Wednesday, September 02, 2009

 

First batch of gov't. e.mails arrive in court in Basi Virk Case

.

By Neal Hall
Vancouver Sun - September 2, 2009

VANCOUVER - The first batch of government e-mails in the Basi-Virk political corruption case arrived in court Wednesday.

Justice Elizabeth Bennett earlier ordered the government to produce the e-mails and records of the premier, his top staff, cabinet members and a number of MLAs.

The judge said Wednesday the first batch of documents involve 18 members of the legislative assembly.

A government lawyer, Neena Sharma, told the judge that more documents have been found on computer backup tapes and those will be contained in a second batch to be available soon.

A hearing was set for Oct. 13 to discuss the likely relevance of the documents.

The court was initially told that the government e-mails had been ordered destroyed last May. But some electronic records have been recovered.

The e-mails are being sought by the defence lawyers for three former B.C. government aides - Dave Basi, Bob Virk and Aneal Basi - who are accused of fraud, breach of trust and money laundering. {Snip} ...

The controversial $1-billion privatization sale of BC Rail took place in 2004. CN Rail was the winning bidder.

Robert Deane, the lawyer representing BC Rail, told the court that its e-mails are contained on 600 computer backup tapes, and it might cost $100,000 to search those tapes for documents that are likely relevant.

The defence contends documents already disclosed suggest "the fix was in and CN was always going to get the railway" but the government aides were asked to keep OmniTrax in the bidding, which amounted to a "rigged auction." {Snip} ...

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Will the premier testify at the BC Rail trial?

CKNW - Sept. 2, 2009

Read it HERE.

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Comments:
I wonder if there's parts blacked out....
 
I wonder, did Madam Justice Bennett divuldge why she wasn't going to make Kinsella testify at this point? If he is involved, wouldn't it be prudent for justice to have him testify sooner rather than later.
 
S.I.G.,

Thanks to North Van's Grumps, we have a federal justice web-site which may provide Madam Justice Bennett's written ruling.

Go to: In the above, make sure you click on British Columbia, and then put in R v. Basi and it will generate 25 hits.

I'll have to sign off and go fetch the URL ... back in a minute.
.
 
OK, just click on:

http://www.canlii.org/eliisa/search.do?language=en&searchTitle=British+Columbia&searchPage=eliisa%2FjurisdictionSearch.vm&jurisdiction=bc&text=&id=R+v.+Basi&startDate=&endDate=legislation=legislation&caselaw=courts&boardTribunal=tribunals


and like it says above, click on British Columbia, then type in R. v. Basi, and you should be shown a neat list of 25 rulings by Judge Bennett.

The answer you request is, I hope, among them. Or maybe it's a bit early.
.
 
Not only can the team make emails disappear but then some can reappear. Wondere how many more can suddenly be found?
 
The link to what BC Mary calls "federal justice web-site" is:

Canadian Legal Information Institute

Its as easy as 1,2,3,4,5

Skip 1
write in "R v. Basi" for 2 (without the quotes)
Skip 3
At 4, Scope put an X on "Courts"
Skip 5

Hit the Search button


Again the neat thing about this listing is the keywords in the decisions AND if as you go through the decisions there are hot links to other cases that set the precedents submitted by Crown Prosecutors and Defense Lawyers and third party lawyers as well as to why Madame Justice Bennett wrote what she wrote.

eg. "R v. Guess".... as in Gillian Guess in Item #24 which ended up with "our" case going all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
 
Now if you copy "R. v. Basi, Virk and Basi" into Google search box you come up with 2,250 hits, the fourth one down gives some insight as to why the Province (read Deputy AG) selected someone outside of the Attorney General's Office to become a SPECIAL PROSECUTOR.

"SNIP ....... Rather than have a provincially salaried prosecutor handle the case, the province appointed a lawyer in private practice called an independent prosecutor. Presumably, his terms of employment include a rate of pay far exceeding salaries paid to provincial government staff prosecutors. Rumours suggest he receives about $350 per hour plus slightly lesser amounts for his associates.
On top of that, government policy pays the legal fees of private lawyers hired by the defendants. Probably each defence counsel’s hourly rates are near to that of the independent prosecutor. The province may be able to recover those fees from the defendants if they are found guilty...... SNIP

Source: Boucks Law Blog

http://www.bouckslawblog.com/bouckslawblog/2009/05/criminal-law-disclosure-r-v-basi-et-al-provincial-taxpayers-burden.html
 
That BC Rail has their emails on 600 backup tapes gives an idea of just how many tapes the government emails will be on - and somehow the majority of them (the most incriminating ones anyway) magically disappeared from that many tapes...by accident?! Yeah, Right!

