Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Raids: How big a scandal? (2004)
.
The Tyee, published in Vancouver, has been a trend-setting on-line news service, its solid journalism warmly welcomed on the West Coast. My request for permission to reprint this story was generously granted by the editor of The Tyee, David Beers. Note the name of Paul Battershill, a prominent figure in the raids story and now a man under pressure. There's an intensity in these older Basi-Virk-Basi / BCRail stories, as if we could see the issue clearly then but we can't see things so clearly any more. I recommend the Tyee readers' discussion at the end of McLintock's unabridged article, at: http://thetyee.ca/News/2004/12/30/Raids_How_Big_a_Scandal/
- BC Mary.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RAIDS: HOW BIG A SCANDAL?
David Basi and Bob Virk were key players in B.C.'s Liberal government with strong ties to the Prime Minister. The RCMP raid of their offices as part of a probe into drugs and organized crime will likely cloud the next elections, federal and provincial.
By Barbara McLintock
Published: December 30, 2004
TheTyee.ca
It started out like so many relatively routine tips that police officers pick up - some unsubstantiated information about trafficking in cocaine and marijuana, deemed to be worthy of further investigation by the Victoria Police Department and the RCMP Drug Section for the Greater Victoria region. But as the officers conducted their probe, the tentacles spread further and further, potentially involving organized crime and police corruption. Then this weekend they reached right inside the B.C. Legislative Buildings - a place where police officers rarely venture except to keep the peace at demonstrations and arrest the odd errant protester.
By late afternoon Sunday [Dec 28/03], two high level Liberal government officials, their offices raided by police, were gone from their jobs. David Basi, ministerial assistant to Finance Minister Gary Collins, was fired and Bob Virk, the ministerial assistant to Transportation Minister Judith Reid was suspended with pay.
Ties to Paul Martin's campaign
The sight of uniformed sergeants (the operation was considered too sensitive for any officers of lower rank to participate) toting dozens of cardboard cartons containing file folders and documents down the steps at the legislature has given the Gordon Campbell government a political problem unlike any they have experienced in their past 31 months in the office. Moreover, it's a problem that isn't likely to go away any time soon.
Police officers predict that the complexity of dealing with documents seized from the legislature alone will ensure that it will be several months at best before the investigation is concluded and criminal charges, if any, laid. That means the file is likely to be foremost in the public's mind again just weeks or months before the next provincial election. Since one of the Campbell government's first moves in office was to set a fixed election date (we'll go to the polls on May 17, 2005), the premier now doesn't have the option of either speeding up or delaying the election in the hope of avoiding the worst of the fallout.
Moreover, the provincial Liberals may not be the only political party to feel the heat. Several of those apparently embroiled in the scandal also have strong ties to Paul Martin's Liberal leadership team in B.C.
The sole good news so far for the Liberals, both provincial and federal, is that there is no suggestion that any elected MLAs or MPs are in any way involved with the events that have led to the criminal probe. All the police forces involved have taken great pains to make clear that such is the case. Although search warrants were executed in the suites of cabinet offices occupied by Finance Minister Gary Collins and Transportation Minister Judith Reid, the police were not interested in documents belonging to the ministers' themselves, but rather those of their Ministerial Assistants.
Basi wielded considerable power
Ministerial Assistants occupy a strange place in the B.C. political spectrum - a limbo where they are neither professional civil servants nor elected officials. They are paid adequately but not brilliantly; most make somewhere around $60,000 a year. They are pure political appointees, their hiring formalized through cabinet orders, and each serves "at the pleasure" of the cabinet. That's a formal way of saying they have no job security whatsoever, which is what made it so easy for the Campbell administration to dump Collins's Assistant, David Basi, less than 24 hours after the police raids began.
Some Ministerial Assistants are recruited directly by the ministers for whom they work, and such is believed to be the case with Basi. Many more, however, are actually drawn from a pool established by the Premier's Office and assigned to specific ministers. Some cabinet members have almost no choice in who their assistant is. All Assistants, including those recruited by individual ministers, are responsible not just to their ministers, but also directly to the Premier's Office through Chief of Staff Martyn Brown.
