Let's see, Jim Defer joined CEC about three years ago. By that time, the company was already into the environmental assessment process, was already committed to the Comox Joint Venture, was already in the business of selling shares, both its holdings in CUM and whatever it could flog from its treasury. Defer didn't cause any of the company's problems. In fact, it doesn't look like he did anything except keep doing what O'Rourke and Tapics had already established as the company's modus operandi.
But Deloitte did issue a serious warning to shareholders and a shot into the boardroom of CEC that the company was in critical trouble.
In yet another failure to take any substantive action to pull CEC away from the abyss, O'Rourke and Tapics tipped Defer overboard. He's just a scapegoat. If he went quietly, it's probably because he left with a pile more of the company's remaining cash (like, a pile of shares now wouldn't add up to anything, would it?)
No question that these venture mining companies are highly speculative, but there are certain conventions (not to mention laws) that need to be respected. One of them is that management and the board don't just milk the company for everything they can get and stuff it in their pockets. But that may be what has happened here.
Let's just hope there are some shareholders in the room at the AGM who have the balls to call management and the board to account.