Perhaps we need to volunteer our services to search the BC Rail tapes for "likely relevant" mails. I'm sure we could come in at half that price..or less! Bet we could do it a lot faster too, and not miss half of the ones that should make it to court. Hell - we might even be able to serve the best interests of all British Columbians! Imagine that... .

If the government, and its companion supreme court weren't so unutterably sad, so void of conscience - this whole thing would be laughable.
 
Volunteering is a great idea! Anyone know if we taxpayers are going to still have to pay for 1500
civil servants to "volunteer" (a contradiction in terms as they will be fully paid) for the Olympics! O dear, the courts will be shut down for several weeks....guess this trial will be on hold.
 
Does anyone here remember the sell off of BC Rail to CN rail for a Billion dollars? Well, the government, via its declaration to still going green during its four year deficit budget term, will be shutting down the BC Hydro's Burrard Thermal plant at a cost of a Billion dollars so they can reward their Run-of-the-river buddies so they can provide us with needed electricity.

Gordon Campbell, not having been satisfied with an Open and Transparent BC Utilities Commission decision on not needing Run-of-the-river projects to supplement BC Hydro, has decided to instruct the Commission on what to think, and how to act on behalf of the public good will. DAMN that man to Hell with his interfering, stabbing finger, as he told Colin Hansen what to say from the same script on the budget. DAMN the man for telling the Commission on how to be independent of the government, what next, will he tell the Deputy AG what to do with the BC Rail trial, or has that been done from day 1.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Closing+Burrard+will+cost+million+billion/1958063/story.html Closing Burrard will cost B.C. .....
By Marvin Shaffer
 
Will the Premier testify at the BC Rail trial?
Vancouver/CKNW(AM980)
Marcella Bernardo | Email news tips to Marcella
9/2/2009

We'll have to wait a couple weeks to find out if defense lawyers in the BC Rail corruption case will get access to emails sent by BC Liberal Party insider...Patrick Kinsella.

BC Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett has reserved her decision until 9AM September 14th.

lawyers for three former government aides facing corruption charges believe Kinsella played a major role in the 2004 sale of BC Rail to CN, but his lawyer says defense accusations are 'wildly speculative' and there's no proof Kinsella acted as a 'go-between.'

On Monday, Bennett dismissed applications to cross-examine Kinsella during a pre-trial hearing, but she hasn't ruled out making him take the stand at a later date.

Speaking outside court, one defense lawyer says he also hopes to cross-examine Premier Gordon Campbell.
 
Anonymous 8:02,

Many thanks for sending that.

I'll post your message on the main page. Thanks again.
 
Hi Mary,



There was- NO- TV news coverage of the ongoing BC Rail trial last night or this morning that I witnessed.


But, this morning CTV ran the “top stories” text at the bottom of the TV screen that read, “ B.C. government may have lost more B.C. Rail data in political corruption case”.


Neal Hall does not mention more lost data in his story.


I hope Robin was in court and can shine a light upon what “may have lost more BC Rail data,” means?


“Lost,” sounds so unpremeditated doesn’t it?



Parzone
 
Parzone,

There was a little blurb by CKNW which an alert commentor sent in (see above) ...

otherwise, I've found nothing more than Neal Hall's report, either.

Robin was in court yesterday but he's giving extra thought to this column ... it should be well worth waiting for, I think ... as Judge Bennett's days "dwindle down ... to a precious few ... September ... November ... for it's a long, long way, from May [2006] to December [2009] ... " tra lee ...

Yoicks. Did I just start singing? Sorry. [Hangs head, scuffs toe.]
.
 
