The Vancouver Stock Exchange is perhaps one of the most fascinating, yet unknown, parts of British Columbia history. Once called the "Scam Capital of the World" by Forbes magazine, the exchange is now defunct after merging with the Alberta Stock Exchange in November 1999 to become the Canadian Venture Exchange. It was later renamed the TSX Venture Exchange after an acquisition by the Toronto Stock Exchange. Five in every six investors lost money. Of the many companies listed on the exchange, plenty were found to have fleeced investors before being slapped with fines and promptly declaring bankruptcy. 

Incorporated via the BC legislature in 1906, the VSE was part of the boom in mining investment that started in the 1860s. British capital during this time flowed to and from Latin America, the U.S., Australia and Canada in order to invest in and profit from mining operations. Due to the distance, and the fact that these new mining ventures were not large enough to make the London Stock Exchange's listing, several "Mining Exchanges" popped up to redirect capital.

 The Spokane Exchange was one of these new exchanges. Ending in 1991, also due to scandal, the Spokane Exchange helped create investment opportunities in several B.C. mining towns in Kootenay and around the Okanagan Valley. The expansion of the Great Northern Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway meant that speculators could easily flock to the Spokane Exchange, especially after silver was discovered in Nevada, causing a rush in traffic. However, much of the money flowed back to Spokane, instead of to B.C. Because of this, in 1910, both Vancouver proper (including South Vancouver, separate municipalities at the time) and Spokane had over a hundred thousand citizens, although Vancouver's port allowed for far more growth later on in the century. The VSE was created as a way for Canadians to reap the benefits of mining. With the CPR completion of new rail lines, the VSE redirected much capital towards these new mining ventures. The board who managed operations were of the Vancouver elite, who had to make sure all ventures were legitimate or else face social ostracism.

After the Great Depression and with new transparency laws, the VSE made it known that unlike other stock exchanges, it would not be held accountable for any fraud. Some notable scandals that finally tanked the exchange include foreign money laundering, especially of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, which funneled plenty of money through First Vancouver Securities. Another scandal occurred in 1981. New Cinch Uranium Ltd., a VSE-listed company, claimed to have found heavy traces of gold and silver in a New Mexico property they owned. Stock prices spiked immediately after the announcement. Later on, third-party testing found that the samples were "salted" with precious metals in order to fool investors. Years later, in 1986, another scandal occurred when CHoPP Computer Corp. designed a supercomputer a hundred times faster than any other model at the time, only for it to be revealed that they did not have the resources to actually accomplish such a feat. With the loss of investor trust, the VSE shuttered its doors for good.