The Legislature Raids

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Bill Tieleman weighs in with one of his best columns. Click HERE to see embedded links and provocative photo of Christy Clark:

Hard Questions for Christy Clark
If she runs for Lib leader, she'll face tough queries about Railgate and the HST.

By Bill Tieleman,

TheTyee - Nov. 30, 2010                         


Excerpts:

... as a talk radio host Clark may be adept at asking tough questions, answering them as a BC Liberal Party leadership candidate is much more difficult -- and perhaps politically fatal.

Clark claims she will "think very hard" about running for the nomination on her week off from radio station CKNW AM 980 duties as the afternoon talk show host.

{Snip} ...

Railgate and Bruce Clark

Start with questions about her role in the B.C. legislature raid case, involving the $1 billion privatization of BC Rail to CN Rail in 2003.

For example, Christy, what is your position on holding a full public inquiry into the strange circumstances that saw the political corruption trial of former BC Liberal ministerial aides David Basi and Bob Virk suddenly halted by a guilty plea bargain?

Were you going to be a witness in that trial? Do you agree with the government paying Basi and Virk's $6 million legal fees?

Oh wait, it doesn't matter, because as premier, Clark would have to excuse herself from any cabinet discussion about an inquiry.

Why? How long have you got?

At the same time police conducted the unprecedented raid of the B.C. legislature, they also executed a search warrant on the home of Bruce Clark, Christy's brother and a one-time fundraiser for her campaigns.

According to an agreed statement of facts from the Crown and defence at the surprise end of the trial, confidential government information obtained from Basi and Virk was found by police at Bruce Clark's home and office.

Clark was a lobbyist working for the Washington Marine Group, which was a bidder on a second part of the BC Rail privatization, the sale of its Roberts Bank Port Subdivision, a spur line worth up to $70 million.

The RCMP advised then transportation minister Falcon to cancel the sale because it was "tainted" by the leak of confidential documents. Bruce Clark was never charged with any offences.

The statement of facts reads: "With respect to Count 10 of the Indictment and in relation to the Port Subdivision bidding process, the RCMP seized a number of documents from Bruce Clark's office and residence, which Basi and Virk disclosed to Bruce Clark between Jan. 1, 2003 and Dec. 28, 2003."

{Snip} ...

"Two examples of the documents that Basi and Virk improperly disclosed to Clark are:

"a) The draft Request for Proposals for the Port Subdivision bidding process, which was received by Clark prior to the RFP being finalized by the Evaluation Committee; and

"b) A 'confidential presentation' made by TD Securities to the Evaluation Committee dated Oct. 14, 2003 containing a detailed economic analysis of what BC Rail considered to be the value of the Port Subdivision."

Would she have been a witness?

But that's just the tip of the Basi-Virk iceberg when it comes to Christy Clark's conundrum.

Clark was deputy premier to Premier Gordon Campbell throughout the BC Rail privatization and was a highly probable potential witness in the trial.

She and ex-husband Mark Marissen, a key federal organizer for ex-Liberal prime minister Paul Martin and former leader Stephane Dion, had a home visit from the police after the raid. The police were looking for information about Basi and Virk and Marissen has made clear he cooperated fully -- there was no search warrant.

{Snip} ...

Then there's the so-far unconfirmed rumour that Mike McDonald, the former BC Liberal caucus communications director, will be Clark's campaign manager. McDonald, now a consultant, appears regularly on Clark's show and is husband to Jessica McDonald, Campbell's former senior deputy minister.

But McDonald also has his own connections to the Basi-Virk case.

Again, according to unproven allegations made by defence lawyers in pre-trial hearings, McDonald was involved in supervising Basi's stacking of paid phony callers to radio talk shows, ironically including CKNW.

Virk's lawyer Kevin McCullough on April 23, 2007 read from what he told the court was a police transcript of a call between Basi and McDonald.

"'Dave's asking Mike if he wants to make some calls to CKNW after the MLA is on,'" McCullough alleged. 

Justice Bennett interjected: "Is this a Liberal MLA? "

McCullough: "Yes."