The role that Ministerial Assistants play varies widely, depending on the talents, personalities and attitudes of both the various cabinet ministers and their aides. Some appear to be relatively low on the totem pole, doing little more than preparing briefing notes and meeting with disgruntled citizens that the minister has no time for. Others come to occupy positions of significant power within their ministries, dealing with sensitive files and materials, and working closely with the minister in developing and implementing policy. That was the case with Basi. He was seen as Collins's right-hand man, with a particular eye for the electoral implications of the financial decisions being made in government. Because Collins also serves as Government House Leader during legislative sessions, Basi was also prominent in deciding the timing of legislation and the organization of the House's sitting days. He was widely considered one of the most powerful non-elected officials in the government.
Basi held extra sway because he was also one of the people who had influence over both the provincial and federal wings of the Liberal party. A passionate supporter of Paul Martin, he'd been deeply involved in ensuring several B.C. ridings returned Martin delegates during the voting process as well as helping to organize events and fund-raise for the Martin campaign. He and his team of "Basi's Boys" were widely credited for engineering the takeover of former cabinet minister Herb Dhaliwal's riding by Martin supporters.
Virk and Basi: Brothers-in-law
The other Ministerial Assistant whose office was raided, Robert Virk, was also a well-known Martin supporter. He's also Basi's brother in law - their wives are sisters.
Victoria Police Chief Paul Battershill confirmed several other locations were also raided by police officers over the weekend. They included the homes of some of those involved, an accounting firm, and a government relations firm later identified as Pilothouse Public Affairs. The company was begun by former Vancouver Province columnist Brian Kieran, but two of its key officials - Erik Bornman and Jamie Elmhirst -- also have strong ties to the Martin camp.
Also visited by investigating officers, although not formally raided, was Mark Marissen, of Burrard Communications, who was director of the Martin campaign in B.C. - and who's also the husband of Deputy Premier Christy Clark.
Just how all these pieces of the puzzle fit together (if indeed they all do) will have to await the final police report, and charges and trial if any.
Began with police corruption investigation
Battershill said the potential involvement of those in the legislature came relatively late in the investigation as officers from his department and the RCMP followed where the evidence was leading them. It began with the drug information first received more than 18 months ago, he said, and as officers developed the file, they soon realized it could involve an organized criminal operation. The RCMP's experts in organized crime were brought in, as was the provincial Organized Crime Agency. Fairly soon after the file moved to a stage where it was being investigated more actively, the officers realized it also involved the possible corruption of a single police officer, a member of Battershill's own force.
Two weeks before Christmas, Battershill announced that Const. Rob Dosanjh, a 13-year veteran of the department, had been suspended with pay, as required by the Police Act. An investigation involving Const. Dosanjh, 37, was ongoing, he said, involving allegations of obstruction of justice and breach of trust. He provided no details at that time, but has now confirmed that the Dosanjh file and the raids at the legislature are linked. However, he described the relationship between Dosanjh and any of those targeted in the search warrants as "indirect."
As the investigation proceeded, the chief said, the evidence that was being uncovered led officers to want to involve the Commercial Crime Section of the RCMP in a different tentacle of the probe. It was the Commercial Crime portion of the investigation that led to the legislative raids, he said.
Extraordinary powers invoked
The process of both obtaining a search warrant for offices in the legislative buildings and dealing with the potential evidence obtained in the raid is not only complex, but also almost unique in Canada. In fewer than a handful of cases have police ever moved to obtain a search warrant for materials located within the parliament buildings in Ottawa or any of the provinces.
Theoretically, the police have no jurisdiction within the legislative building, unless they have been invited there by the Speaker or one of his designates. It is part of the long British parliamentary tradition of separating the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), that the Speaker is master of his own house and it cannot be invaded by representatives of the other branches, such as law enforcement.
As well, the police had to convince a Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court that the only way to obtain the evidence they were seeking was through a search warrant of specific offices within the legislative confines. Although the appointment was not made public at the time, the government's Criminal Justice Branch in early December [2003] appointed William Berardino as special prosecutor in the case. That allowed Berardino, a highly-respected Vancouver lawyer, to work with the police in drafting the documents necessary to put before the judge.
Once the judge had granted the warrant, Solicitor General Rich Coleman, accompanie[d] by several Mounties, flew to Kamloops, home of House Speaker Claude Richmond. There, on Saturday evening, they explained the situation to Richmond and asked his permission as Speaker to execute the warrants. Richmond gave the necessary consent.
Cabinet files locked up for months
What happens to the seized material next is even more complex. In most cases, once the RCMP or police had executed a search warrant, the material seized is theirs, to begin poring through, to see what useful evidence might be contained in it.
