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November 14, 2005

Stelco shareholders returning to court, Mon., Nov. 14, 2005, 11:00 AM

Stelco shareholders have not yet rolled over and died. They have filed a new motion with the Ontario court.

The shares are up again today by +20 pct to 27 cents on about 3 million shares traded. There are only about 100 million shares out. Last Thursday morning the stock was trading at 15 cents.

I hope Big Media takes time to do a job that the Ontario Securities Commission has chosen to walk away from, which is to discover the truth here.

I ask the reporters to do just two things:

1. Discover for once and for all that the financial stakeholders of Stelco (shareholders, bondholders, creditors, and tax authorities) did not petition this company into bankruptcy.

2. Discover that the Ontario government is permitting under-funded pension liabilities in other Ontario companies worse than Stelco, and that Quebec has a much worse situation, prompting the Bank of Canada this month to urge all Canadian provincial governments to set a new fair policy for all.

So why pick on Stelco shareholders? They did nothing to deserve having their shares unilaterally eliminated, while management, who created the problem, are to be rewarded.

Whatever happens in this (expletive deleted) courtroom this week, readers will still be hearing from me on this issue.

You know, Canada is a big country, with a sucessful economy, and I should be writing about other Canadian stocks in this blog. And I want you to know I get letters every day asking me to.

But I'll be damned if I'm ever going to talk about them as long as this situation goes on at Stelco.

I have drawn the line in the sand.

Posted by Posted by Bill Cara on November 14, 2005 11:00:02 AM | Category: Canada