Bennett responded, to laughter in the court: "I should have known that."

At another point McCullough alleges that McDonald and Basi discussed how Basi would organize calls to attack former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm during a radio appearance.

"Dave says they are going to give Vander Zalm a rough ride. [Mike] tells Dave to be careful, they don't want the phone numbers showing up from [government lines in] Victoria. Dave replies, 'Star 67, man,'" McCullough read from what he said was a police wiretap summary. (Star 67 refers to a caller identification blocking option.)

And there's much, much more to the tangled web of the Basi-Virk case that no doubt Clark would prefer was left undisturbed.

But with the trial concluded, there is no restriction on the media or others asking questions.

She's a fan of the HST

Plus, there are more unexploded bombs in Clark's recent past -- such as her steadfast defence of the despised Harmonized Sales Tax and her support for the overwhelmingly rejected Single Transferable Vote in 2009.

So if Clark finally admits she wants to be premier, expect her opponents both in and out of the BC Liberal Party to turn her candidacy into a walk in the hurt locker.

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That is, of course, the party system which has been superimposed upon the political process.

Indeed in BC, it very much was. There were no parties in British Columbia, not at the provincial level, until they were formally introduced and made virtually mandatory in 1903 by the incoming McBride administration. The Tories especially wanted to create party discipline in the House because of the years of chaos that preceded their rise; namely the Dunsmuir-Turner-Semlin-Martin succession, in whatever order that worked; and Martin was a case of a guy who, once in possession of the Crown's power, made a point of not calling the House so he couldn't be deposed (sound familiar?). Before that a Premier had to work with MLAs individually to build policy, and alliances were always shifting, including during campaigns and right after elections...

Party discipline was "for stability" and "to encourage investment"....

Though official parties were not allowed in the House until 1903, there were individuals MLAs who self-declared for one party or another, notably early labour candidates, but before 1900 that was considered rude and ungentlemanly (as was breaking one's word to the electorate).

Another feature of those times that should be revived is, upon announcement of a cabinet, immediate resignations by those appointed, such that they have to win a second mandate to prove their riding's support for their new position. This included the first minister.....

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BC Mary adds: To certain strange readers who believe that everyone operates on orders from nasty people who wish to control the world:  I may be wrong, I may be on a different wave length from you, but just so you know: I am not willing to take orders from anybody ... not them, and not you. 

The Legislature Raids is my own creation. I certainly couldn't have done it without lots of help, input and encouragement from others; but the fact remains: it's my concept, my work, my blog, so my editorial choices. 


You might be interested in the math. I've spent almost 5 years at a minimum (often more) of 10 hours a day reading, reading, communicating, and preparing posts before you ever see them.  My gift to a beloved home province is like this: 


10 hours a day x 365 days a year (the first,  worst assault came at Christmas 2006 - so I guarantee, it's been EVERY day) for 5 years = 18,250 days which, if charged out at a modest $25. a day = a gift of $456,250.00. 


That's not including the purchase of two new computers, the Internet fee, paper & stuff, or any research and travel costs.  OK? Them's my credentials in this matter. Yours?

There is more to running a blog than certain commenters realize. And I highly recommend that if it bothers you that you see the world differently than I do -- and you're sure that some very nasty people are in a big Air Traffic Control Headquarters somewhere on the planet giving Gordon Campbell his diabolical orders -- well, start a blog of your own. 

And when you do, I can report in advance that you'll receive messages which should be buried in the back yard with quick-lime: weird prescriptions, prostitution, pornography, and lots of messages (on a daily basis) in Chinese, Russian, and I forget what else. That's in addition to people who try to promote their own game-plans. On my blog, they are all deleted without apology. All. And don't get me started on the barbaric suggestion that I must publish all destructive rubbish in the name of "Free Speech" because,  for cryin' out loud, nobody is preventing you from setting up a blog of your own.

Think about that. 

