Environment
The Ugly Canadian
Robert Friedland and the Poisoning of the Americas
by Roger Moody The Vancouver Stock Exchange (VSE) has long enjoyed a reputation as the "Wild West" of mining funds. Despite attempts to refurbish its tarnished image, a January 1994 report by James Matkin of the Vancouver Stock Exchange & Securities Regulation Commission found the VSE a hotbed of "shams, swindles and market manipulations." Scores of junior companies and entrepreneurs regarded as too high-risk, or flatly unacceptable in New York and London have flocked to the VSE. Of these, none has been more welcomed in the Canadian markets than gold mine financier Robert M. Friedland, a Canadian whose Venezuelan Goldfields (Vengold) in 1993 made the biggest float in VSE history - $31 million.However, no one's track record casts more doubt on the integrity of Canadian money markets than that of Friedland, a man who admits he was attracted to the VSE because "it is one of the freest and most underregulated venture capital markets in the world."
