-trust affair entangles Liberal star
Scott Brison's aww shucks attitude about sending that email to an investment banking pal announcing the government decision on Income Trusts wears thin when you remember he has a BA in Commerce, unless they don't teach ethics in Business school and he was a registered Investment Banker.
In 1989, he graduated from Dalhousie University with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in finance. Mr. Brison has had extensive private sector experience ranging from business start-ups and U.S. market development to serving as Vice-President of a Canadian investment firm.
That firm was Yorkton Securities which says;
We are committed to: Professionalism: integrity and professionalism that meets the highest standards, striving continuously to embody our core values, strong principles and sound ethics
One of those ethical standards supposedly is not leaking insider information to ones pals in the business.
Yorkton Securities was one of the more tech savvy Investment Bankers in Canada as Microsoft likes to attest to, since they used their products. So Scott's initial claim of not knowing about the email or about sending the email rings downright hollow. In all his busy time preparing for Question Period I guess, he forgets about a little old email he sent.
"Our clients are savvy, and we need to offer them technically-advanced services that give them greater control over their finances," says Rodney Sim, president of Yorkton Securities. "Investors need to make quick decisions in today’s Internet economy Once implemented, Yorkton Securities Inc. will be one of only a few North American investment brokerages currently offering electronic statements.
Business Wire: Yorkton Securities Selects Pivotal for Financial Services Demand Chain Solution.
However all that high tech savvy did not save Yorkton from getting caught up in the wonderful world of the Internet Dot.Com Bubble Boom and High Finance Crime when in 2001 it was fined by the OSC for illegal trading activities while Brison was a VP.The company ,its CEO and several other officers were charged, but Brison wasn't.
Scott Paterson, the controversial investment banker who touted tech-related startups during the Internet bubble that later collapsed, has taken control of an on-line television company that hopes to go public. It would be one of Mr. Paterson's more notable moves since the days of the tech boom, when he headed up Yorkton Securities Inc. The firm became one of the country's largest technology and media investment banks before it was hit with conflict of interest allegations in 2001. Mr. Paterson was fired from Yorkton that year and paid $1-million to settle the allegations with the Ontario Securities Commission. Without admitting guilt, he agreed to a two-year suspension from the industry.
The result was a Class Action suit against Yorkton, which was finally settled this year.
Deloitte & Touche LLP has been appointed by the Courts as the Administrator of the Book4Golf Yorkton Securities Class Action Settlement (the "Settlement").
So much for their claims to; "continuously to embody our core values, strong principles and sound ethics"
In 2003 Yorkton changed its name to Orion Securities Inc.The name change did not preclude Orion from being responsible for legal actions against Yorkton.
So Brison's investment banking experience with Canada's leading high-tech venture capital firm occurred during those heady days of the dot.com bubble, when anything goes.
The result as we have seen is Enron, World Com, Nortel, etc.
After the bubble burst, the freewheeling cowboy capitalism of Wall Street and the Investment Bankers came crashing down. Which also impacted on Canadian banks who were caught up in the fraud. Including CIBC who was fined billions for its involvement.
That Brison would email a pal at CIBC the day before the pending government announcement on Income Trusts to say that CIBC would be happy with the decision is not an oversight, a slip, a mistake. Its the culture of Bay Street, where regulations are for those who get caught. And with his experience in the midst of the Yorkton Securities scandal you would think he would have learned that eventually you do get caught.
To then lie as he did about it, to fail to tell the RCMP during their investigation about it, is not a slip either. He is a trained investment banker who knows the rules. It may be that it was his email that led to the rush of insider trading on Income Trusts that got Ralph Goodale into trouble. The point is that he knew better.
It certainly looks bad for his Liberal leadership campaign. And it looks bad for the Liberal Party.
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