The Legislature Raids

.
BC Mary comment:  Today, Robin Mathews' dynamic column might best be titled "Truth? You can't handle the truth."
 
I agree with anybody who wants to shout  "This can't be true!" But we  already have a sneaking suspicion that what Robin is saying is indeed true. And we certainly  know that we evade the truth at our own peril.

We can't kid ourselves that the things Robin describes, didn't happen. They did happen and we know it. Also, we know that there's worse to come, if we're cowardly about facing the truth. 

So before you begin reading, I'd like to mention a few things we know to be true. And although this trial came to be known by National Post as the BC Rail Political Corruption Trial, I hope we can set aside adversarial politics and concentrate on the outlook for British Columbia if we allow the structural rot to continue unchecked. We know, in general terms, that this is the truth. What Robin has done for us is to reveal the specifics.
 
From my own experience, I can offer specific evidence of structural rot: Police were investigating Organized Crime when they raided the BC Legislature in Dec. 2003. Big Media successfully played that down, but the truth is: Police were tracking 9 "persons of interest", including the man they thought to be the new Mr Big in drugs trafficking on the West Coast:  Jasmohan Singh Bains. It was only when police listened to wire taps between Bains and his cousin Udhe Singh (Dave) Basi in the BC Ministry of Finance, that police also overheard disturbing details of BCRail's tainted negtiations. Police pressed on and  Bains was charged with serious drugs trafficking. This was big, alarming stuff which citizens were entitled to know. Public safety is at issue here, as well as the democratic process.

But from Dec. 28, 2003 until June 2008 there was 5 years of complete silence from Big Media. I know, because I tracked that name almost daily. 

Even in June 2008 when Bains went to trial in Victoria (a stone's throw from the Times Colonist building), Big Media was silent. From June 2008 to December 2008, absolutely unbelievable complete media silence.

It got worse: I broke the story in December 2008 on a tip from a citizen who had overheard a significant comment at one of the BC Rail trial hearings. Disbelieving, I checked the tip for accuracy and found it to be completely true. Bains had been on trial, was found guilty, and was sentenced to 9 years plus a heavy fine. The truth: not a word about it from Big Media.
 
Even worse: after I broke the story in Dec. 2008, Big Media continued to look the other way until a Feb. 17, 2009 column by Ian Mulgrew confirmed my story, gave me credit for the tip ... but again, the cone of silence came down over Big Media. No further mention. None.

So that's the truth: 32 uniformed police raided the BC Legislature searching for evidence with which to convict "Mr Big". Police got the evidence, Bains went on trial, was convicted and sentenced ... and still, the people of British Columbia were left to wonder if Organized Crime had infiltrated the corridors of the BC Legislature.

That's the truth. And it's very hard to handle.  So is this, as reported by Mark Hume -- not in a West Coast newspaper, but in The Globe and Mail on Oct. 13, 2009 -- during the "Bains silence period".

Here is government breaking the law by destroying evidence needed for a case at trial ... needed, quite possibly, to demonstrate innocence on the part of the 3 Accused men. It's truth confirmed and re-confirmed that Big Media has failed in its duty to the public. It's safe to say that, if Big Media in BC had diligently  informed the public of all  practices, the government itself might have been less wild and woolly in these matters.  

Quote:

... Court was told in June that cabinet e-mails in 2002 and 2003 were unrecoverable because backup tapes weren't kept for more than 13 months. That material appears to still be lost.

But Frank Falzon, a lawyer for the Speaker's Office, said a special forensic data recovery team had been working on 20 backup tapes that held MLA e-mail records from April 2003 to December 2004.

'Happily, they have been able to restore 17 or [of] those 20 backup tapes,' Mr Falzon said.

He said MLA records for September 2003 couldn't be recovered but 'the jury is still out' on the final disposition of two other backup tapes, for December 2003 and July 2004.

'In a worst-case scenario ... we still have 17 of 20 backup tapes recoverable,' he said ...