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Double Editorial: Gordon Campbell's final hurrah: the restructuring of BC government
Nov 11 and 25, 2010

Maybe Premier Gordon Campbell's 'cabinet shuffle' (actually a restructuring of BC government) followed by a quasi-resignation was no strange muddle but rather a carefully planned strategy. BCLiberals are left with a new, currently unassailable ministry designed to exploit BC's environment. Will they have the courage to undo this? (Restructuring listed in detail.)

Read:
http://www.islandtides.com/assets/reprint/bcgov_11112010c.pdf   and  http://www.islandtides.com


‘Island Tides’ is an independent, regional newspaper distributing 18,000 print copies throughout the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island from Victoria to Campbell River.

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BC Mary comment:  In my view, this is planned chaos intended to cripple the next government no matter who forms the next government.  We must all understand that the duly-elected or duly-hired participants in British Columbia's civic life face the enormous challenge of rebuilding what it means to be a sovereign, independent province ... 


If you ask me, that means getting past the "Me good, You bad" school of partisan politics.  And getting past the corrupted media which pretends that everything is OK when B.C. is at the tipping point soon to go over the cliff.

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BC Mary comment: This is the only reference to the new Ministry of Natural Resource Operations that I've seen in Big Media, and it's only a glancing reference in a Province column by Michael Smyth:

Quote:




It strikes me that this new mega-ministry may be a constitutional violation of some kind; something that would require changing the provincial "constitution", the British Columbia Act or whatever it's called.

Though it's true that even the new system of deputy ministers reporting directly to the Premier's office instead of their ministers is also a constitutional change, though "they got away with it" by "convention" ("what we can get away with you can't stop"). Even the outsourcing of government agencies and services to companies in other countries (i.e. not just selling resources, but selling government operations) may be a violation of constitutional sovereignty.

All big legal research cases if there's anything to them; and the money that would take, well, let's just say the people on the other side are the ones who have money for lawyers. Or are, as in the case of too many politicians, actual lawyers. And dang nab it, wouldn't you know it - 100% of judges, 100%, are lawyers. No wonder the court system is what it is......add in a stew of media/communications spin - note that Knowledge Branch of the MoF - and you've got a marketing machine for Alberta-style environmental/industrial rapine )or perhaps "Asia-style" might be the better term, considering the scale of the market and also of what the extractions will look like and what they will cause....).

this new ministry strikes me as First Lieutenant or something; the Finance Minister is normally the second-in-command, or the most powerful anyway, though in BC of late it seems the Attorney-General's ministry has been, well, being too powerful and not, er, very impartial. But Natural Resource Operations, that's got so many hats stuffed into its box it's like half the government....or more. Is this the position for hte new "shadow Premier"....'cause I think the plan this time is to give us a Reagan-like puppet, and have someone else hold the reins. And this ministry is certainly those reins.....

Another question is exactly whose idea is it, the mega-ministry - and is it widely supported by Liberals, or some crazy-jack action from Gordo acting semi-alone? i.e. is this cabinet configuration going to stand definitely (do all leadership candidates support it?).

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BC Mary comment:  No yelling, please. At least ... not until AFTER you have read what the Communist Party of B.C. has to say about the resignation of Gordon Campbell.  Here goes ... 


Campbell was Devoted to Corporate Welfare

Statement by the Communist Party of British Columbia on the resignation of Gordon Campbell

Nov. 5, 2010

The three terms of the Campbell Liberals have been characterized by implementing the lowest taxes for the wealthy and  corporations in North America at the expense of the standard of living, wages and social programs of BC residents. His forced resignation is a compliment to a tenacious and awakened electorate who has had enough.

In his devotion to corporate welfare, Gordon Campbell kept the minimum wage at the lowest level in Canada while presiding over an economy where the top ten CEO’s collectively in 2009 earned $70 million dollars. Upon the imbalanced scales of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, Gordon Campbell’s weight was always on the side of extreme wealth.

For seven years British Columbia has had the worst child poverty in Canada. After nine years of tuition fee increases, B.C. takes in more from tuition fees than it does from corporate taxation. The massive privatization of healthcare services, with parallel cutbacks in quality and accessibility, has channelled hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into corporate bank accounts, while rolling back healthcare wages 15% and then freezing them at that level.

