Diane Francis

Who Owns Canada Now
ISBN - 1550139134
$26.95 (Cdn.)

Back in 1986, Diane Francis's hard-hitting Controlling Interest revealed the startling fact that one-third of Canada's wealth was in the hands of just 32 families and five conglomerates. At the time, Bernie Ghert, president of Cadillac Fairview, prophesized, "In a number of years, there will be six groups running the country." Was he right? Media coverage would have us believe that the last two decades have only increased the concentration of power. Diane Francis disagrees, and she's here to deliver some good news: a positive transformation has taken place in Canada, with both free trade and tough competition legislation creating a new and better nation. This time the country is driven by players who are ready to offer innovative policies and visions for the 21st century. Combining extensive interviews with Canada's economic leaders—from individuals to families to international conglomerates—with Francis's hallmark incisive analysis, Who Owns Canada Now will be the most important and talked-about business book of the year.

Immigration: The Economic Case

In this enlightening book, Diane Francis looks at immigration in Canada from an economic perspective. Tracing the country’s experience with immigration from the nineteenth century through the installation of the point system in the 1960s to the adoption of Bill C-11, “The New Immigration Act of 2002,” she shows how originally sensible policies have developed unintended consequences that threaten the economic and social well-being of our country. In particular, lax procedures and a lack of clear thinking and economic vision on the part of both conservative and liberal governments have turned immigration policy away from the laudable goal of helping to increase the living standards of Canadians and newcomers alike.

Herself an immigrant, the author is sensitive to the vital role that immigrants play in weaving the fabric of the nation. But the statistics she has collected tell a story of declining welfare among the new arrivals and of their insecure place in the new economy. She quotes numerous immigration officials past and present who are as concerned as she is with the current ragged state of the system. After laying out in vivid detail the troubling problems that this system currently generates, she offers eighteen sensible suggestions as to how it should be reformed. This timely book should help fuel a constructive debate on the direction that immigration policy should take in Canada in the twenty-first century.

[NOTE: Internet Research for this book was provided by Convoke Communications Corp.]

BRE-X :The Inside Story
ISBN - 1550139134
$26.95 (Cdn.)

For two years, Bre-X Minerals was every investor's dream come true. Skyrocketing to a high of $280, the stock made millionaires of ordinary people virtually overnight. Press releases issued from the firm's modest Calgary offices proclaimed their Indonesian gold mine to be the richest ever found.

The party ended on March 19, 1997, however, with a report that the company's chief geologist, Michael de Guzman, had committed suicide by hurling himself out of a helicopter over the jungles of Borneo. He was despondent, it was said, when he discovered he had contracted a fatal disease.

But soon rumors began to swirl. Was Busang the world's biggest gold find, or simply the world's biggest hoax? Did the body found deep in the rain forest belong to de Guzman at all, or did he fake his death so he could abscond with the millions of dollars he made inflating Bre-X's share price by planting gold in the core samples? Was this an example of one man, driven by greed and arrogance, masterminding a gigantic scam that affected the entire global business community? Or was he simply one small player in a conspiracy that involved everyone from the top officers of Bre-X Minerals to the First Family of Indonesia?

Best-selling author Diane Francis, working with a team of eight researchers on three continents, exposes the underpinnings of the world's greatest stock swindle. Tapping into a global network of business contacts and confidential sources, she uncovers the who, what, when, where, and why of a frantic fight for gold that didn't exist.

Fighting for Canada
ISBN - 1550137964
$21.95

This book begins where our country nearly ended: with the October referendum. After the dangerously close outcome of that vote, Diane Francis pleged to become Lucien Bouchard's worst nightmare. Now, with this passionate and sometimes inflammatory book, she has succeeded.

Outraged by the ruthlessness, lying, racism, and manipulation that she believed lay at the heart of the separatist campaign, Francis decided to dig a little deeper. What she discovered shocked even her, a seasoned journalist. Separatism, she asserts, is not a political movement, but a criminal conspiracy that has run rough shod over human rights, fair play, and democracy in an illegal attempt to destroy Canada. Worse yet, the separatists' not-always-unwitting accomplices range from mainstream federalist politicians to lazy and biased members of the media.

Fighting for Canada is a damning indictment, not only of Lucien Bouchard and his Bloc Quebecois, but also of Ottawa, the news media and the traditional political parties. Through a combination of thuggery, sheer stupidity, and unrelenting ambition, these forces have conspired to capitalize on the separatist movement and the intense feelings it engenders. This impassioned book is Francis's response, her call-to-action. There's a war on, she declares, and Canada is worth fighting for.