Not so with evidence obtained from the legislative buildings. Before each box was removed from the legislature on Sunday [28 Dec 2003], the legislature's sergeant-at-arms ensured that it was properly sealed. All 37 boxes, along with material seized from computers and hard drives, will now go back to the Supreme Court judge who issued the search warrant. It will be the judge's job to go through all that material without the police or Crown counsel being present. The judge will sort out any material that might be protected by cabinet privilege - documents that relate so closely to decisions being made by cabinet that normally no one outside cabinet and its advisors would ever be allowed to see them. Any material that is covered by lawyer-client privilege will also be removed from the file. Only when that is done will the remaining material be turned over to the RCMP officers for their further investigation. The whole process is expected to take months.
Cloud likely to hang over elections
During that entire time, from a political point of view, the government will be under a cloud. In many ways it is worse for the provincial Liberals even than when Premier Campbell was caught driving drunk in Hawaii just about a year ago. Although Campbell at that time showed incredibly poor judgment and paid the price for it, a common understanding grew up that it was an unusual circumstance and that it couldn't have been further away from his day-to-day routine as premier.
Any conversation that involves cocaine, organized crime, and police corruption cannot but help have a very much nastier tone to it. The mere words "organized crime" imply that whatever happened was done on a premeditated basis, not the idiocy of a moment.
And that tone seems unlikely to vanish through either the federal election expected next spring or, at the speed at which these things usually move, even the provincial one of 2005.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2004/12/30/Raids_How_Big_a_Scandal/
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Thank you, Barbara McLintock, David Beers, Monte Paulsen,
Geoff D'Auria. - BC Mary.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The Tyee, published in Vancouver, has been a trend-setting on-line news service, its solid journalism warmly welcomed on the West Coast. My request for permission to reprint this story was generously granted by the editor of The Tyee, David Beers. Note the name of Paul Battershill, a prominent figure in the raids story and now a man under pressure. There's an intensity in these older Basi-Virk-Basi / BCRail stories, as if we could see the issue clearly then but we can't see things so clearly any more. I recommend the Tyee readers' discussion at the end of McLintock's unabridged article, at: http://thetyee.ca/News/2004/12/30/Raids_How_Big_a_Scandal/
- BC Mary.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RAIDS: HOW BIG A SCANDAL?
David Basi and Bob Virk were key players in B.C.'s Liberal government with strong ties to the Prime Minister. The RCMP raid of their offices as part of a probe into drugs and organized crime will likely cloud the next elections, federal and provincial.
By Barbara McLintock
Published: December 30, 2004
TheTyee.ca
It started out like so many relatively routine tips that police officers pick up - some unsubstantiated information about trafficking in cocaine and marijuana, deemed to be worthy of further investigation by the Victoria Police Department and the RCMP Drug Section for the Greater Victoria region. But as the officers conducted their probe, the tentacles spread further and further, potentially involving organized crime and police corruption. Then this weekend they reached right inside the B.C. Legislative Buildings - a place where police officers rarely venture except to keep the peace at demonstrations and arrest the odd errant protester.
By late afternoon Sunday [Dec 28/03], two high level Liberal government officials, their offices raided by police, were gone from their jobs. David Basi, ministerial assistant to Finance Minister Gary Collins, was fired and Bob Virk, the ministerial assistant to Transportation Minister Judith Reid was suspended with pay.
Ties to Paul Martin's campaign
The sight of uniformed sergeants (the operation was considered too sensitive for any officers of lower rank to participate) toting dozens of cardboard cartons containing file folders and documents down the steps at the legislature has given the Gordon Campbell government a political problem unlike any they have experienced in their past 31 months in the office. Moreover, it's a problem that isn't likely to go away any time soon.
Police officers predict that the complexity of dealing with documents seized from the legislature alone will ensure that it will be several months at best before the investigation is concluded and criminal charges, if any, laid. That means the file is likely to be foremost in the public's mind again just weeks or months before the next provincial election. Since one of the Campbell government's first moves in office was to set a fixed election date (we'll go to the polls on May 17, 2005), the premier now doesn't have the option of either speeding up or delaying the election in the hope of avoiding the worst of the fallout.
Moreover, the provincial Liberals may not be the only political party to feel the heat. Several of those apparently embroiled in the scandal also have strong ties to Paul Martin's Liberal leadership team in B.C.
