Tuesday, February 22, 2011

 

Basi says the selective release of only a small portion of the millions of pages of evidence, including more than 7,000 intercepted phone conversations, is wrong. "I want everything released, all the transcripts of the wiretaps -- not just snippets -- let's get it all out," Basi said. "I have consistently called for all documents in this [BC Rail Political Corruption] case to be released and for a public inquiry, which I will fully cooperate with."

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'I Want Everything Released': Basi

By Bill Tieleman 

The Tyee - Feb. 22, 2011



{Snip ... } Basi says the selective release of only a small portion of the millions of pages of evidence, including more than 7,000 intercepted phone conversations, is wrong.

"I want everything released, all the transcripts of the wiretaps -- not just snippets -- let's get it all out," Basi said. "I have consistently called for all documents in this case to be released and for a public inquiry, which I will fully cooperate with."

{Snip} ...

Regardless of the situation, the wiretap transcripts of that conversation and many others appear to have no bearing on the charges Basi and Virk pled guilty to, and received a two-year house arrest sentence for.

The need for a public inquiry

Basi and Virk also had their $6 million legal fees in the marathon case paid for by government, even though they admitted guilt, a decision that stopped the trial before dozens of possible witnesses -- like Basi's boss former finance minister Gary Collins or Christy Clark -- could have testified.

Why were these pages released by police and the Crown in negotiations with CTV news and the Globe and Mail newspaper in response to their court application, and not other documents -- like those obtained by the defence that might tell another side to this important story?

We will never know what really happened in this complex and confusing case unless, as the New Democrat opposition is demanding, a public inquiry is held into the $1 billion deal in 2003 that saw publicly-owned BC Rail sold to CN Rail.

Please join my group Basi-Virk Public Inquiry on Facebook and demand accountability.

Read Bill Tieleman's complete column HERE. 

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/02/22/BasiVirk/


Bill Tieleman is a regular Tyee contributor who writes a column on B.C. politics every Tuesday in 24 Hours newspaper. E-mail him at weststar@telus.net or visit his blog at:

http://billtieleman.blogspot.com.

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Comments:
In their transparent attempt to present Dave Basi as a creature beneath contempt and not worthy of any further public expenditure on things like a public inquiry, the Campbellites pulling the strings in the RCMP, judiciary and MSM are in desperation mode trying to obviate the need for any future public inquiry into the BC Rail debacle.
Ironically, their recent selective reveal to selected press has only served to implicate themselves. This screams for an even broader inquiry that would examine the very roles played by certain RCMP, judges and journalists in this increasingly sordid affair.
 
Exactly ron wilton

There has been no doubt in my mind that we in BC as a people have been manipulated by the Police, the Courts and the newspapers of this province. Nothing short of a complete and thorough public inquiry will suffice. It's time to take back our lives starting with the return of our railway.
 
Dunno, It seems to be falling apart Mary.

Clearly, however he got it, Tsakumis HAS something very interesting and the fact every major media source (including some not so major ones like Bill Tieleman and the Tyee) is trying to ignore what he has gotten - for 'legal' reasons - is getting to be a very big story in itself.

How long do you think it will be before the dam breaks?

I can't imagine this won't be a fairly major topic of discussion at the weekend when the Liberals pick their leader, can you?

I can't imagine, if the 'legal' reasons were legitimate, that the publication of these Tsakumis documents (he now says he's also heard some tapes) would not already have attracted some legal notice and a cease and desist order.

All of which makes the pusillanimous 'paid' media seem utterly irrelevant, don't you think?
 
we need to see how things work in BC to adjust representation properly.
what would BCRail go for if for sale 2011
Who is going to pay pending tax bill at 9 percent.?
 
one question to ask libs is are you selling any other public assets.
 
The judicial system is corrupt. The RCMP are corrupt. They exonerated Campbell, Clark and others? Exonerated my foot, the people of BC know better.

The media is just Campbell's propaganda machine. No-one believes anything they say. The media have disgraced themselves, beyond redemption. They need to be slapped down, and kicked out of our province, along with Campbell and the BC Liberals. Campbell's corrupt sale of the BCR, is, becoming dirtier and dirtier everyday.
 
