Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, and thank you, on behalf of the Coalition pour la protection des investisseurs, for giving us this opportunity. My name is Andrée De Serres; I am a professor in the School of Management at the Université du Québec à Montréal. I represent the Coalition pour la protection des investisseurs.
The Coalition pour la protection des investisseurs was formed as the result of a spontaneous movement in reaction to the financial scandal known as the Norbourg Fund affair and because thousands of people were swindled out of some $130 million as a result of the scandal.
The coalition maintains, as it maintained in a brief presented to the Public Finance Committee of the Quebec government, that provincial governments, and the federal government, as a matter of urgency, must consider a national savings and investment policy that we base on five key points: first, discussions on policy; an overhaul of the system governing fund management and fund managers: the establishment of a "savings and investment observatory": the evaluation and / or registration of investment management firms; and, finally, the establishment of an indemnity fund that we will discuss with you at greater length.
The coalition brings together, and is supported by, a group whose distinction stands on its own merits and, at the same time, serves to point out the scale of the problem we face. You have a list of those "supporters". We have a group of former presidents of major financial institutions in Quebec and in Canada: Mr. Claude Béland, Mr. Claude Castonguay, Mr. Holger Kluge, Mr. Rosaire Couturier, Mr. Reynald Harpin, Mr. Jean-Luc Landry, all associated with the world of financial institutions, Mr. Robert Pouliot, my colleague, a number of professors, including Mr. Pierre Fortin, Mr. René Delsanne and myself, as well as a former premier and a former minister of finance, Mr. Bernard Landry and Mr. Yves Séguin.
We also have the support of organizations representing some 1.8 million people, another indication of the extent of the interest and concern.
Though the great majority of the investors cheated in the Norbourg affair have still not been compensated and nothing indicates that they will be any time soon, we must point out that the Norbourg affair was not the first. It was one in a long line of scandals, including RT Capital, Transamerica Life Canada, Strategic Value, Portus, Norshield and, some time ago, Triglobal. Now we have the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper crisis that we are facing today. I venture to repeat the words that a well-known Radio-Canada host uses to describe ABCP: upset-backed commercial paper.
The coalition proposes the idea of an indemnity fund equipped with measures to protect investors in the same way as those who put their savings into financial institutions are protected. My colleague Robert Pouliot will expand on this idea.