Today I decided to have another look at just who was doing the PR work for Michael Bryant, former AG of Ontario and I came across this on Sean Holman's Public Eye.

http://www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/000384.html

"Shadowy men from a shadowy planet"
*********************************

In Mr. Holman's post Patrick Kinsella turns out to not being the only one orchestrating the BC Liberal campaign win in 2001, there was Jess Ketchum and Grey Lyle too.... where the latter is a principal in Navigator Ltd.

With all the fuss being made over the BC Liberal fudget budget, cuts to the Arts community, and HST I wonder if it will be the taxpayers of BC paying for Navigator Ltd. expertise or the BC Liberal party.

I'm not saying that Navigator has been hired by the BC Liberals but .....


A search on Google for "Navigator Ltd. principals" comes up with Warren Kinsella being another principal. Mr. W. Kinsella is also mentioned in the Toronto Star on March 10, 2006 by Tess Kalinowski "Board spending $50,000 to seek funding. Lobbyists plans to have parents pressure province."

Does this then make a connection between small "l" and large "L" Liberals during the time that Basi, Virk and Basi were trading insider information, on the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail for plum jobs with the Federal Liberals?
 
Sorry, WP,

Your comment was completely off-topic.

I hope you'll return with a better USER name and some thoughts about BC Rail, OK?
.
 
Was there not an announcement yesterday about a federal court decision and CN Rail? Something to do with failure to replace faulty wheels? (which may have caused so many of the accidents CN has had.) Now I am seeing huge CN trucks emerging from DeltaPort and
barreling down Highway 17. Scary bunch, reckless, too.
 
Anon 7:54,

I can find a report dated June 2008 about that:

http://www.tcrccpreasttrainmen.ca/June_13_2008.htm

but will look farther. Did you try googling "Federal court + CN" for example?
 
Something interesting caught my eye this morning.

From a story The devil was in the missing details

Liberals can blame themselves for bad publicity surrounding budget

By Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun September 4, 2009
snip

made a point during the lockup of surveying a number of my colleagues. Each had a story about some piece of information, some explanation, that ought to have been forthcoming but wasn't.

Why was the mostly privatized BC Rail scheduled to spend more than $300 million over the next three years? What was the impact on annual interest payments of boosting the deficit to $2.8 million from $495 million? Why did it appear as if several ministry budgets were being cut when the government claimed the opposite?

http://www.vancouversun.com/devil+missing+details/1961595/story.html
----
Yes We need to find out WHY "Why was the mostly privatized BC Rail scheduled to spend more than $300 million over the next three years? "

EM
 
EM...not only "why"...but "where?" Is Roberts Bank set to undergo some major upgrades before Campbell decides to give that away as the prize for helping him fleece the public, perhaps?

It will be interesting to see where they plan to waste 300 million this time.
 
.
EM, Leah ...

Good questions.

Good questions to send to Shirley Bond, Minister of Transportation:

BOND, Hon. Shirley
(BC Liberal Party) shirley.bond.mla@leg.bc.ca
.


.
 
See TSB Recommendation R09-03 re:
faulty wheels

See Deltaport Terminal 2--contract awarded to APM Terminals and SNC-Lavalin ( who have many contracts in BC)--for expansion at Roberts Bank.

All part of the Gateway Program of expansion so we can have more trade with China, India, etc. Loss of jobs for Canadians continues. Flooding our marketplace with hazardous products (china, pots and pans--no testing for lead content) etc. etc.
Check list of banned products in US. Of course Harper's Canada is asleep on all this.
Expansion no longer needed. Global recession has reduced need for more terminals. Big issue in South Delta. Check out APE blog if it's still around. Or read Hansard--initial speech for MLA Vicki Huntingtonon Sept. 4.Cheers.
 
I didn't realize that even the Globe and Mail danced to the Assperson/CanWaste tune. Try to access the comments on the Mark Hume article about (in)Justice Bennett's ruling re: cross examination of Patrick Kinsella - YOU WON"T GET TO THE SIXTEEN (supposed) COMMENTS. Depending on the link you use you get another copy of the article or a blank area labeled "latest comments."

try it at home yourself-

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/defence-in-corruption-trial-loses-bid-to-grill-kinsella/article1271153/#comments

If I wanted to live in a banana republic ruled by a tin-pot dictator, I don't even have to move, I'm already there!
 
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