Apology too late for senior who exposed lottery fraud

Sunday, April 08, 2007 posted 02:55 PM EDT

The Ontario government's apology to a senior whose legal battle exposed corruption in the lottery system was too little and too late.

Bob Edmonds of Coboconk, Ontario, died at age 83 unable to read a letter with the apology that arrived three days earlier.

His five-year battle with the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. was detailed in a TV program that found ticket retailers were claiming a disproportionate amount of prizes.

The OLG settled with Edmonds the day his trial was to begin in 2005, paying him $200,000. But that was $50,000 less than the prize he said was his and had been collected by the ticket seller.

Edmonds' family wouldn't confirm reports the letter also contained the remaining $50,000 to help cover the legal bills the OLG refused to pay.

Ombudsman Andre Marin said lottery players, including Edmonds, have been duped out of "tens of millions" of dollars.

Government minister David Caplan said the problem started with previous governments and he's trying to remedy that by adopting Marin's recommendations and asking the police to investigate.

As for Bob Edmonds, Caplan said he didn't know who decided to "drag him through the courts and treat him so disrespectfully."

Marin's report also noted a suspicious $12.5-million lottery jackpot claimed by a ticket seller's sister. Now, a 70-year-old Ottawa man says he is the rightful winner and can prove it.

Sponsorship scandal

Jean Lafleur, a Montreal advertising agency owner, remains in jail awaiting further court hearings over the federal sponsorship scandal.

Lafleur, 66, returned from Belize to face 35 counts of allegedly defrauding the federal government of about $1.6-million.

He is the fifth person to be arrested in the incident that helped to defeat the previous Liberal government. It involved money improperly paid to Quebec ad agencies and party supporters for little or no work.

A jury on Thursday acquitted another Montreal ad man, Jacques Paradis, on a count of defrauding the government of $58,000.

In brief

- Fisheries officials are investigating reports that a helicopter pilot hired by a protest group interfered with Canada's seal hunt. Sealers and members of the Canadian Coast Guard said the pilot directed his aircraft to scare seals off ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This year's hunt quota is 270,000 seals, down from 335,000 last year because of a lack of ice.

- Shareholders have voted 99 percent in favor of a $2.3-billion takeover of Alliance Atlantis Communications by CanWest Global Communications and New York investment bank Goldman Sachs. The offer would pay $53 a share for the multimedia giant controlled by the Leonard Asper family. Alliance Atlantis has 13 specialty TV channels including Showcase and History Television, and owns part of the CSI crime series.

Facts and figures

Canada's dollar continues making gains while the Toronto Stock Exchange is at a record high.

The dollar rose to 86.91 cents U.S. while the U.S. greenback returns $1.1506 in Canadian funds before bank exchange fees.

The Bank of Canada's key interest rate is unchanged at 4.25 percent while the prime lending rate is 6 percent.

Stock markets are higher, with the Toronto exchange index at 13,425 points and the Canadian Venture Exchange 3,257 points.

Lotto 6-49: Wednesday 5, 16, 21, 25, 40 and 48; bonus 31. (March 31) 4, 9, 16, 32, 37 and 41; bonus 5.

Regional briefs

- A flash flood has filled low-lying areas around Selkirk, Manitoba, after a giant ice jam on the Red River. The flooding forced about 100 seniors from two riverfront condos and also flooded houses. The river backed up at the Selkirk bridge when massive chunks of ice got caught.

- British Columbia is moving ahead with its long legal battle to recover health-care costs from tobacco companies. The last jurisdictional hurdle was cleared when the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from seven foreign tobacco companies. They claimed the province didn't have the jurisdiction to seek to recover billions of dollars from them.

- There's a mumps outbreak in Halifax, the third in Nova Scotia in three years. Most of the cases involve university students, with 28 cases diagnosed so far. Mumps has been on the decline but there is waning immunity in those who received only one shot as children, doctors say.

- Alberta residents no longer have to see a doctor to have emergency refills of prescriptions under the new Pharmacy and Drug Act. It also provides improved access to drug treatment while expanding the role of pharmacists, who can change doses, substitute medications or terminate drugs from a patient's therapy.

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