(April 10 – 12:30 ET) – The Investment Dealers Association is getting on with the job of beefing up its enforcement and compliance functions while it continues to seek a new head for the division.

The IDA’s director of public affairs, Connie Craddock, confirms that back in the first week of March, it hired two principals from Toronto-based risk management firm AssetRisk Advisory Inc. to “assist us through the period until a new vice president, enforcement is hired”.

Ralph Brockbank, former head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s commercial crime branch in Toronto and principal with AssetRisk, is stepping in for former enforcement chief Fred Maefs.

AssetRisk’s Helen Ehlers is acting as project manager for implementing the IDA’s efforts to beef up its enforcement activities. Craddock says, “[IDA president and CEO] Joe Oliver determined that we needed to take this step of providing additional staff resources to ensure that we meet our objectives.”

Craddock says that during his time with the RCMP, Brockbank “was responsible for major national and international investigations involving commercial fraud, tax evasion and stock-market manipulation”. He left that post in the early-80’s to start his own firm offering investigation and corporate security auditing services.

The IDA’s other major job opening is for senior vice president regulation. That vacancy was created when Greg Clarke, senior vice president regulation, left earlier this year. His former duties are being handled by the IDA’s vice president of regulatory policy, Keith Rose.