‘Stealing Away’ series up for award
A Vancouver Sun and Province reporter’s work exposing the failures of Canadian security regulators and governments in collecting more than a half-billion dollars in financial penalties is up for national recognition.
Gordon Hoekstra’s 2017 series on financial crime — called Stealing Away — is one of six nominees for the Michener Award, which recognizes “meritorious public service journalism.”
Using databases created from a decade’s worth of penalty status reports, court records and other reports, the series revealed that more than a half a billion dollars in B.C. Securities Commission penalties had gone unpaid and jail time for fraudsters in B.C. was a rarity.
In response, B.C. Finance Minister Carole James ordered the securities commission to improve its collections and enforcement and also said she expected a greater focus on criminal prosecution.
The commission also began taking steps to be able to seize property and goods of financial fraudsters who owe nearly $70 million in unpaid penalties from the past decade.
“Journalists must be dogged in their pursuit of the truth and unflinching in their storytelling. Gord Hoekstra displayed both these traits in his investigation of uncollected penalties levied by security regulators in B.C.,” said Harold Munro, editor-in-chief for The Vancouver Sun and The Province.