I don't think Mr. Basi is in any position to be stating what is right or "wrong" as He took the deal offered and accepted hard earned taxpayers dollars to pay his legal bills and the slap on the hand he received as punishment.
That being said, our Government and courts are equally as guilty as him for offering this buy off. There seems to be no-one with clean hands in all of this.That is the essence of why this is so disgusting!
Any hope of an inquiry in my mind will not come from public sympathy for the likes of Basi, it will come however from the lies of people like Christy Clark to the public and evidence being put forward by people like Mr. Tsakumis
It is from there that public anger will demand one, due to people the likes of Ms. Clark and their stupidity.
Don
 
I think now that a full 'public' inquiry is inevitable, regardless of the cost.

What remains to be seen is, if the corporate clout is strong enough to take on the people of BC after 'we' replace the present regime.

As much as Gordon Campbell and his cabinet was/is the focus of our wrath, he/they are merely pawns in the greater scheme of things.

After considerable research, it has become apparent to me, a late comer to the full awareness of this BC Rail debauchery, that David McLean, chairman of CN Rail and CEO of The Mclean Group, should be held responsible for the Campbell criminality that has dispossessed British Columbia of a great deal of our public wealth.

A lot more research will be required to figure out where and when and why and how McLean was positioned to perpetrate the theft.

Some of the dots go back to McLean's early years as a politically connected lawyer, and his relationship with certain prime ministers and Paul Tellier (remember that name?) who was instrumental in privatizing CN Rail at the hands of Brian Mulroney.

Mulroney himself was also a corporate pawn (these dots go way back) and ascended the political throne in similar fashion to Campbell, having been recruited and parachuted onto the corporate political agenda but failing to grasp the ring in his first attempt, being upstaged by Joe Clark. The backroom boys with the help of a fawning media were able to make Joe look pretty incompetent and eventually got their man in office.

Similar even to the Harper, Day, MacKay positioning.(Sometimes I wonder if Day really is the dumb blonde he pretends to be).

We may never know who the background boys are pulling the strings, but one thing is for sure, they don't give a rat's ass about democracy.
 
Look at Basi go! Now wants to drag others into the mud because he got caught, filthy mouthing the very bosses he was suppose to serve.

He knows fine well there is nothing else to disclose, and is making out as if there are wire tap and document evidence that implicates others, yet nothing of the sort has surfaced in some 7 yrs of fishing.

SHame on him. And shame on us all for allowing this circus to play on and on.

Basi is a liar and a convicted felon. That has been tested in a court of law.

THere are no weapons of mass destuction. If there were, he would have used them by now!
 
It seems that the clash of working class vs. rich as we are now witnessing in the Middle East and Madison, Wisconsin is the road to a fair democracy.

A few more hits in the pocket book like HST, increasing Hydro rates, etc. may one day be the straw that broke the camel's back.

It pain's me that once publicly owned profitable assets such as BCR and BC Hydro are no longer adding their profits to our Provincial coffers to help pay for Health, Education, etc. I find government involvement in gambling/casinos to raise revenue despicable.
 
Anonymous 11:45 I agree 100% with your disqust respecting our province's (and other provinces, ie alberta's) addition to gaming revenues.

If the people need services, raise taxes or pay as you go, but to encourage the people into games of chance where the House always (eventually) and takes all your money, is just evil and wrong. Those that can least afford it are driven into bankrupcy, families split, and the criminal element always gravitates to casions.

Madness!


But who among us can change the tide? Who among us is brave enough to do the hard things that are necessary?

Selling BC Hydro off would be the final straw. But of course it would never be a sale, more like a billion yr lease, so the govt of the day could pretend it wasnt really sold.

Let me assure you, once the bank lets you mortgage it, its yours.
And thats a sale.
 
Anon 8:38PM
Nobody in their right mind believes your BS. Go play in traffic troll.
 
http://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/Basi-Virk-Public-Inquiry/115993351804803?v=info
 
Anonymous 8:38 is the low-grade version of the Sun editorial....

"Speaking of which", paid idiots on dirty tricks campaigns (and I don't mean Badsi, I mean Anonymous 8:38, because nobody who wasn't being paid to say something so awfully stupid - speaking of such moles, trolls, spinners, and bait....another cost to be brought to question is the activities of the Public Affairs Bureau - how much partisan work was done on govenrment payroll, masquerading as a press agency disseimaniting legitimate government documentations.

First among the policy and spending changes any really new government should undertake is to take the Public Affairs Bureau budget and apply it to open data, open information, open process. Open government.

So that the documents that only the "accredited" journalists may look at, and selections from which are "what is placed before" columnists like Mark Hume, who make pronouncements on the whole meamning of their contents without possibly having had time to view them all, pandering only to the summary prepared by .... who? Under whose direction? Publishing such documents in a restructured government information bureau would be that bureau's main job, ensuring access digitally to all government information which the public has a right to see; about BC Rail or whatever, but especially for such documents tabled in a case, and previously mandated by the temporarily-presiding judge (if five years is "temporary") to be of interest to the public; access to such information should be constitutional and free of charge.

