Last week, Jean St-Gelais got an endorsement of his reign as head of Quebec's financial watchdog, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), when he was appointed to a second five-year term. That revived grumblings in some quarters of Montreal's financial community about an incident last month, which critics saw as proof of a too-cozy relationship between the regulator and Quebec Inc. On April 10, about one hour before the AMF issued a public statement at 4:45 p.m. announcing it had approved TSX Group's $1-billion takeover of the Montreal Exchange, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec jumped the gun and put out its own press release welcoming the ruling.
Mr. St-Gelais was speaking at a finance committee hearing in Quebec City the next day and legislators took the opportunity to grill him about his heads-up to not only the Caisse but also the Desjardins financial powerhouse, Industrial Alliance and National Bank of Canada. Mr. St-Gelais acknowledged informing the big players about the pending "positive decision." He said that while it was inside information, no one used it to their own benefit and therefore there was no infraction. The AMF market monitoring unit kept watch on MX and TSX stock and found no unusual trading. AMF spokesman Frédéric Alberro told Nobody's Business that "it's not the first time" the AMF has informed "some of the big partners here" of important developments in advance. "We are in a relationship with different members of the industry," he said. But it remains that if Caisse media relations hadn't mistakenly issued the release, no one outside the "big partners" would have known.
