Ponzi schemes and the recession be damned; the readers have spoken. By an overwhelming margin, the top Canadian news story of 2009, according to the results of our News Poll Contest, was the adoption of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) by Ontario and British Columbia. Trailing in second and third place were the Earl Jones scandal and the central banks embracing quantitative easing.
When it came to the write-in vote, a vast number of Canadian Advisor.ca readers thought the prosecution of Bernie Madoff was the biggest news story of the year.
“Bernie Madoff was and continues to be mentioned and alluded to (with contempt) by more clients than any other person or event,” wrote a reader.
“I would add the Bernie Madoff story and others (like him) from the U.S. as these stories rocked the confidence in their advisors for many investors,” stated another.
Americans on the other hand, suggested corporate bailouts and TARP were the issues on their minds in 2009.
Some interesting write-in suggestions were:
Full Top Stories Poll Results