Thursday, December 08, 2005

Did the finance minister's office leak information?

Evidence suggests that Finance minister Ralph Goodale's office did leak information hours before an announcement to cut taxes on stock dividends, Wednesday November 23rd at 6pm.

While Goodale said to CTV "There was no specific advance notice whatsoever" -
  1. trading of dividend paying stocks increased more than usual that day and prices rose sharply reports the CBC;
  2. people were talking about an announcement that day, mentioning specifics, and used similar language to the language that the Finance minister used before the announcement was made - CTV found evidence earlier in the day of postings on stockhouse.ca of an announcement to "even the playing field" and "to make a more level playing field" specifically mentioning taxation on stock-dividends. Goodale's statement that evening: "We're going to help to level up the playing field as between corporations and trusts and we're going to be doing that by ending double taxation on dividends."
  3. at the very least, some people knew an announcement was going to be made - the associate executive director of Canada's Association for the Fifty Plus, William Gleberzon, told CTV "The day [the Finance Minister's office] made the announcement they phoned us and said something is going to be said."
The significance of a leak, if a leak happened:
  1. potentially not as significant as the opposition makes it out to be, because it would appear that Goodale had said an announcement for something would come before a vote of non-confidence and also the leak may not have come from the top of his office.
  2. it would, however, continue to build the case against the government's ability to be accountable.
Worth further investigation:
  1. How is the RCMP and Market Regulation Services investigation going?
  2. and who were the three brokers that did the most of the trading during that period of time and what are the relationships between them, their clients and members of Goodale's office.