News Release

Victoria – Four Grade 12 students and their teacher from a Richmond secondary school were congratulated in the BC Legislature Thursday for their work in designing the Annual Report for the BC Securities Commission.

It is believed to be the first time that a government agency has used a high school class to design its annual report. The report was tabled in the legislature by Rick Thorpe, Minister for Competition, Science and Enterprise, the minister to whom the commission reports.

Thorpe congratulated Linda Shaw, Crystal Sham, Julia Tsao, Diane Ty and their teacher Carol Livingstone, all of Hugh Boyd Secondary, “for a job well done.”

The students worked on the design as employees of Spectrum Studios, a graphic design firm established by a group of fellow high school students under the Junior Achievement BC program. Junior Achievement is a worldwide non-profit organization that promotes student understanding of business and enterprise.

The students, whose firm won first prize last year for Best Investor Report among 500 entries in a national Junior Achievement competition, used a fractal – a graphic representation of a mathematical concept made famous by Albert Einstein -- as the report’s chief design theme.

BCSC Executive Director Stephen Wilson, a Junior Achievement BC director, said he was pleased the minister took the opportunity to recognize the students’ hard work on the report. The commission, an avid JA supporter, provided more than $60,000 during the past year to JA projects, including a program that teaches Grade 8 students the basics about saving and investing.

The BC Securities Commission is the independent provincial government agency responsible for regulating trading in securities and exchange contracts within the province.