Editorial Vancouver’s successes overlooked

“The garbage is the Vancouver Stock Exchange. It is polluting much of the civilized world,”said the author, Joe Queenan, who also claimed the VSE was “the longest standing joke in North America.”

Queenan’s article could only be described as extreme and mean-spirited, so much so that his heavy-handed approach has generated considerable sympathy for the exchange, both locally and abroad. Could anything really be that bad? Is there anything out there that could eclipse the insider trading scandals on the New York Stock Exchange or the precipitous Oct 19 crash which saw over $500 billion wiped off some heavily promoted but admittedly higher class scams on the big board.

Indeed, one can only hope that his vicious attack on the VSE does not signal a shift by Forbes and other U.S. business publications towards the type of story readers normally associate with the National Enquirer. Unfortunately this seems to be the trend because Barrons, a weekly business newspaper out of New York, came out with a story in a similar vein almost at the same time as Forbes. Purely coincidence we presume.

Queenan’s story rehashes a number of scandals that have been given heavy coverage (and deservedly so) in the business press. Much of his material originates with a Vancouver business writer who makes his living bashing the exchange with a similar lack of objectivity. Is it any wonder that Queenan’s story mirrors that writer’s perspective?

Most of the scams alluded to by Queenan are industrial listings which the exchange has been delinquent in policing. But the bulk of the issues on the VSE are resource listings that are involved in the riskiest part of the mining cycle — grassroots exploration. That’s precisely why the attrition rate is so high.

There are dozens of success stories that originated on the VSE, including the Hemlo gold discovery which was funded in its early stages by what is now Corona Corp. Goliath Gold and Golden Sceptre, two Vancouver listings, funded the initial work on the Golden Giant mine at Hemlo, now operated by a Noranda subsidiary.

Turning to Queenan’s home turf, Pegasus Gold can trace its origins to Vancouver and Pegasus went on to develop two major gold mines at Landusky, Mont., another at Helena, Mont. (Montana Tunnels which was brought to feasibility by Vancouver-listed Centennial Minerals), plus Florida Canyon and Relief Canyon in Nevada. Hycroft Resources & Development financed work on the Crofoot mine near Lovelock (it’s now controlled by Granges Exploration and is a major producer) and Glamis Gold went on to develop the Picacho mine in California. There are dozens more which Queenan chose to omit from his incredibly unbalanced story. If Queenan wants a mining town’s view of t he VSE why doesn’t he talk to people in Kellogg, Idaho, whose principal source of employment, the Bunker Hill mine, was funded and reactivated by a VSE listing called Bunker Hill Mining.

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