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Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Putting our own house in order
With my post below in mind, here we now have Investment Executive: One in 20 Canadians a victim of investment fraud: study.
"Also, over 90% of Canadians believe the impact of investment fraud is as serious as that of violent crimes, but most people think the criminal justice system as a whole does not treat investment fraud as seriously as other crimes."
Are we cultivating a culture of corruption here at home in the private and public sector?
The reason I threw in the public sector there is because I'm thinking back to this Sept 24 story, Ottawa Citizen: Man held in $2.7M government fraud. See also the Ottawa Sun version (italics mine);
"They allege Gagnon has used his position since 1996 to perpetrate the fraud.
"The government of Canada takes these allegations very seriously," said Public Works spokeswoman Lucie Brosseau.
"Our special investigations directorate uncovered some irregularities in July as part of our normal operations.""
So you conduct "normal operations", what, every 11 years? How normal is that? How serious do we take these things? Anyway, the Sun story does take a paragraph at the end to mention the huge DND fraud committed by Paul Champagne, Cholo Manso and Peter Mellon. You want to see distrust and cynicism towards the system? Check out this thread on the DND fraud in a Ottawa Business Journal forum, with some contributions by people who seem to know the main players. Example;
"There appears to be 2 rules of law now in progress. The Public servant who is sitting in jail with all his assets now in the hands of the RCMP for stealing 2.7 million dolars and Champange and Manso who stole 140 million and 25 million who have yet to spend 1 minute in prison and are as mention, sitting in his hot tube having a good laugh."
Posted by Kevin Steel on October 2, 2007 in Crime | Permalink
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Comments
This is the culture of Quebec, transposed onto Canada by the Quebec Lieberals since they took control of the Lieberal party.
Remember - in order to work for the civil service, you have to be bilingual - which means you are from the province that lives & prospers with corruption.
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-02 3:29:53 PM
Like everything else in life these days, greed trumps morals. How utterly sad!
Posted by: atric | 2007-10-02 3:47:37 PM
"...most people think the criminal justice system as a whole does not treat investment fraud as seriously as other crimes."
They do take it as seriously as other crimes.
The irony is that the Criminal Justice system doesnt take other crimes seriously enough so investment fraud enforcement and punishment looks relatively un-serious.
Posted by: Speller | 2007-10-02 3:55:05 PM
Speller ~
You nailed it!
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-02 4:55:49 PM
At least obc, French Quebecers are not opressing and randomly killing their neighors.
Remember - in order to work for the civil service, you have to never critisize Israel. Which means you're blind by a state that lives & prospers from oppression.
Posted by: Marc | 2007-10-02 5:56:29 PM
Well for goodness sakes, how can anybody take Canada as a serious place to invest when it has a nickey nouse marketing government agency like the Canadian Wheat Board as a 'cultural icon'?
Can you say, Like taking candy from a baby?
Here is a govt agency that forces farmers to give them their grain and then the CWB can give it to whoever they want, at whatever price they, and whenever they want.
And then the CWB is able to laugh at the poor grain farmers for demanding a proper accounting of what happened to their 'investment' in their grain.
Are there really sane, rational people that believe that this is a legitimate business plan?
Name me one 'free and democratic country' that would allow such utter accounting bullshit to go on longer than 39 seconds.
Only crooked and ignorant NDP (Hi Swen, how's it going today?) and Liberal MPs (Hey Easter don't you have some spuds to dig?) are stupid enough to demand that this situation continue as standard practice in Canada.
The moral of the investment story here is that citizens send the best and brightest people to the capital of the nation to make laws of the country.
Well okay, they are supposed to do that.
If these elite thinkers and MPs of the nation are not smart enough to distinguish between what is bad legislation/laws, like the CWB and Paul Champagne, and good legislation, why would they ever expect common, ordinary dough heads like us, to distinguish between good laws and bad laws?
And when that happens, the citizens of the country will eventually start ignoring even the good laws of the country.
History has shown that Ottawa ignores putting its own investment house in order, at its own peril.
Posted by: rockyt | 2007-10-02 6:06:47 PM
Someone inform Marc that the topic is not Jews or Israel, then he can give his anti-Semitism a rest.
Once again it is the call of the socialists expecting the nanny state to replace what is their own personal responsibility.
Posted by: Alain | 2007-10-02 8:28:10 PM
Didn't that creep Chretien get an order of canada medal?
Posted by: peter s | 2007-10-02 10:25:27 PM
Someone inform Alain that my last post was not targeting Jews therefore my alleged "anti-semitism" is an illusion fabricated by the prison your mind is.
Posted by: Marc | 2007-10-02 10:31:32 PM
French Quebecers are heading south - not just for medical care like other Canadians - but now for English education:
"Quebec pupils head to U.S. schools for English"
MONTREAL — When grade-schoolers Antoine and Ariane Bisaillon head off for class each morning, they don't only tote along their books and lunchboxes. They pack their passports.