Why should the taxpayers of BC pay for a partisan public relations/spin doctoring agency with centralized control of the government's information flow? Did we vote for that? Don't think so, huh? They say there are too many costs involved in establishing a process for digital availability, and time spent entering all existing material in (though much is already digital, including the ones destroyed as evicddenece or otehrwise (who knows what else might have been destroyed, considering the track record so far of this bunch....well seems pretty simply that $31 million could go a logn ways to establishing such a system. Why should it go to "government-side lobbyists", which is effectively what the Liberal-partisan apparatchiks are, another way for Liberal Party members to milk the cash cow of the public purse.

And look at the outrage in the UK and Nova Scotia about expense accounts....shouldn't the expense of top Liberal appointees and hirelings be a bit more closely examined, given their rather luxurious scale, relative to cutbacks for everything else. Rather reminds me of the bonuses paid to execs when shareholders are suffering, and the country and economy at large. There's one particular set of expenses that would be very interesting to have a good look at, but it would also be nice to have that person's resume, wouldn't it????

Associate Chief Justice Dohm must have been a few weeks with his black pen, on the main body of evidence that's still in some warehouse somewhere - presumably undestroyed
 
Our Constitution is ignored. Our Civil Rights and Liberties, have been taken from us. Democracy and Freedom, has disappeared since Campbell and the BC Liberals have been in office.

The BC Liberals have, lied, deceived, are corrupt, and cheat to win. It seems, there is more cheating to win, among the Liberal candidates. Why are the RCMP not called upon to investigate, the illegal sign-ups? Craig James called upon the RCMP, to investigate some dual signatures, regarding the HST petition. James even changed the wording, after the fact. Most of the signatures were because, people did not realize, they could only sign in their own riding. The candidates, get to throw their illegal sign-ups in the waste paper basket. They even signed up their cat. The citizens signing the HST twice, get a visit from the RCMP. Why did not James, just throw the dual signatures in the waste basket as, the Liberal candidates got to do? What in the hell, is going on in this province?

We dammed well do, need a criminal investigation, into the theft of our BCR. To do nothing, just paves the way for more corruption, theft, and dirty tactics, against the BC citizens.
 
Anony 8:16. A criminal investigation? What ever for? The courts will kill it. WHat we need is EDUCATED voters to not elect pulp heads, and sensible politicians to not to hire idiots and druggies.
 
SKookum ....????

What reason do you have to not include BASI as an idiot?
 
anon @ 4:29 sez:

"one question to ask libs is are you selling any other public assets."

A better question would be what isn't for sale (or giveaway to the "right" folks) under the libs? Creeks, Rivers, subsidized gas exploration, alienation of ALR lands, the north coast and most northern streams to oil spills from tankers and pipeline, former BCR lands spread throughout the province, BC Hydro (part sold off already), BC Gas (already sold) former Forest Lands for speculation and development, Fish Lake is available to Tesako - if it was up to the Campbelloids. I could go on!
 
Some idiot above sez:

"Basi is a liar and a convicted felon. That has been tested in a court of law."

I call bullshit, NOTHING to do with the BC Rail deal has been tested in a court of law, including the bullshit wiretaps selectively released last week. We had a mock trial with publication bans of virtually everything including its schedule. We had two witinesses suffering from compulsive perjury or early onset dementia and a justice system, premier's office and RCMP playing an ongoing game of failing to disclose evidence, shredding evidence (in the case of the premier's office) and generally obstructing justice on an ongoing basis!!!!!!!
 
Koot,

you name call me an idiot, You use profanities to get your point across.

Go to your room.

I doubt anyone has as much nasty bad stuff as Basi. Chatting with Drug dealers, having a grow op in Shawnigan (Stay of proceedins) taking bribes left right and centre (omnitrax, duncan/young), arranging hookers, using profanity and havijng distqain for his bosses and colleques (just like you, it seems) and you want me to beleive he should get off?

Becuase why? Becuase there may be others who have done bad things too? Look at the bad stuff basi did, the evidence, and it cost 17M to get 2 yrs house arrenst.

Why would we ever want to take a run at anyone else in absense of any reliable evidence with a court system like this? Why not just give the lawyers ALL our god damn money?!!

You must be joking. Either that or you just dont know any better, because the alternative is unthinkable .
 
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