The Legislature Raids

Sincere thanks to Paul Willcocks for his skillful summary, and to Victoria Times Colonist for publishing. I tried, but failed, to find only excerpts to publish; however, the mark of a top-rank essay in my view is when one thought leads relentlessly into the next, and the next, to a logical conclusion. This is a prime example of excellence. It deserves full honours. 

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On the other hand, Skookum1 says:


"And how much effort was spent ensuring these practices weren't more common?"

ROTFL.  It's more like "and how much effort was spent ensuring nothing would be found out about how common these practices are".

I remember after the raids, the pundits and the pop-up consultants were saying "but this is the way business is done" and "where will it stop?  Government and business cant' function together without such arrangements" etc.  In fact, one of those pundits might have been Paul Willcocks.  There were certainly a lot of talking heads, all trying to help paper over the situation and express dismay that the case might disrupt the cozy relationship between "the businessmen's party" and "the businessmen".

It's bizarre to read an account of the overboiling stew of BC Rail eye of newt and toe of frog witches' broth that doesn't mention CN, doesn't mention Kinsella, doesn't mention Campbell, doesn't mention David McLean.  And really only talks about Basi, Bornmann, Kieran and, as if almost in passing, Bruce and Christy Clark.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, "if OmniTRAX paid $120,000 just to stay in the running, what did CN pay to come in first place?"

Willcocks doesn't mention once what's widely known - that the main sale, never mind the bollocks of the WMG and OmniTRAX arrangements, was a rigged bidding process distasteful to the other big player railways.  That CN bankrolled Campbell's ambushing of the Liberal Party in the mid-90s, that they bankrolled the scorched-earth 2001 election. 

Willcocks talks about $6 million as if it's a lot of money, relative to the much vaster scam it's just dandruff too.  To me, this article smacks of the same kind of junk we see from the Anonymeese, wanting to focus the controversy on Basi, and Bornmann, and to avoid discussion of elected officials, keeping them out of the way of both public attention and prosecution.  It has PAB written all over it, despite appearing to be "on the attack"....it's an attempt to keep the controversy focussed on the visible, and to keep the larger facts even more hidden and passed over than ever.

It's not as if Basi pioneered the system that he took part in, and it's not as if he was alone in doing the kinds of things he did.  Who taught him?  Who showed him "this is the normal way of doing business"?  "This is the way government/politics runs".  Them that has the money makes the rules, etc.

Also given Mike McDonald's and Patrick Kinsella's association with the Christy Clark campaign, and that these, er, gentlemen, helped oversee and took part in the "dirty tricks" of the Martin and Campbell leadership and election races - that they are cut from the same political cloth as Basi - is something of course the media, even on the attack, give a wide berth to.  That the Liberals are having a membership drive while the NDP have a 90-day lockdown on membership, re their leadership conventions, is suggestive of the bulk signups of the Martin and Campbell campaigns - in which Basi was not alone in contriving, and which were masterminded by a certain federal organizer now not connected by marriage to Clark's campaign, and whose name you also won't see often in BC Rail-related copy.

Willcocks is right in asking who decided who took the bribes are more important than those who paid them.  And if WMG's purchase of the Roberts Bank line was tainted, why wasn't Bruce Clark charged for his role in that?  Why wasn't WMG investigated? Having a consultant who was the Deputy Premier's brother was clever, but exactly what did he do for them?  Why, if OmniTRAX was even investigated, why weren't they charged for offering a benefit?

But these are all bit-players.  The fat lady in this opera is CN, and the "abduction from the seraglio" of the BCR.  Willcocks' article is among a tide of pieces which I think are meant to steer the public enquiry concept solely towards the details of the one transaction, and not the larger context which is far more serious.  In a way, it's reminiscent of Crown's behaviour in the trial, and of the PABsters, wanting to keep attention on Basi and Bornmann, and off everybody else - an "everybody else" who were, as Defence was trying to prove, their political masters and where the orders were coming from.

Did OmniTRAX break US trade laws by squiring junior government officials to come see a football game and have some drinks?  Maybe....but why haven't US authorities acted on this?

And c'mon, how many perks has CN given all kinds of Liberals (in addition to those huge campaign contributions).  And where's that story again, about Campbell, Kinsella and McLean hanging out during the thick of the so-called bidding process?


And speaking of tax fraud, those tax indemnities in the BC Rail deal, those stink to high heaven and given the origin of the deal in a insider-influenced bidding process, the paperwork should be looked at closely....if only we knew where the paperwork was, i.e. what the contracts actually are.

I note the news item about Hydro and the IPPs and the mutual non-disclosure agreement about rates and other terms.  "here's this huge deal, but you're not allowed to tell anyone what it's worth".  Why it's called an "Open" Power Call if it's built so much out of secrets is anyone's guess, but the idea is the same with the BC Rail contracts that nobody seems to know the full details, or consequences of.

They're even more secret, it seems, than anything that was under publication ban or in a sealed warrant.

That those warrants were selective and only targeted certain people, as decided by a Special Prosecutor who was illegally appointed as being too close to the government and the Ministry of the A-G....that those few warrants were politically-defined, that's also of interest to a public inquiry.

Raking over the coals of Basi's relatively petty misdeeds while keeping the big logs out of the fire is what I see the MSM doing right now....scapegoating Basi as smokescreen for the greater misdeeds of those above him.
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Big Mike/Skookum1