The brother and sister from Quebec get into the car with their mother and drive to the U.S. border. The border guard checks their student visas and passports, and the family continues down the road to the childrens' elementary school in New York State.
The children, aged 6 and 10, are part of a small but growing phenomenon in some border communities in Quebec: cross-border pupils going to school in English in the U.S.
“You have to speak at least two languages nowadays to open doors,” the children's mother, Chantal Bisaillon, said yesterday. “Preserving the French language is very important to me. We speak French at home. But English is important too.”
This year, 33 children from Quebec, virtually all francophones, are enrolled in pre-kindergarten to Grade 6 at St. Mary's Academy – a private, English-language school in Champlain, N.Y., 2.5 kilometres from the Canadian border.
Principal Sister Marie Cordata said the number of Quebec students at her school has ballooned from only three in 2002.
Today, Quebeckers make up nearly a third of her 102 students. And while parents are drawn to the school's Catholic values and small class size, most are there to learn a second language.
“The parents want their children to be bilingual,” she said. “I see that they love their French language, but they want to have every door open to them.”
Many are like the Bisaillon family. They are required under Quebec law to send their children to public school in French. Her local schools offer one to two hours of English instruction a week, which Mrs. Bisaillon says isn't sufficient to give her children a good base in the language.
The family could also legally send their children to a non-subsidized English private school in the province; but the nearest one to the Bisaillons costs $9,000 a year in tuition. Tuition at St. Mary's is $2,275 U.S. – a bargain with the strong loonie, Mrs. Bisaillon says.
And so the 35-year-old mother joins other families from border communities like Hemmingford, Lacolle and her hometown of Napierville and makes a 25-minute commute to school. On her way, Mrs. Bisaillon picks up her neighbours' six-year-old daughter, Mathilde Laflamme.
“English is more and more important for work, and we want our daughter to have that tool,” said Mathilde's mother, Julie Grenier, who also felt the amount of English instruction in the area's public schools was insufficient. “The French language occupies a very important place in our family. But in the current context, you won't advance in the job market with French only. We don't want our children to suffer from that.”
SMART QUEBECERS REALIZE WITHOUT ENGLISH, their children are disadvantaged.
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-03 7:26:22 AM
But no one is arguing with you on that, obc.
What's your point...?
Posted by: Marc | 2007-10-03 7:41:46 AM
And with medical professionals in short supply in Quebec, this is what they do to lose more of them:
"Dentist loses licence after failing French test"
A Quebec dentist has had his licence renewal refused after failing a French-language test, a practice one lawyer is calling "hopelessly unconstitutional."
"I have many French speaking patients and have no problem communicating with them," Dr. Mahmoud Raisi, an Iranian immigrant, told CTV Newsnet. "I am in the process of negotiating and discussing with my lawyers."
Raisi has been working in Aylmer, Que., near Gatineau, for more than four years and has built up a client list of more than 2,000. He speaks fluent French, English, Spanish and Persian.
But after the dentist failed a French-language writing test for the third time, his clients were handed over to colleagues.
"I don't know a dentist personally who writes his letters, in any given language," he said.
By law, professionals who come to work in Quebec must pass oral and written language tests.
Raisi passed the oral tests but failed one of two writing tests - written expressions - in 2004, 2006 and twice in 2007.
He had been taking French-language classes in Ottawa leading up to his most recent attempt.
A senior official for the Ordre des dentistes du Quebec -- the provincial organization that licenses dentists -- said the matter was out of their hands. Under Quebec law, Raisi had four years to pass the test. After failing three times, the group said it has had no choice but to pull the license.
"My options are to just give up practising in Quebec, but my concern would be my patients," Raisi said. "I can work in Ontario any time I wish so."
Tyler said the law doesn't make sense, considering Quebec's chronic shortage of staff in the health-care industry.
"To be turning people away from the practice of these professions on the basis of their so-called lack of written French expression, it's just plain dumb," he said.
Tyler, who has represented several people in similar cases, said the language laws would be overturned if they ever came to the Supreme Court.
I WONDER if Stephane Dion would pass similar English tests. Actually, I know he wouldn't. Of course, if Alberta defrocked a French-speaking dentist because he couldn't write well in English, Quebec would cause a stink, labeling the province as "redneck".
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-03 7:42:10 AM
Please go ahead obc, bring the province of Alberta to get rid of French Canadians workers who would not pass an English test...
c'mon...you can do it.
Posted by: Marc | 2007-10-03 8:12:06 AM
I guess my billboard had its effect on the UK. :)
"Schools must warn of Gore climate film bias"
Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth has been called unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and 'sentimental mush'. Schools will have to issue a warning before they show pupils Al Gore's controversial film about global warming, a judge indicated yesterday.
The move follows a High Court action by a father who accused the Government of 'brainwashing' children with propaganda by showing it in the classroom.
Stewart Dimmock said the former U.S. Vice-President's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and 'sentimental mush'.
He wants the video banned after it was distributed with four other short films to 3,500 schools in February.
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-03 9:01:10 AM
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