Angry in the Great White North
Did well-connected Liberal friends benefit in any way?
Sunday, November 27, 2005 at 10:29 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
Leader

That's the question being asked by NDP Finance Critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

It'll be a question asked by the chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission.

It'll be a question asked by RCMP financial investigators.

And if there's any justice, it'll be asked by Canadians when they are looking at their ballots.

How would they have benefited? By taking advantage of a convenient leak of a crucial tax decision from Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's office last week:

On Friday, CBC News reported that trading in many income trusts and dividend-paying stocks became much heavier than usual late Wednesday – just before the government announced that it would not tax trusts and would cut the tax on stocks that pay dividends.

And several published reports said investors knew early about the plan, which lowers taxes on some stock returns.

Here's one such "published report". And here is an example of the weird trading patterns.

What was that about the Liberal Party being utterly unlike an organized criminal syndicate?

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