The Campbell Liberals repeatedly broke election promises that had value to the public, and steadfastly adhered to every policy that gave away public resources to private business. They have brought almost every school board in B.C. into a funding crisis that has put nearly 200 schools on the closure list so far. They broke their promise not to privatize BC Rail, and in the corrupted bidding process implicated cabinet ministers in a scandal currently hidden behind two scapegoats and a plea bargain that hides the extent and involvement of elected officials in betrayal and corruption.

The Campbell Liberals have gutted the Environmental Assessment Act and created Cabinet powers that overrule municipal by‑laws and autonomy to the point that municipalities can only govern if they don’t interfere with corporate interests. They cut the transfer of gambling profits to Charities and the Arts from 33% to 10%. They made massive funding cuts to women’s shelters, closed down homeless hostels, and cut and slashed their way through almost every social or special needs program in the province.

For Gordon Campbell to whine about a vindictive public and the strain on his family after ruining so many lives is typical of the arrogance and contempt he and his government have exercised. The NDP MLAs and Party Leader who stroke him on his way out with platitudes about “years of public service” should tell the truth and expose the years of “corporate service” if they don’t want to appear as members of the same club.

Gordon Campbell was not brought down by the parliamentary opposition; he was not brought down by a caucus revolt. He was brought down by massive public rejection of the Liberal Government’s record of lies broken promises and deceit that made it impossible for him to continue. The HST debacle and the transfer of $1.6 billion from the public to the private purse has become the catalyst, the glue of all the diverse forces screaming betrayal.

The historic pending referendum is evidence of the public rage. Gordon Campbell is going, he should be gone and his entire caucus that supported him doggedly should leave with him.

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The RCMP.  The BC Rail Scandal Basi, Virk, and Basi Case.  The RCMP. The War Measures Act of 1970 and the FLQ. Two stories. A single thread connects them.

36 hours after the War Measures Act was imposed on October 16, 1970, I was at a party a few blocks away from the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.  Many of the people present were NDP – most present were going to the protest demonstration the next day, a Sunday, against the imposition of the War Measures Act (the WMA).

Organizing had gone on, and Conservative, NDP, Creditiste (Quebec Social Credit) MPs were anxious to be at the protest, as well as many, many others.  The day before, I had been on the phone to Eric Neilson, Conservative MP for the Yukon.  He had trouble hearing me.  “This phone line is terrible”, he said.  “I can hardly hear you. I wonder what’s the matter.”

“I’m afraid it’s quite simple,” I said.  “The RCMP is tapping my phone and yours, too.  That drains the line.”  “They can’t be tapping my phone here in the Parliament Buildings”, he said.

He was right.  To do so was a violation of Canadian Constitutional practice.  He proved later that the RCMP was tapping his phone. And that was just the beginning….

Eight days after the War Measures Act was imposed, I gave an address at York University in Toronto.  My speech challenged Pierre Trudeau and the WMA and traced its ill effects on reform activities and radical groups across the country.  Unknown to me, the RCMP recorded the address and put it in my RCMP file in Ottawa.  The last time I could get someone “inside” to check, it was still there.

As the party near the Parliament Buildings was winding down, someone turned on the TV – and there was the news that the murdered body of Pierre Laporte (kidnapped Quebec cabinet minister) was found in the trunk of a car near St. Hubert airport. He was the second of two kidnapped – the other being James Cross, British diplomat, later freed. After the imposition of the WMA, (before the death of Laporte) hundreds of Quebecers were arrested, jailed arbitrarily without charges and without reason given … pulled from their homes often in the middle of the night. The whole process looked planned….

Our house party ended.  The next day, Sunday, thousands of shocked and puzzled Canadians flowed to the lawns around the Parliament Buildings, disturbed and unhappy.  NOT, as the Mainstream Press reported, to “support Trudeau and the WMA”.

The planned protest?  No Conservatives, no NDP, no Creditistes appeared.  Only Ottawa’s leading lady activist Charlotte McEwen and about eighteen Marxist Leninists and … me. We had placards. We discussed and conversed with people for hours… with barely a hint of animosity from anyone there.