The sole good news so far for the Liberals, both provincial and federal, is that there is no suggestion that any elected MLAs or MPs are in any way involved with the events that have led to the criminal probe. All the police forces involved have taken great pains to make clear that such is the case. Although search warrants were executed in the suites of cabinet offices occupied by Finance Minister Gary Collins and Transportation Minister Judith Reid, the police were not interested in documents belonging to the ministers' themselves, but rather those of their Ministerial Assistants.
Basi wielded considerable power
Ministerial Assistants occupy a strange place in the B.C. political spectrum - a limbo where they are neither professional civil servants nor elected officials. They are paid adequately but not brilliantly; most make somewhere around $60,000 a year. They are pure political appointees, their hiring formalized through cabinet orders, and each serves "at the pleasure" of the cabinet. That's a formal way of saying they have no job security whatsoever, which is what made it so easy for the Campbell administration to dump Collins's Assistant, David Basi, less than 24 hours after the police raids began.
Some Ministerial Assistants are recruited directly by the ministers for whom they work, and such is believed to be the case with Basi. Many more, however, are actually drawn from a pool established by the Premier's Office and assigned to specific ministers. Some cabinet members have almost no choice in who their assistant is. All Assistants, including those recruited by individual ministers, are responsible not just to their ministers, but also directly to the Premier's Office through Chief of Staff Martyn Brown.
The role that Ministerial Assistants play varies widely, depending on the talents, personalities and attitudes of both the various cabinet ministers and their aides. Some appear to be relatively low on the totem pole, doing little more than preparing briefing notes and meeting with disgruntled citizens that the minister has no time for. Others come to occupy positions of significant power within their ministries, dealing with sensitive files and materials, and working closely with the minister in developing and implementing policy. That was the case with Basi. He was seen as Collins's right-hand man, with a particular eye for the electoral implications of the financial decisions being made in government. Because Collins also serves as Government House Leader during legislative sessions, Basi was also prominent in deciding the timing of legislation and the organization of the House's sitting days. He was widely considered one of the most powerful non-elected officials in the government.
Basi held extra sway because he was also one of the people who had influence over both the provincial and federal wings of the Liberal party. A passionate supporter of Paul Martin, he'd been deeply involved in ensuring several B.C. ridings returned Martin delegates during the voting process as well as helping to organize events and fund-raise for the Martin campaign. He and his team of "Basi's Boys" were widely credited for engineering the takeover of former cabinet minister Herb Dhaliwal's riding by Martin supporters.
Virk and Basi: Brothers-in-law
The other Ministerial Assistant whose office was raided, Robert Virk, was also a well-known Martin supporter. He's also Basi's brother in law - their wives are sisters.
Victoria Police Chief Paul Battershill confirmed several other locations were also raided by police officers over the weekend. They included the homes of some of those involved, an accounting firm, and a government relations firm later identified as Pilothouse Public Affairs. The company was begun by former Vancouver Province columnist Brian Kieran, but two of its key officials - Erik Bornman and Jamie Elmhirst -- also have strong ties to the Martin camp.
Also visited by investigating officers, although not formally raided, was Mark Marissen, of Burrard Communications, who was director of the Martin campaign in B.C. - and who's also the husband of Deputy Premier Christy Clark.
Just how all these pieces of the puzzle fit together (if indeed they all do) will have to await the final police report, and charges and trial if any.
Began with police corruption investigation
Battershill said the potential involvement of those in the legislature came relatively late in the investigation as officers from his department and the RCMP followed where the evidence was leading them. It began with the drug information first received more than 18 months ago, he said, and as officers developed the file, they soon realized it could involve an organized criminal operation. The RCMP's experts in organized crime were brought in, as was the provincial Organized Crime Agency. Fairly soon after the file moved to a stage where it was being investigated more actively, the officers realized it also involved the possible corruption of a single police officer, a member of Battershill's own force.
Two weeks before Christmas, Battershill announced that Const. Rob Dosanjh, a 13-year veteran of the department, had been suspended with pay, as required by the Police Act. An investigation involving Const. Dosanjh, 37, was ongoing, he said, involving allegations of obstruction of justice and breach of trust. He provided no details at that time, but has now confirmed that the Dosanjh file and the raids at the legislature are linked. However, he described the relationship between Dosanjh and any of those targeted in the search warrants as "indirect."
