The Legislature Raids

Vancouver Sun - November 04, 2006
Re-posted 3 years later: Nov. 27, 2009


VICTORIA - On the day after the police descended on the B.C. legislature in late 2003, an RCMP representative met with the news media to discuss the raid.

"Let me start by saying that illegal drug activity by organized crime in B.C. has reached critical mass," Sgt. John Ward told reporters.

"Organized crime has stretched its way into every corner of B.C. and into most city streets. It is not an exaggeration to say that organized crime is a cancer eating away at the social and moral fabric of B.C. . . . However police are making gains against organized crime where we can."

Illegal drugs. A cancer eating away at the fabric of the province. The tentacles of organized crime reaching inside the provincial parliament ....

...................snip........................
The aides are accused of being involved in the exchange of confidential information regarding the sale [of BC Rail] and of gaining benefits and/or other considerations in return.

But one possible defence would be that they were authorized to pass along information to keep the bidding process alive.

That was a critical consideration for the B.C. Liberals as they moved to privatize BC Rail in the second half of 2003.

The preferred bidder was CN Rail. It had a continent-wide rail network and it was offering the highest price -- $1 billion.

But to preserve the competitive aspect of the process and to keep pressure on CN, the government needed other bidders.

Initially there were three. But one dropped out in the early going and a second exited in the final month, complaining that the process was tainted.

With only one other bidder left, the competitive aspect was hanging by a threat. Not surprisingly, the Liberals wanted to keep that alternative player in the game.

The rival bidder was OmniTRAX, a Colorado-based operator. It did stay in until the announcement Nov. 25, 2003, that CN Rail would takeover BC Rail.

OmniTRAX subsequently got involved in bidding for another BC Rail asset, the spur line serving the Roberts Bank superport.

There was talk that it might prevail in the bidding process as a sort of consolation prize.

But the Roberts Bank sale was cancelled in early 2004. Police had advised the government that confidential information regarding the spur line had ended up in the wrong hands, possibly compromising the bidding process.

The charges in the case imply a tit-for-tat. The aides were allegedly passing confidential information to gain something for themselves.

But what if any passing was inspired by their bosses, the politicians? What if the objective was to keep OmniTrax in the loop and thereby preserve the credibility of the BC Rail sale? ...

vpalmer@direct.ca

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Is that a Freudian slip or a typo, where Palmer says "the competitive process was hanging by a threat" or did he mean "thread" ... in the Legislature Raids case, who can guess.
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Reposted thanks to Pacific Gazetteer's reminder. Thank you, RossK. Now, go HERE for a lot more on this. - BC Mary.

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