Court wasn't told why the MLA e-mail records could be recovered, while the cabinet records couldn't be ...   [end of quote]

Read Mark Hume's full column HERE:

Contentious e-mails recovered in B.C. corruption trial. 

http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTEwNzY2NzA%3Dhttp://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTEwNzY2NzA%3D



And now, here's the man who has attended almost every hearing and trial session in the BC Rail Political Corruption Trial. Robin Mathews became a familiar, valued figure in the BC Supreme Courtroom.  British Columbia history wouldn't be complete without this kind of fearless analysis. Can we handle it? 



By Robin Mathews
January 9, 2011

In every important matter, almost the whole activity of the Mainstream Press and Media in British Columbia is corrupt, or (by sins of omission) the MSM corrupts itself in the service of active corruption in the province.  We may quote the old saying in relation to ‘the Fourth Estate” in B.C.: “Blessed are the innocent; there are no innocent.”

In this series, focussing on the BC Rail Scandal Basi, Virk, and Basi case, I have examined, so far, the convicted, the Crown, the judiciary, and the RCMP.  The only ones – I conclude - to have come out of the examination with a shred of self-respect, ironically, are ‘the three brown men’ charged (two of the three convicted).

They have been, in my opinion, subjected to years of shabby, dishonest, manipulated, misuse of almost every process used to conduct fair, just, and reasonable criminal investigations and to conclude them with fair and open trial that eventuates in declarations of innocence or convictions of guilt.

I believe criminal charges should be laid now against others – that the evidence is present or close enough for the RCMP to act swiftly … NOW.  The Mainstream Press and Media should be howling for action of that kind.  It isn’t.

A Mainstream Press and Media, doing its work in even the most rudimentary, honest way, would have found out years ago the facts named above. They would have exposed the dog’s breakfast purporting to be a full-scale, expert, legal process. They would have seen the falsehood of claims about legal actions taken in order to remedy the corrupt administration of the people’s business - in relation, specifically, to the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR by the Gordon Campbell cabinet and its associates in the private corporate sector.

Instead, the Mainstream Press and Media have, I believe, served the corruption. They do so almost by the very definition of what they are at this point in history.

They are – at this point in history – large, often mammoth, private corporations with profit-making as their single and fundamental aim.  As large corporations they belong to the present structure of ‘the corporate class’ in neo-liberal society.  That means they serve the interests of their class – which is to ally with others of the same kind, to loot public wealth in every way possible - and to be the voice of a process that manufactures a false reality.

The false reality manufactured is one in which the larger population is led to believe that major economic and social injustices in society are normal and healthy. The false reality is constructed to legitimate the corporate looting of the public treasury and the kidnap of the public assets that should assure stability for the whole population.

Most amazingly, the false reality teaches the working population to support the dishonouring and the subjugation of working groups and working people.

One of the interesting things to watch among the employees  working for the Mainstream Press and Media is the degree to which they, themselves, have been brainwashed into the unreality - and the degree to which they work to destroy the democracy they live in and the freedoms they, themselves, possess.

The false reality is constructed in such a way as to erode democratic freedoms and processes, and to move private corporations – with government help – into positions of despotic power.  The false reality – in order to be maintained - needs corrupt allies in the police force, the legal fraternity, the judiciary – and it needs a supporting cast of corrupt taste-makers, shapers of opinion, and propagandists of the false reality: the Mainstream Press and Media.

To bring those generalizations down to earth in British Columbia, we may fairly speak of the production by the Gordon Campbell group of a false BC Rail, in a false community, facing a false financial construct of financial trouble, that required a false sale, conducted by a false bidding process, in order to place BC Rail in hands falsely presented as ideal, and falsely described as the best rail operators to serve the province and its people.

In order to maintain the fiction that the false reality was a real one, criminals had to be found.  They had to be found in order to show that there were honest, real people inside the false reality who could catch wrongdoers, investigate them, accuse them of wrongdoing, and convict them.  If wrongdoers could be found, then those creating and manipulating the false reality would seem good, honest, and upright – protecting the common good.

