Archived Articles

Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

Global Real Estate Project
News Index

Directories
  Int'l Realty
  US Realty

In our time of troubles (some say we are at war even if we don't look our enemies in the eyes) it's extremely popular to put military clichés to purely economic matters. For example, instead of saying that Dow Jones index has fallen 500 points in 1 day an expert on CNN told the audience that markets have sent a code Charlie (3rd highest level out of 4) for the investors . When one of the telecommunication giants was caught inflating its profits on paper (you know which company I'm talking about), this was called a code Delta (the highest level of alert) for the corporate management in America.

In this manner in the Canadian province of Quebec these days we were experiencing an investor's alert Alpha (the lowest level) even if it wasn't called exactly in such military terms. What are the reasons for such alerts and are there any real threats for the investors in the province, both small and big?

The reason for this investor's alert* is that the government of Quebec would like to introduce a new agency to put under unique control all the surveillance organizations in the field of financial services. The new Agency of financial services and its president will have powers not equaled in Canada and North America. The government of Quebec in fact will have the power to approve the charters of self-regulated organizations such as Montreal Stock Exchange making it the only state structure in North America with such say in the financial matters.

The other controversial point is that the government of the province wants to put the HQ of this new agency in the capital city of Quebec** instead of Montreal where big business is made.

There are moments in the history of the province that make these investors fears look real. Remember the 70s when the French language laws pushed some financial institutions to relocate from Montreal to Toronto. Nobody has calculated how many billions of dollars this language adventure cost the province. The fact is that since the 70s Montreal lost its place as a first financial and economic center of Canada, a place it seems the city will never regain.

More than that, the province is governed by a sovereignist Quebec Party, a political organization that both wants independence for the province and claims to stand on the left of the political spectrum. For this party foreign investments are a positive factor in the economic life of Quebec but paramount all stands the wish to separate as much as possible the province from the rest of Canada. Now when the corporate world in America is shaken by the investigations against many big companies it's a proper time to try to change the rules of the game.

What results these new rules could have on the market? It depends on how far the government will push with its plans to put under some administrative control the financial flows in the province. In most optimistic scenario the code Alfa will be called off and the status quo will be restored. In the most pessimistic version, there will be more and higher alerts and it will take years to repair the damage.

----------
* - This alert was made by public appearances of National Bank (the biggest bank in Quebec) and Montreal Stock Exchange representatives.

** - There are many reasons why this provincial government tries to favor the Quebec City against Montreal, but the main cause is that Quebec is almost 100% French speaking and in big majority with pro-independence mentality while in Montreal non-French speakers are at least one-third of the population, which is predominantly against the independence.

--------------------

See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Canada.