As the investigation proceeded, the chief said, the evidence that was being uncovered led officers to want to involve the Commercial Crime Section of the RCMP in a different tentacle of the probe. It was the Commercial Crime portion of the investigation that led to the legislative raids, he said.
Extraordinary powers invoked
The process of both obtaining a search warrant for offices in the legislative buildings and dealing with the potential evidence obtained in the raid is not only complex, but also almost unique in Canada. In fewer than a handful of cases have police ever moved to obtain a search warrant for materials located within the parliament buildings in Ottawa or any of the provinces.
Theoretically, the police have no jurisdiction within the legislative building, unless they have been invited there by the Speaker or one of his designates. It is part of the long British parliamentary tradition of separating the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), that the Speaker is master of his own house and it cannot be invaded by representatives of the other branches, such as law enforcement.
As well, the police had to convince a Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court that the only way to obtain the evidence they were seeking was through a search warrant of specific offices within the legislative confines. Although the appointment was not made public at the time, the government's Criminal Justice Branch in early December [2003] appointed William Berardino as special prosecutor in the case. That allowed Berardino, a highly-respected Vancouver lawyer, to work with the police in drafting the documents necessary to put before the judge.
Once the judge had granted the warrant, Solicitor General Rich Coleman, accompanie[d] by several Mounties, flew to Kamloops, home of House Speaker Claude Richmond. There, on Saturday evening, they explained the situation to Richmond and asked his permission as Speaker to execute the warrants. Richmond gave the necessary consent.
Cabinet files locked up for months
What happens to the seized material next is even more complex. In most cases, once the RCMP or police had executed a search warrant, the material seized is theirs, to begin poring through, to see what useful evidence might be contained in it.
Not so with evidence obtained from the legislative buildings. Before each box was removed from the legislature on Sunday [28 Dec 2003], the legislature's sergeant-at-arms ensured that it was properly sealed. All 37 boxes, along with material seized from computers and hard drives, will now go back to the Supreme Court judge who issued the search warrant. It will be the judge's job to go through all that material without the police or Crown counsel being present. The judge will sort out any material that might be protected by cabinet privilege - documents that relate so closely to decisions being made by cabinet that normally no one outside cabinet and its advisors would ever be allowed to see them. Any material that is covered by lawyer-client privilege will also be removed from the file. Only when that is done will the remaining material be turned over to the RCMP officers for their further investigation. The whole process is expected to take months.
Cloud likely to hang over elections
During that entire time, from a political point of view, the government will be under a cloud. In many ways it is worse for the provincial Liberals even than when Premier Campbell was caught driving drunk in Hawaii just about a year ago. Although Campbell at that time showed incredibly poor judgment and paid the price for it, a common understanding grew up that it was an unusual circumstance and that it couldn't have been further away from his day-to-day routine as premier.
Any conversation that involves cocaine, organized crime, and police corruption cannot but help have a very much nastier tone to it. The mere words "organized crime" imply that whatever happened was done on a premeditated basis, not the idiocy of a moment.
And that tone seems unlikely to vanish through either the federal election expected next spring or, at the speed at which these things usually move, even the provincial one of 2005.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2004/12/30/Raids_How_Big_a_Scandal/
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Thank you, Barbara McLintock, David Beers, Monte Paulsen,
Geoff D'Auria. - BC Mary.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Comments:
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Brilliant idea Mary - posting McLintock's piece from Tyee again. The last para is certainly prophetic and here we sit in 2008 still waiting, the same government that sold out the province's future still doing it in spades, the price of decent housing higher than ever, the forest industry in a complete melt-down, the olympics and the convention centre bulging out of their budgets.
A very thoughtfull idea to reprint this article. It is a MUST read for anyone just tuning into your site here. Great job as always. Joey
# posted by 
: January 8, 2008 at 6:38 p.m.
: January 8, 2008 at 6:38 p.m.
.
Thanks, g.
This 4-year-old story caught my attention in particular by the solid way Ms McLintock came to grips with the possibility of organized crime in the B.C. Legislature. It's a serious error, in my view, to underestimate such possibilities. And despite one of the Accused being related to a suspected drug king pin, you'll recall the efforts made by certain West Coast journalists to dismiss, shrug off, pooh-pooh the very notion ... a dangerous attitude, I think.
I admire McLintock's way of bearing down on the central issues, not spoiling her analysis with thinly veiled campaigning. I guess this is what made The Tyee so welcome.