The wrongdoers were found.  Their names became household words: Dave Basi, Bob Virk, and Aneal Basi.

I have suggested, in previous PARTS, the role the Crown, the judiciary, and the RCMP play in the construction of the false reality.  The role of the Mainstream Press and Media needs to be examined. It could be examined by following individual press and media actors, showing their contributions to the false reality, and enumerating their stupidities. That would grow tedious … and might seem spiteful, though it wouldn’t be.

A better way – to concentrate information – is to enumerate the failures of ALL the parts of the Mainstream Press and Media in coverage of the BC Rail Scandal and the trial arising out of it of the accused: Basi, Virk, and Basi. Occasionally, I will have to refer to a few specific incidents and journalists.

(A.) The (mostly) gentlemen of the Mainstream Press and Media (the MSM, hereafter) sat in the courtroom over nearly four years and NEVER ONCE questioned the process. Through delays and delays and strange goings-on (such as Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm accepting a motion from William Berardino, Special Prosecutor “to remove” Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett), the MSM said … nothing.

When I criticized Justice Bennett for permitting undue delay, one friendly MSM representative warned me (three times) that if I continued exercising reasonable freedom of expression, I would surely be cited with Contempt of Court.

Through nearly four years of secrecy, denied transcripts, almost inaudible speech in the court, strange judicial goings-on, obvious delay, MSM representatives said … nothing … about the conduct of the judge or behaviour in the courtroom.

(B) When the information was surfaced that the Special Prosecutor was appointed in a violation of the legislation governing the appointment of Special Prosecutors, the MSM journalists actively refused to report it – and one falsely reported I was mistaken in the finding!

The revelation of that wrongful appointment is a matter of primary importance (1) because it invalidates the actions of the Special Prosecutor throughout the case (and very likely invalidates the whole operation from his appointment in mid-December of 2003).  When I reported publicly that I had taken the matter back to the Chief and Associate Chief Justice, to the Attorney General (twice), to the Canadian Judicial Council and to the Special Inquiry on Special Prosecutor appointments – and had been shabbily played with by them all – the MSM would not budge! Silence.

That failure (2) connects to other, key failings of the MSM.  Attorney General (at the time) Wally Oppal violated the Special Prosecutor legislation, too, by “Special Prosecutor shopping” in order to operate a case against the Bountiful bigamists. The case he manipulated into court was stopped in its tracks when his activities became known.  And a case against him in civil court found “the B.C. government” in the wrong.

The MSM did as little reporting of that matter as possible.  And when Wally Oppal was appointed to head the Inquiry into the murdered women of the East End, not a single MSM source I saw asked how – in the light of his misdoings in the Bountiful bigamists matter – he could possibly be appointed. No columnists, no editorials … nothing.

The role of the journalist is to be objective, to be independent – above all NOT to become chummy and involved with police, courts, legal community, corporate interests, etc.

When I applied (after three years of regular reporting on the pre-trial parts of the case) for accreditation as a journalist on the trial part of the Basi, Virk, and Basi matter, I was denied.  I was denied by a committee of journalists, whose spokesperson was Neal Hall of the Vancouver Sun.

That committee of journalists (which has been expanded) “works” for the judges of the Supreme Court!! Called “voluntary”, it - of course - must be seen favourably by the Court and must please the court.

The judges – we all knew – did not like my perfectly acceptable behaviour.  And the (mostly) gentlemen of the MSM did not like it either.  And so the committee of MSM journalists sank a dagger in my back, preventing me from bringing a recorder into the court and from having the right to examine documents filed on the public record in the Criminal Registry department.

I don’t matter.

But the existence of an MSM Committee working in active relation to Supreme Court judges and with their approval to keep out critical commentary of judicial actions is outrageous.  That Neal Hall of the Vancouver Sun can pretend his role is acceptable is almost beyond belief.  That he and the others on the committee can believe they maintain their “independent” status when they are working for the Supreme Court is, also, almost beyond belief.

