A couple days ago I wrote about Bill Cara and Friends at the Champ Car races in Toronto, and mentioned some of my guests over the years. I referred to the former Exec. Director of the Ontario Securities Commission as being amongst the "friends".

That particular reference was to Ermanno. Today he was on ROBTV. You have to watch. (see below)

I once was invited to participate on a govt task force to re-organize the unlisted securities market in Canada. There were six people invited by govt, and as OSC chief of staff, Ermanno Pascutto was there. So too did govt invite Keith Boast, the Exec. VP of the Toronto Stock Exchange. I suppose these people invited four of us from the industry.

That surprised me at the time because I wasn't particularly well known, other than by clients and a few staff associates; and those who knew me would only say that, if given the least provocation, I would have verbally attacked the head of government, or the regulators, which I do on occasion.

As readers know, I don't keep my mouth shut, which is often to my embarrassment. But, like trading, I'm right more often than not, and I cut my losses short.

But this isn't about me, but about somebody I truly respect. In fact, one year after the Champ Car race, where my wife met Ermanno and his wife, mine said she would really like me to go into securities regulation some day. That's how much I would talk about Ermanno.

But Ermanno was one of the few regulators I ever met who understood the costs of delay, of protecting friends in high places, and so forth. I saw him, not as a lawyer, but as a businessman.

Today, in his ROBTV interview, he was asked the question whether it was tough as a regulator to go after the industry's top people, given that the Canadian securities industry is such a small community. Ermanno then said that even after he nailed Michael Edwards, who was president of Dominion Securities at the time, that Michael approached him afterwards and commented how fair the process was.

After I left DS, I joined Dean Witter Canada, where Michael Edwards later became president. I really liked Michael. Michael Edwards later became president of DS, where I had been. It's a small club, where people don't like to cross others for fear of running across their path again, in different circumstances.

Like Ermanno, Michael Edwards was a superb guy, and Dominion Securities, now RBC Dominion, a great firm. But the regulators nailed Edwards.

Sometimes things happen; the public ought to appreciate the pressures these people are under, and that there are people like Ermanno Pascutto around to call a spade a spade.

Today, I felt that Ermanno was not too kind in the interview to the departing chair of the OSC, David Brown. I think you know where I stand on that.

In fact, I have said it before, David Brown is no Eliot Spitzer, and yet was paid three times as much and took three times the glory for garnering one-tenth the results, if that. Most of the job he did at the OSC had already been started by others.

Years ago, the Hong Kong securities market was in deep trouble, so they made an offer to Ermanno Pascutto to join them as vice-chair of the Securities Commission. He had been Exec Director and head of staff at the OSC and before that Exec VP at the Toronto Stock Exchange. He cleaned up the problem in Hong Kong, as he always does. A few years later, he left to set up the first qualified Canadian law firm to practice law (not consulting) in Mainland China. One of his big clients was Waterhouse in China.

But, I'll never forget the quoted remarks when Ermanno left Canada for his work in the Far East; he said he was leaving as a big player in a small pond to go to become a big player in a big pond.

And you just know how many people in Canada's big bank and brokerage boardrooms he pissed off when they read that quote. But, that's Ermanno.

Ermanno always told it as it is. A spade is a spade.

I'm proud to know him. I'd like to see him become the head of a national securities commission for Canada. In the televised interview today, he laid out the plan. It's one I alone argued on that govt task force in 1986-87, which by the way he chaired.

In fact, in 1998, I made the same statements to the Senate of Canada Banking Committee hearings: Canada needs a national securities regulator, and a no-nonsense regulator, like Spitzer, running it.

If he wants that job, Ermanno is the guy.

Here is the link to the ROBTV interview today with Ermanno Pascutto.

You can click the following link:

5:00 PM ET
SqueezePlay with Amanda Lang and Kevin O'Leary
Cineplex and Famous Players, Asia's auto boom, mining and the OSC's legacy... The Pascutto interview is at the end, but you can fast fwd the tape.

I see that Ermanno is now associated in securities law at Troutman Saunders, which is a U.S. law firm, and as counsel to Groia & Company, securities litigators in Toronto.

I'll call him tomorrow, and see if Ermanno can steer me right. : -)