Mostly, I find it astonishing the way the stories written around the time of the raids have a clarity and concern which seems to be lacking now. Have the bastards worn us down? What is it?
.
Thanks, g.
This 4-year-old story caught my attention in particular by the solid way Ms McLintock came to grips with the possibility of organized crime in the B.C. Legislature. It's a serious error, in my view, to underestimate such possibilities. And despite one of the Accused being related to a suspected drug king pin, you'll recall the efforts made by certain West Coast journalists to dismiss, shrug off, pooh-pooh the very notion ... a dangerous attitude, I think.
I admire McLintock's way of bearing down on the central issues, not spoiling her analysis with thinly veiled campaigning. I guess this is what made The Tyee so welcome.
Mostly, I find it astonishing the way the stories written around the time of the raids have a clarity and concern which seems to be lacking now. Have the bastards worn us down? What is it?
.
.
Thank you, too, Joey.
I was just re-re-reading the segment about Paul Battershill.
Perhaps my imagination is running away with me ... but I thought I could see why such a key person who knows so much about the raid on the B.C. Legislature, might be getting in somebody's way.
The way he's been treated the past few months left me feeling very uneasy about his situation.
I don't know Chief Battershill. All I know is what I found out by Googling his bio. He has a solid record as a good cop and has done some excellent things in his police career.
Excellent non-political things.
.
Thank you, too, Joey.
I was just re-re-reading the segment about Paul Battershill.
Perhaps my imagination is running away with me ... but I thought I could see why such a key person who knows so much about the raid on the B.C. Legislature, might be getting in somebody's way.
The way he's been treated the past few months left me feeling very uneasy about his situation.
I don't know Chief Battershill. All I know is what I found out by Googling his bio. He has a solid record as a good cop and has done some excellent things in his police career.
Excellent non-political things.
.
Hi Mary,
I was thinking much the same thoughts when Chief Battershill all of a sudden is on "leave" for personal reasons. But some private citizen in DT Victoria can go after FOI paperwork on the chief and all sorts of innuendo and suggestions start getting tossed about.
Paul Battershill seems to me to be a straight up kind of guy, who does not suffer fools easily, I think he ran into some fools who took themselves utterly seriously. Now the Chief has to pay. They were probably part of the VanOC or the Leg Raid or something. But I can't see this shutting him up for very long, not if it's about the truth or not winning out.
I hope it does not go on too long. BC needs Battershill. Our RCMP is a sad inept lot too often these days. Battershill wrote an excellent paper on TASERS a couple of years ago. As near as I could tell, the RCMP did not even make reference to it after the horror at the airport, the next death out in Coq. All the promises that were made. Paul Battershill work is now what, invalid, useless, out of date, wrong?
Or is there something wrong with the man? Maybe he doesn't vote "right"?
Geo
I was thinking much the same thoughts when Chief Battershill all of a sudden is on "leave" for personal reasons. But some private citizen in DT Victoria can go after FOI paperwork on the chief and all sorts of innuendo and suggestions start getting tossed about.
Paul Battershill seems to me to be a straight up kind of guy, who does not suffer fools easily, I think he ran into some fools who took themselves utterly seriously. Now the Chief has to pay. They were probably part of the VanOC or the Leg Raid or something. But I can't see this shutting him up for very long, not if it's about the truth or not winning out.
I hope it does not go on too long. BC needs Battershill. Our RCMP is a sad inept lot too often these days. Battershill wrote an excellent paper on TASERS a couple of years ago. As near as I could tell, the RCMP did not even make reference to it after the horror at the airport, the next death out in Coq. All the promises that were made. Paul Battershill work is now what, invalid, useless, out of date, wrong?
Or is there something wrong with the man? Maybe he doesn't vote "right"?
Geo
# posted by : January 8, 2008 at 8:13 p.m.
: January 8, 2008 at 8:13 p.m.
.
Many thanks, Geo,
I'm glad to hear your views on Chief Battershill. What aroused my suspicions was the way CanWest reported the issue of his leave of absence on a personnel matter.
I remember two CanWest reports which listed all the errors, omissions and misdemeanours which could cause a Chief to be removed ... NOT that Chief Battershill had done any of those errors ... but leaving that impression. It just didn't sit right. It seemed deliberate.