From the start, the choice [C] of “three brown men” only as accused – out of all the horrendous shenanigans perpetrated by the [mainly white man-manipulated] corrupt BC Rail transfer to the CNR – seemed, at least, strange.  As time went on, a racist component in the Scandal came to seem more and more - and more - obvious.  The journalists of the MSM wouldn’t and won’t touch that matter.  Silence.

RCMP operations (D) became more and more suspect – as disclosure documents in pre-trial hearings were delayed, badly delivered, improperly prepared … and more. Revelations that the chief of RCMP investigations was related to a top functioning Liberal and was alleged to have been reporting to him increased suspicion.

The MSM – through major editorials, columns, and other – should have demanded investigation immediately, should have related the questions about RCMP behaviour to (1) the wrongful appointment of the Special Prosecutor and (2) the fact that only the ‘three brown men’ were charged.  MSM should have (3) seen clearly that the RCMP behaviour had to be connected to the announcement that no elected officials were being investigated. MSM should have declared that announcement the sham it had to be … and should have blown the whole nonsense sky high.

The MSM did … nothing.  It has protected the RCMP, the judiciary, the Attorney General, the Special Prosecutor (the “Crown”) – and in doing so, it has protected the corporate class which owns the Mainstream Press and Media.  The corporate class which owns the Mainstream Press and Media is the entity that Gordon Campbell and the present cabinet serve.

At the abrupt and brutal closing of the trial on October 18, 2010, the Mainstream Press and Media should have howled from the rooftops, should have demanded immediate, rapid RCMP investigation of the main actors in the BC Rail Scandal.

But the MSM is too practiced in disinformation and cover-up to do that.  And so we hear and hear about the need to investigate the paying of $6 million to the Defence lawyers.  That demand, of course, focuses, again, on ‘the three brown men’.  How could ‘the three brown men’ wangle that deal?  ‘The three brown men’.

Turn attention away from Gordon Campbell, Gary Collins, Christy Clark, Geoff Plant, Rich Coleman.  Turn attention away from the cabinet – the members of which always must share responsibility in our system. Cabinet protections are balanced by cabinet responsibilities.  No one who was a member of cabinet when the corrupt decisions were made to transfer BC Rail to CNR can claim innocence.  None of them.

All the more reason – in order to cover-up and shift public attention - why the MSM must try to focus on ‘the three brown men’.

Finally, as a prelude to PART FIVE … a question.  Dave Basi has caused to make public his witnessed memos of 2003.  I believe they are legitimate. I believe they should have gone to the NDP, to be published and to form the strong basis for a demand to have immediate criminal investigation and charges brought against major people in the “deal”.  The institutional force with the greatest power in a democracy – in such a matter - is Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.  Why didn’t the memos go to the NDP?

Their possession in the hands of Alex G. Tsakumis may be strange.  I do not, for a moment, question the integrity of Mr. Tsakumis. He states his interest is the public good, and there is no reason to think otherwise. But the ‘situation’ calls for some answers. Why Mr. Tsakumis?  Why not the NDP?  Why not any one of a number of other blog operators?  Is there a wholly unfortunate basis for the potential for the perception of cloudy motives in his possession of the memos?

Mr. Tsakumis is a known Liberal.  He says himself he was a ministerial assistant in the government of the provincial Liberals.  He was on the board of the NPA, I believe, when the Millenium Development was being decided. And he was on that board, I believe, when the alleged membership battle was fought between Sam Sullivan and Christy Clark for mayoral nomination.

Does he have the same power to move the RCMP to criminal investigation that the Opposition in the B.C. Parliament has?

Questions.  Questions.

But not questions that will be asked by the Mainstream Press and Media in British Columbia.  Their major efforts – as I believe I have understood their work – are undertaken to cover-up the corruption in the province.  The MSM, I believe, wish to assure the continuation of government by the same forces that are looting the wealth of the people and eroding democratic freedoms … with the help of people in the RCMP, the judiciary, the large private corporations, and the legal profession.