Underground Nation
The Secret Economy and the Future of Canada
ISBN - 1550136127
$21.95 (Paperback)

Canadians are leaving their country in droves. They are hiding their savings in offshore tax havens or, like Florida snowbirds, retiring south of the Canada-U.S. border. Heading in the same direction are firms fed up with the red tape and rapacious taxation policies of successive Canadian governments.

Meanwhile, millions of immigrants, refugees and illegal aliens have entered Canada specifically to take advantage of the most generous and comprehensively mismanaged system of health and social benefits in the world. Their cheating costs Canadians billions of dollars annually. Canadian governments either deny that it's happening or helplessly wring their hands.

The fact is, Canada's political leader have been so out of touch with Canadian reality for so long that a kind of resigned alienation has set in among the people they govern. The tax burden, bureaucratic over-regulation, unfair labor laws, and the obsession with Quebec have combined to divide citizens and rulers with results that may well be disastrous. Canada will not survive as a seperate nation if things go on as they are.

Underground Nation is the most thought-provoking, and indeed, disturbing book yet by Canada's most controversial financial commentator.

A Matter of Survival
Canada in the 21st
ISBN - 155013471X

Global Restructuring. Free Trade. New World Order. These and other phrases have been creeping into our everyday conversation. But what do they mean? What really is happening?

In A Matter of Survival, Canada's foremost economic commentator argues that the world is changing drastically. The formation of trading blocs in Europe, the Americas, and the Far East, is proceeding slowly but irrevocably. The locus of power is shifting away from the great nations that have dominated the globe since the end of the Second World War toward the burgeoning developing world.

For Canada and Canadians , this is a dangerous and exciting time. The wrong policies pursued now can set back the country a decade or more. The right policies will help to usher in an era of unprecedented prosperity.

Diane Francis has witnessed first hand the changes that are overtaking the world. She reports on the way things really are in the Near and Far East, in Eastern and Western Europe, in Asia and the Americas. This is not a book about theory; it's about the hard choices to be made now. It's a matter of survival.

Contrepreneurs
Stock-Market Fraud and
Money Laundering in Canada
ISBN - 0770423841

CON'TRE'PRE'NEURS
n.pl. 1. Perpetrators of stock-market fraud.
2. Money launderers.
3. White-collar criminals (esp. in Canada)

Is Canada the new haven for white-collar criminals? The fact is that Canada's high-tech contrepreneurs are swindling the nation....and, for the most part, they are getting away with it. In this astonishing book, top journalist Diane Francis takes us inside three types of notorious contretemps activity.

Part I shows how crooks bilked international investors of $6 billion by selling phone stock over the telephone. This type of 'telemarketing' boiler operation is a lucrative and virtually untraceable method of swindling.

Part II examines stock-market scams, many of which run through the Vancouver or Alberta stock exchanges. Swindlers have even managed to bring down a British MP, Jeffrey Archer, and have preyed upon King Hussein of Jordan.

Part III investigates money laundering and how the cash of crooks, drug kingpins, and business people alike 'disappears' into the financial system so it can be hidden from tax collectors, partners, ex-wives, or the police.

Contrepreneurs are not thugs- they are well-educated and well-connected con artists who are taking advantage of Canada's lax regulations to reap a fortune. This stunning report takes you inside their world- where they may be wheeling and dealing with your money.

The Diane Francis Inside Guide To Canada's 50 Best Stocks
ISBN - 1550132180

Which are the best-managed companies for investors? Which are the most undervalued? Which ones are on the cutting edge of future trends? Diane Francis, Canada's most outspoken business journalist, selects the 50 best stocks that are the most likely to reap high returns for Canadian investors as the 1990's unfold.

Francis's research includes original interviews with CEO's and stock market watchers, analysis of past performance and present trends, and the unique opportunities and pitfalls presented by individual companies. The 50 best stocks include growth stocks that are short on capital gains but long on dividends: and the riskier long-shots that are ideal for those willing to speculate rather than invest. The Diane Francis Inside Guide to Canada's 50 Best Stocks is essential for every Canadian investor who wants to know the hottest stocks on the market.

Controlling Interest
Who Owns Canada
ISBN - 2761906675

Controlling interest reveals the alarming concentration of ownership in Canada - where 32 families and five conglomerates own one-third of the country's corporate assets.