The death of Pierre Laporte was crucial.  The arranged protest had almost evaporated.  The mood of the country changed … suddenly.  The story has been told … and told (falsely, says Louis Hamelin).

Now he has just retold it in a 600 page novel in which real characters (barely disguised) abound.  The novel (in French) is the result of eight years of intensive research by author Louis Hamelin.  In it, apparently, he repeats the idea that involved mediator/novelist (at the time) Jacques Ferron argued - that Pierre Laporte didn’t have to die. But was sacrificed believes Hamelin… for the long laid plans of Trudeau and … others.

Louis Hamelin believes that the people in power and the RCMP played the part of puppet-masters in a way that even the principal FLQ actors didn’t know.  Pierre Laporte was manipulated (to his death): “It is my interpretation of the October Crisis: [says Hamelin, ACTUALITE, Oct, 2010] a man was sacrificed, when he could have been saved”.  The felquistes, too, (as they’re called in Quebec) were also the playthings of power, manipulated unknowingly by political power and the RCMP.

We knew already that the RCMP created fake FLQ cells and blew things up – to frighten the population and make it believe the FLQ was stronger than it, in fact, was. FLQ cells were no sooner disbanded or broken up than new ones formed.  That wasn’t difficult when the RCMP was forming them.

We know the RCMP lawlessly raided offices and stole parti Quebecois membership lists.  We know it burned down a barn in the countryside, intending to blame the FLQ for the fire.  We know those things – and others - created the most expensive Royal Commission (to that time) in Canadian history: the McDonald Commission.  One of the causes of the Commission [take note] was that the RCMP had conducted 400 break-ins without warrant, mostly in B.C. All of those things, and more, brought forth the McDonald Report.  Its title showed its farcical nature – “An Inquiry into certain activities of the RCMP”.

People don’t know that Trudeau went very far from Quebec to find someone totally independent for the Royal Commission– and appointed, by the merest accident, a Liberal flack known as such in Alberta where he lived.  People don’t know that the terms of the Inquiry limited David McDonald and prevented him from looking at RCMP overseas activity where the Force is alleged to have arranged the death of people connected to the FLQ.

Hamelin suggests that even the first kidnap – of James Cross was “perhaps a gigantic police provocation”.  The police had foiled attempts to kidnap the Israeli consul in Montreal and the U.S. consul later.  How come they let the kidnap of James Cross go ahead? Hamelin believes they intended to let it go ahead … and he suggests the CIA had a hand in matters.

The point is made.  The RCMP was up to its armpits in illegal activity in the matter of the FLQ Crisis – even if we don’t go as far as Louis Hamelin does.

What was the historical result of such concentrated and continuous lawlessness on the part of the RCMP?

David McDonald was appointed in 1977 and he finished his Report in 1981. Very obviously agreements had to be made, and recommendations had to be of such a kind that the RCMP wasn’t embarrassed or rebuilt in any significant way.  The RCMP had high cards to play.  If David McDonald tried to steal RCMP power, or if the Liberal government did, then the RCMP could … talk …  could embarrass government in a huge way. The historical result was that the RCMP couldn’t be reined in.

Louis Hamelin has his theories – which he plays out in his novel, “La constellation du lynx”.  My theory, too, is that the government of Pierre Trudeau enlisted the RCMP (the army, the CIA, British Intelligence, and more) in a gigantic, lawless move to do what it could to destroy the FLQ as well as any and all left and independence movements in Quebec.

What government didn’t know it had done - was create an RCMP that could move increasingly, at its highest levels, independently of its lawful mandate, into what I insist on calling ‘organized crime’. It could move, now, independently of government, now in support of neo-conservative governments, now in cooperation with governments engaged in breach of trust at the least, and in criminal activity at the worst.

Remember that in the December 2005, in the heart of the federal election the RCMP broke constitutional practice – again – to help the Harperites win the election, by announcing a criminal investigation into Liberal cabinet member Ralph Goodale’s finance department.  Remember, the RCMP – I am convinced – conducted a highly flawed investigation of Glen Clark to assist Gordon Campbell in gaining the premiership of British Columbia.

