Income Trust Fraud

Dianne Urquhart speaking before the Commons Finance Committee investigating Income Trusts on Tuesday, January 30, 2007,in answer to a question from NDP member Judy Wasylycia-Leis said that indeed according to both Canadian Securities law as well as American securities law that their may have been unethical sales of Income Trusts to seniors based on false promises and could be investigated by the RCMP as fraud. Judy Wasylycia-Leis was making the point that even with the change in taxation status the Trusts themselves operate in a fashion that current accounting practices would be considered illegal. A point neither the Liberals or Conservatives have bothered to deal with.

Despite the fact that neither the
government nor the Liberals have addressed the real problem with Income
Trusts that they are a Ponzi Scheme. An attempt to separate seniors from their pensions, since pensions are a vast untapped source of capital.

That is the elephant in the room,that the NDP has addressed in their private members bill.

“This
NDP bill will bypass government inaction,” says Wasylycia-Leis.“We have
a Finance Minister who claims he wants better securities regulation but
continues to ignore this urgent problem. Meanwhile,
our self-regulating investment system acknowledges there is a serious
problem but has failed to produce an enforceable solution, and the
industry continues to sell its products to unsophisticated investors
using fuzzy numbers. This is unacceptable.”