Wednesday, July 02, 2008

 

Developers to face charges related to Basi-Virk case

.
DEVELOPERS TO FACE CHARGES RELATED TO BASI-VIRK CASE

By CANADIAN PRESS
24 HOURS - July 2, 2008


VICTORIA - A B.C. judge has ordered two Vancouver Island developers to face trial on charges involving the alleged bribery of a B.C. government official that resulted from a police raid on the provincial legislature.

After hearing evidence presented at a preliminary hearing in Victoria, Justice Ernie Quantz says Tony Young, 76, and Jim Duncan, 64, will stand trial on fraud and breach of trust charges over allegations they paid $50,000 to David Basi, an assistant to then-finance minister Gary Collins in 2003.

The Crown alleges the payment was made in connection to an application to remove property from the province's Agricultural Land Reserve for a residential subdivision near Sooke, now known as Sunriver Estates.

Basi faces a separate court process from the two developers on three counts of fraud and one count of breach of trust.

He and two other former B.C. government officials also face separate corruption charges stemming from the December 2003 police raid at the legislature, related to the $1 billion privatization of BC Rail.

{Snip} ...


http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/2008/07/02/6046236.html

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
From VICTORIA LAW COURTS
Room 101 - 2 July 2008

Page 4 and 5 of the day's listing:

File #134750-1-D - JAMES DUNCAN
Charges:
* person dealing with government offering bribe
* offer bribe to official for exercise of influence
* breach of trust by public officer
* offering bribe to government official

File #134750-D - ANTHONY YOUNG
Charges: same 4 charges as listed above.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Comments:
No the next question is not ":When?" but rather, "Does MLA John Les, former Solicitor-General of British Columbia have anything to say?"
 
Page 4 and 5, charges against James S. Duncan and Anthony R. Young:

"Person dealing with government offering bribe", Offer bribe to exercise of influence, Breach of trust by public officer, Offering bribe to government official."

But where are the same charges for David Basi?

Not in Victoria?
 
To answer NVG's question. the Crown decided to try Duncan and Young independant of Basi. I guess this means that the Basi-Virk lawyers, Bolton, McCulloch and Doyle likely won't be handling this case. I wonder if it will be tried in Victoria or Vancouver.
 
"Basi faces a separate court process from the two developers on three counts of fraud and one count of breach of trust."

Is this a case of Young and Duncan going after Basi for failing to deliver the goods after accepting the bribe. Since it is now SunRiver Estates, it sounds like the land WAS ALIENATED from the ALR. Those BC liaRs have a whole bagful of tricks for getting land diverted from growing food.

On another (but BC Rail connected topic)- Even though the glycol filled cars (now admittedly leaking after all) sitting in the Thompson River, near the currently crisis ridden town of Lytton, are CP cars (double walled) from a supposedly CP train. For some reason the CP train was running on CN track. Could that be because CP was worried about the condition of their trackage because of fire and weather lately and the results of recent inspections.

CN on the other hand would have no reason to consider their track as risky IF they hadn't bothered to inspect it. You need to have some protocols in place (or ignored) to maintain the average of a de-railment every third day or so.

Back in the day, I never worried about having a head-on with a train in the Skeena canyon between PG and Prince Rupert. Today, under current CN mangement, I might be nervous sharing the river's edge with CN trains.
 
I may have mis-interpreted that particular sentence in the comment above, which may mean that Basi is being tried separately for his part in the "transaction" with Young and Duncan.

However somewhere, I did get the notion that Young and Duncan were ALSO pursuing Basi through some civil litigation for ? (failure to deliver on bribe is all I can come up with - false advertising about pulling strings).
 
.
Koot,

It would not be easy researching this, but it's inside my head as accepted folklore that CN and CPR do use the same track through some of the most perpendicular sections of the Fraser Canyon.


On the spill ... I can't shake off the recent memory of that head-on crash of two CN locomotives at Prince George. They told us it happened in the rail-yard (it didn't). They told us that there was no spillage (but citizens in the park ON THE FRASER RIVER photographed and YouTubed one helpless overturned CN tanker spilling directly into the Fraser River).

So I hope there are citizen journalists on the job at Lytton today, too.

.
 
.
I can't say it often enough, how much I value the commentors to this site.

You are making really important contributions and some days, when I'm extra tired, it's a real luxury to know that other Citizen Journalists are thinking, searching, commenting. Thanks a thousand times, with flowers.

Koot, that's something new: I haven't heard about a civil lawsuit by Duncan and Young against Dave Basi. It would hold important information ... can you dig into it??

.
 
Mary and Koot I think the reason for CP running on the CN track in the Canyon could be because of the fire there. The fire would be on the Trans Canada Highway side which is the same side that CP tracks are laid in that area. CN is across the river.

I understand a rockslide caused the derailment and have not been in the area. Yet. But that still does not detract from the fact that the accident is on the CN Rail line. Seems to me if its their line it should be their accident. You can bet that CP will be checking very deep and hard into what happened.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home