And remember that the RCMP chief of the investigation in the BC Rail Scandal during 2003-04, Kevin Debruyckere, was brother-in-law of Kelly Reichert, Executive Director of the B.C. Liberal Party.  Defence alleged Debruyckere was informing Reichert who was informing Gordon Campbell all about the investigation. But the trial was brutally aborted before any of that matter could come before the jury.

Remember the RCMP was investigating finance minister Gary Collins on December 12, 2003.  Remember that almost on that same date William Berardino QC was appointed Special Prosecutor in violation of the legislation governing such appointments. The investigation of Collins stopped without any formal record of its termination.  And the trial was aborted before any of that matter could come before the jury.

Glen Clark was forced to resign as premier in 1999 in B.C. What I call ‘the fraudulent RCMP investigation and trial of Clark” ensued, his political career was ruined by both the accusations begun in Gordon Campbell’s constituency office and by an RCMP investigation headed up by a friend of Campbell who was twice invited to run for office on Campbell’s ticket. The Mainstream Press and Media conducted a vilification campaign against Clark without parallel in B.C.

Proof for me that the RCMP investigation was fraudulent came to me when I asked for a Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP review of the investigation.  The RCMP shut it down.  I persisted.  Finally, a full three years later, the Public Complaints Commission sent me its Report – finding that two experienced RCMP officers “wrongfully” terminated the investigation! And then, of course, Glen Clark had spent 136 days in trial – his lawyer insisting more than once that the “evidence” against him was valueless. When the trial ended, Clark was absolved of all charges. But by this time – as planned, I believe – Gordon Campbell was premier of British Columbia. (And his relation with the RCMP was solid.)

Louis Hamelin believes that in Quebec “the fix was in”.  The October Crisis was fabricated.  The outcome was drafted before it began. Many in B.C. believe that before BC Rail went up for sale “the fix was in”.  And a part of that “fix” was that the RCMP would do a tailored and thoroughly corrupt investigation.  They never, in fact, undertook to investigate the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR.

In fact, top government officials talked with the RCMP about the (search warrant) raids to be conducted on the legislature, December 28, 2003, keeping no records. Documents I examined reported Beverly Busson, top RCMP officer in B.C., was present at one of the planning meetings.  When the ‘raids’ were completed Martyn Brown, Gordon Campbell’s Chief of Staff, (by his own testimony) spoke on the phone to Gary Bass, soon to become the new top RCMP officer in B.C.

Gary Bass, incidentally, refuses to investigate the major people involved in the corrupt transfer of B.C. Rail to the CNR.

Louis Hamelin believes the FLQ members involved in the kidnaps were “set up” by the RCMP and were the Media Front Men for a process intended to do something they never planned.  Yes, they were criminals. But they were used brilliantly by others. And all the other crimes involved in the October Crisis have never been touched.  Many of them committed by the RCMP.

Many, many people in B.C. believe Basi, Virk, and Basi were set up by the RCMP and were Media Front Men to disguise a criminal process undertaken by others.  Yes, two of the accused men admitted guilt.  But they were used brilliantly by others. And all the other crimes involved in the BC Rail Scandal have never been touched. Many of them committed by the RCMP.

The difference between the two historic events is that the felquistes had almost nothing on the RCMP or the governments of Quebec or Canada. Basi, Virk, and Basi had been in close with the government operatives managing the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR.  And so they could “deal”, even though they were cornered.

In both cases the RCMP (so far) got away Scot free.  The power of the RCMP grows.  It tightens its relation with unsavoury governments.

It moved from its role in the October Crisis  - in which, I believe, it was asked to act lawlessly – to the BC Rail Scandal where it repeated its role, I believe, as a facilitator of criminal activity.

When the Pubic Inquiry into the BC Rail Scandal is set up, a major portion of its work must be the investigation of the role played by the RCMP.

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See:  Report of Proceedings

Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

Source (in full): http://www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/37thparl/session-4/cc/hansard/C31008a.htm


Review of the Organized Crime Agency
of British Columbia



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