Vancouver Sun Thursday, March 06, 2008
The B.C. Lottery Corp. has announced a permanent replacement for former chief executive officer Vic Poleschuk, who was fired last spring after a scathing report found the corporation wasn't doing enough to prevent retailer fraud. In a news release Thursday, BCLC said that Michael Graydon, current president and CEO of retailing giant Mega Group Inc., will become head of the lottery corporation on March 28, 2008. Poleschuk was fired last June, three days after the release of a report by B.C. ombudsman Kim Carter that found BCLC didn't do enough to prevent retailer fraud. Poleschuk received $603,362 in severance pay.Carter's report found problems with virtually every aspect of BCLC's security systems and made 23 recommendations to the corporation.
BCLC has vowed to implement all 23 recommendations, something it estimates will cost it $31.5 million this fiscal year alone. Carter launched her investigation of the lottery corporation in December 2006 after The Vancouver Sun reported lottery retailers in the province were winning major prizes at several times the rate of the general public. The figures, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, raised fears retailers might be stealing customers' winning tickets - by, for example, falsely telling a customer his or her ticket was a loser. After Poleschuk was fired, BCLC appointed Dana Hayden, deputy minister of strategic policy in the Office of the Premier, as its interim CEO. Last month, Hayden left BCLC to resume working with the B.C. government and Scott Norman, one of BCLC's vice-presidents, was appointed acting president. BCLC said Thursday that Norman will remain acting CEO until Graydon takes over later this month. According to BCLC's news release, Mega Group is Canada's largest retail buying group, made up of 700 independent consumer electronic, appliance and furniture retailers.
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