Retention bonuses total more than $620k
Securities commission is the only one to pay the bonuses during rollout of regulatory overhaul
GORDON HOEKSTRA
B.C. is the only province to pay retention bonuses to senior securities commission staff during a slow-moving rollout of a multi-provincial regulatory system, Postmedia has learned.
The bonuses to 10 senior staff at the B.C. Securities Commission, paid out during the 2017-18 fiscal year, totalled more than $620,000.
Chairwoman and CEO Brenda Leong was paid a bonus of $139,120, a 32-percent bonus on her base salary of $434,748. Vice-chair Nigel Cave received a bonus of $104,640 on a salary of $327,000. Other retention bonuses ranged from 22 to 28 per cent, including for director of corporate finance John Hinze, director of enforcement Doug Muir, director of capital markets and regulation Mark Wang, and chief economist Christina Wolf.
Senior staff receive other benefits, including generous pensions, and would be eligible for significant severance if let go.
According to documentation filed with the province by the BCSC, the salary bonuses were paid to retain senior staff while work was underway to create a co-operative capital markets regulatory system involving the federal government and the securities commissions in B.C., Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the Yukon.
None of the other provinces or the Yukon paid out retention bonuses, according to responses from regulators in those jurisdictions.
The new regulatory system was supposed to roll out this year, but the timing is in question, in part, because Quebec has a constitutional challenge being considered by the Supreme Court of Canada.
The B.C. NDP government, which came into government in 2017, says the retention payments were approved by then-finance minister Mike de Jong and the B.C. Liberals in August 2016.
“I certainly don’t agree with the decision,” B.C. Finance Minister Carole James said recently. “I don’t agree with a lot of decisions (the former) government made in relation to white-collar crime, in relationship to money-laundering, in relation to lack of transparency in the area of real estate.”
James said, however, there was a contractual obligation requiring the bonuses to be paid. She said she has been assured they were a one-time payment.
Also of concern to James is that while the BCSC was focused on this federal process, there was other work that needed to be done in B.C. on how to improve fine collection and enforcement.
A Postmedia investigation in 2017 found that more than half a billion dollars in BCSC penalties had gone unpaid in the past decade. James has directed the securities commission to improve that record.
In an interview, de Jong said the retention payments were meant to address the uncertainty created by moving to a co-operative system with the other provinces, where there were going to be changes in staffing and new positions associated with a national regulator.
“(The BCSC) didn’t want to find themselves in a situation where people were fleeing prematurely,” said de Jong.
I certainly don’t agree with the decision.”
B.C. Finance Minister Carole James