Investor
Protection
No Enrons in Ontario
 publicpower
means every man and woman should have as much of an opportunity
as anyone else to live a good life and retire with dignity.
More than 55% of Ontarians are "investors". They work
hard to save for their retirement and deserve to be protected
from corporate corruption.
Many
men and women in Ontario are at risk of losing their life savings
because the Conservatives have been asleep at the switch.
Howard
Hampton and the NDP have
an aggressive "No Enrons in Ontario" program that
will protect Ontarians' savings and investments.
 Conservatives:
The
Conservatives introduced a modest package of Securities Act changes
late in 2002.
Ontario is becoming
a regulatory backwater while the U.S. government implements the
most sweeping corporate accountability reforms seen since the great
Depression of the 1930's.
The Ontario
government is responsible for regulating the accounting and securities
industries and they have done next to nothing in these areas. The
government must move immediately to protect ordinary people who
invest their hard-earned money and retirement savings in a mutual
fund or company shares. This is a crucial pocketbook issue for Ontarians.
We need a system that treats ordinary people and their savings with
the respect they deserve. The current system has not lived up to
anyone's reasonable expectations of transparency and basic honesty.
 Liberals:
The Liberals are calling for a national securities regulator
but have nothing to say on the question of the regulation of public
auditing.
NDP:
The NDP's "No Enrons in Ontario" is aimed at tightening
loosely regulated accounting and securities practices following
a string of multi-billion dollar corporate bankruptcies and accounting
frauds in the U.S. (Enron, WorldCom, etc.) and questionable practices
by such companies as Nortel and JDS Uniphase in Canada.
"No
Enrons in Ontario" includes:
- Strengthening
the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) by giving it the tools
to properly regulate the stock market and protect ordinary investors.
- Protecting
the thousands of Ontarians who have much of their RRSPs in mutual
funds by requiring a governing body, independent of the fund manager,
for specific mutual funds. Canada is one of the few jurisdictions
that doesn't require a governing body for specific mutual funds.
The governing body would focus exclusively on the best interests
of the unit holders.
- Establishing
an independent, provincially funded Public Accounting Board to
license public accountants and to investigate and discipline public
accountants who violate professional standards. Scandals such
as those involving Enron and WorldCom were first and foremost
accounting scandals. The NDP would end the current practice of
accountants writing and enforcing their own rules. The new board
would have a governing body consisting of a majority of non-accountants
and board members who would be appointed by the provincial Minister
of Finance as well as by the 3 accounting bodies.
- Forbidding
audit firms from offering consulting and related services to their
auditing clients. At the heart of the Arthur Andersen/Enron scandal
was a conflict of interest. Andersen made more money offering
consulting and related services to Enron than it made from properly
auditing the company's books.
- Ensuring
auditor independence by forcing corporations to rotate their auditing
firm every five years.
- Urging the
federal government to move immediately to strengthen Criminal
Code provisions regarding corporate fraud.
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