Tomorrow with a fresh start, I will look up some of those news reports. Each of them created a certain impression - I even complained a couple of times.
If you know more, please add to our understanding. And thanks again for your interesting comments.
.
Many thanks, Geo,
I'm glad to hear your views on Chief Battershill. What aroused my suspicions was the way CanWest reported the issue of his leave of absence on a personnel matter.
I remember two CanWest reports which listed all the errors, omissions and misdemeanours which could cause a Chief to be removed ... NOT that Chief Battershill had done any of those errors ... but leaving that impression. It just didn't sit right. It seemed deliberate.
Tomorrow with a fresh start, I will look up some of those news reports. Each of them created a certain impression - I even complained a couple of times.
If you know more, please add to our understanding. And thanks again for your interesting comments.
.
Thanks for posting this Mary. There had been something bothering me about Berardino for the past year and I have been randomly searching and reading to try to figure it out. Then you came up with this article.And there-in lies my answer. "Although the appointment was not made public at the time, the government's Criminal Justice Branch in early December [2003] appointed William Berardino as special prosecutor in the case."
The raid happened on December, 28,2003. Berardino was quietly appointed days, or perhaps a couple of weeks before. So the secrecy has been going on well before the raid itself. And certain columnists say some of us are paranoid. Yet we continue to find secrecy and delay in this case right from the get-go.
The raid happened on December, 28,2003. Berardino was quietly appointed days, or perhaps a couple of weeks before. So the secrecy has been going on well before the raid itself. And certain columnists say some of us are paranoid. Yet we continue to find secrecy and delay in this case right from the get-go.
# posted by : January 9, 2008 at 7:47 a.m.
: January 9, 2008 at 7:47 a.m.
You're right, gary e:
Where it says "the government's Criminal Justice Branch in early December [2003] appointed William Berardino as special prosecutor in the case."
I think it's fair to ask "What case?" There was no case then, was there?
As for the raid itself, it was no surprise to people in Cabinet. The trip to Kamloops also makes that clear. So it's hard to imagine that plenty of paper-shredding didn't happen prior to the actual Sunday morning raid. By some of the people who are now trying to keep documents secret.
Who, for example, has seen the actual agreement signed by B.C. Rail and CN ??
Paranoid? People who try to "win" by putting others down, can't be trusted. Too bad politics are filled with that stuff.
Good citizens don't sit silently, hands folded, bags over heads, as if they don't care when things go wrong.
.
Where it says "the government's Criminal Justice Branch in early December [2003] appointed William Berardino as special prosecutor in the case."
I think it's fair to ask "What case?" There was no case then, was there?
As for the raid itself, it was no surprise to people in Cabinet. The trip to Kamloops also makes that clear. So it's hard to imagine that plenty of paper-shredding didn't happen prior to the actual Sunday morning raid. By some of the people who are now trying to keep documents secret.
Who, for example, has seen the actual agreement signed by B.C. Rail and CN ??
Paranoid? People who try to "win" by putting others down, can't be trusted. Too bad politics are filled with that stuff.
Good citizens don't sit silently, hands folded, bags over heads, as if they don't care when things go wrong.
.
Good on you, Mary for posting Barbara's excellent story - the devil IS in the detail . . too bad the Tyee hasn't extended this to exposing other big stories directly related to Vanoc & the shaninigans being played out there.
I wonder why Beers does this . . hmmmmmm . . .especially when the MSM is protecting some key scandalous stories connected to key Vanoc 'players' re: 'the Games' (well tagged!) that have surfaced recently in other independently owned papers. Seems to be many hidden agendas out there, don't there?
I agree with you about Battershill. Nothing like shooting the messanger that holds a lot of hard facts surrounding the Raid on the Leg.
Geo alludes to an important fact:
". . . . I think he ran into some fools who took themselves utterly seriously. Now the Chief has to pay. They were probably part of the ,VanOC or the Leg Raid or something."
If you look at the recipe of of who has controlled Vanoc & who we all suspect has controlled the hijacking of BC Rail with links to private agendas covered up, not to mention that taint of drugs in the Leg . . . doesn't it all lead back to the Premier's Office?
Is it a coincidence that the former Finance Minister Collins jumped ship & now Taylor has tried to distance herself announcing she will not run?
Both Vanoc & the elements of the BC Raid on the Leg are deeply involved with the Finance Ministry involving massive amounts of Crown assets including Crown Land, the Railway & perhaps drug laundering.
As you said, it appears Chief Battershill was a target & Canwest has been fully cooperative with this agenda
I wonder why Beers does this . . hmmmmmm . . .especially when the MSM is protecting some key scandalous stories connected to key Vanoc 'players' re: 'the Games' (well tagged!) that have surfaced recently in other independently owned papers. Seems to be many hidden agendas out there, don't there?
I agree with you about Battershill. Nothing like shooting the messanger that holds a lot of hard facts surrounding the Raid on the Leg.
Geo alludes to an important fact:
". . . . I think he ran into some fools who took themselves utterly seriously. Now the Chief has to pay. They were probably part of the ,VanOC or the Leg Raid or something."
If you look at the recipe of of who has controlled Vanoc & who we all suspect has controlled the hijacking of BC Rail with links to private agendas covered up, not to mention that taint of drugs in the Leg . . . doesn't it all lead back to the Premier's Office?
Is it a coincidence that the former Finance Minister Collins jumped ship & now Taylor has tried to distance herself announcing she will not run?
Both Vanoc & the elements of the BC Raid on the Leg are deeply involved with the Finance Ministry involving massive amounts of Crown assets including Crown Land, the Railway & perhaps drug laundering.
As you said, it appears Chief Battershill was a target & Canwest has been fully cooperative with this agenda
# posted by : January 9, 2008 at 4:12 p.m.
: January 9, 2008 at 4:12 p.m.
this section of Barabara's article stood out starkly:
. . . "Not so with evidence obtained from the legislative buildings. . . . All 37 boxes, along with material seized from computers and hard drives, will now go back to the Supreme Court judge who issued the search warrant. It will be the judge's job to go through all that material without the police or Crown counsel being present. The judge will sort out any material that might be protected by cabinet privilege - documents that relate so closely to decisions being made by cabinet that normally no one outside cabinet and its advisors would ever be allowed to see them. Any material that is covered by lawyer-client privilege will also be removed from the file. Only when that is done will the remaining material be turned over to the RCMP officers for their further investigation."
Heavens to mergatroid . . . & like we all have so much faith in the BC Supreme Court Judges "sorting" selections to be "sorted" solely with apolitical eyes/ethics in the best interests of the rest of British Columbians . . I don't think so folks LOL!!!
Any following recent high profile poltical cases knows that politics is alive & well in BC Supreme Court. Protect the 'circle' at all costs: plug that leak; omit that blatant document; no juries please; hand select Judges to wirte Judgments & promote where ever possible if dissent arises on the bench but nail the nail the b ------- at the expense of your own carreer. Who WAS the judge who got the chance to vet these boxes, again please?
What WILL Judge Bennett do? Her nights must be long & tortured.
Really, I got whiplash from reading that section . . . & the RCMP Commercial Crime are supposed to do a thorough job after this sanitizing? PLEASE.
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. . . "Not so with evidence obtained from the legislative buildings. . . . All 37 boxes, along with material seized from computers and hard drives, will now go back to the Supreme Court judge who issued the search warrant. It will be the judge's job to go through all that material without the police or Crown counsel being present. The judge will sort out any material that might be protected by cabinet privilege - documents that relate so closely to decisions being made by cabinet that normally no one outside cabinet and its advisors would ever be allowed to see them. Any material that is covered by lawyer-client privilege will also be removed from the file. Only when that is done will the remaining material be turned over to the RCMP officers for their further investigation."
Heavens to mergatroid . . . & like we all have so much faith in the BC Supreme Court Judges "sorting" selections to be "sorted" solely with apolitical eyes/ethics in the best interests of the rest of British Columbians . . I don't think so folks LOL!!!
Any following recent high profile poltical cases knows that politics is alive & well in BC Supreme Court. Protect the 'circle' at all costs: plug that leak; omit that blatant document; no juries please; hand select Judges to wirte Judgments & promote where ever possible if dissent arises on the bench but nail the nail the b ------- at the expense of your own carreer. Who WAS the judge who got the chance to vet these boxes, again please?
What WILL Judge Bennett do? Her nights must be long & tortured.
Really, I got whiplash from reading that section . . . & the RCMP Commercial Crime are supposed to do a thorough job after this sanitizing? PLEASE.
# posted by : January 9, 2008 at 5:06 p.m.
: January 9, 2008 at 5:06 p.m. << Home
