Friday, April 08, 2011

 

BC Rail hasn't left the station

.
BC Politics will now shift into Overdrive

By Richard Hughes
January 4, 2011



BC Mary comment: Please visit the blogsite of Richard Hughes for the embedded link, and for the gorgeous image of BC forests and their place in BC history.


Today -- 3 months after he wrote this -- Richard brings new life to the wise old adage (plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose) which says the more things change, the more they stay the same.


Excerpt:

... David Basi and  BobbyVirk take the fall for the real bandits that so far have gotten away scott free with selling off BC Rail, the biggest conspiracy in BC History.

The BC Rail Sale has been the biggest most corrupt case of deceit and wrong doing in BC History.  Former Provincial Government Executive Assistants David Basi and  BobbyVirk had their six million dollar legal bill picked up in exchange for their guilty pleas. While Abbott is tippy toeing around a review he comes up short in calling for a full scale Public Inquiry into the BC Rail Sale that has been demanded by the far right, the far left and the far middle.

Surely as night follows day a Full Scale Public Inquiry will eventually be called. In the meantime we will be treated to a political dance over the hot coals that will only get hotter. Who will finally spit it out and make the call?

It won’t be Christy Minister Clark former Deputy Minister when much of the wrong doing took place is leading the polls in her bid to take over the Premier’s Chair. She says that it has been dealt with and wants to move on!

Mike DeJong danced about with CKNW  Talk Guy Michael Smith. The former Attorney General refused to step up and make the call for an inquiry. DeJong referred to a review but after  huffing and puffing  he was just blowing smoke. Interestingly his fingerprints are all over the Basi Virk deal where he approved the deal that paid the Basi Virk legal bills and relieved former key Cabinet Minister Gary Collins the discomfort of having to take the stand.

So far, all leadership candidates are reluctant to take responsibility for the BC Rail deal ...

http://richardhughes.ca/tag/michael-smyth/

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""



Comments:
Has anyone contacted W5 or sixty minutes? This is the type of sleaze that there fans live for? This is the type of publicity scandal needs...
 
Dear BC Mary

I was absolutely gobsmacked to receive your comments and have portions of my blog featured on the Legislature Raids.

BTW the scene you referred to is a picture of the Kinsol Trestle in the Cowichan Valley. Sharon Jackson sharon@jacksononthemoon.com has set up my blog and assists me tremendously.
 
Richard,

I am thanking YOU ... and so many others, like us, who simply will NEVER forget what BC Rail meant to a beloved province.

And it wasn't as if that -- huge as it was -- was all that was pirated. In fact, I believe that BC Rail was the template for all the other wrong-headed plans for creating "revenue" by selling the farm.
 
P.S.

Richard, I looked up the Sharon Jackson link you provided ... what a treasure-house of sanity!

On various topics, very impressive ways of making our wishes known without creating World War Three.

I especially liked the style of

http://ecodepotfacts.com/


Thanks again.
 
BCR Piglet,

Go for it. At least, on W5. Remember, too, that it takes them weeks, maybe months to pull together a major story.

I know one of the W5 producers and we talked about this. Of one thing I am totally convinced: citizens (the public) MUST keep asking ... politely, persistently, repeatedly asking "How come a province could lose its lifeline, and never know how it happened? Can corporations -- even foreign corporations -- just snatch our rivers, ferries, forests, drinking water, fish ... ?"

o.m.g., how plain it is: yes they can, and yes, they did! and it won't be corrected or even stopped
unless we speak up.

Well, blessings upon you BCR Piglet, please keep asking.

P.S. What is a "BCR Piglet"?

8 April, 2011 7:40 AM
 
Meanwhile Christy is madly scrambling, to disassociate herself from Campbell.

She is trying to get away from, Campbell's fraudulent sale of the BCR. Not working Christy, you were there and so was your brother Bruce.

The BC people will make sure, that cloud of the corrupt sale of the BCR, hangs over your head forever.
 
Dave Basi and Virk took no fall from anyone. They got caught doing something entirely different: taking bribes and leaking documents. They did that on their own free will and in concert with no one.

The wire taps are clear evidence of the level of contempt Basi had for his bosses, colleques, and anyone that wasnt Brown and its is clear to me that his motivation was his own self interest and greed.

The trail of payments through accounts of Virk into the hands of Basi seals the deal. These guys are no good criminals, and they took no fall for anyone, but tried with all their might to find a way to implicate their higher ups and failed to do so.

If they could have they would have, and you would have seen the largest wrongful dismisall case in BC history, and that just didnt happen.

The BC Govt were fools for hiring Basi and Virk and fools for crafing a deal for them to not have to pay their own legal fees.

Please tell me we arent still paying BVBs legal fees?
 
To the shy one:

You are virtual royalty on this site ... stay with us, and let us know how you see things!

Thanks!
 
I went for a ride on, The Royal Hudson, which was run from the Squamish, BCR terminal. We rode in an open car, it was wonderful. I can't even think of that, old Royal Hudson locomotive without a tear in my eye.

Tourists loved the history of the BCR, and especially loved the old steam locomotive, with it's lonesome whistle. That Campbell thieved and sold our BCR, makes me absolutely furious.

I have e-mailed and railed at different Liberal ministers and mla's even on to, as far as Ottawa, however, no one cares.

Campbell thieved our BCR and sold it. BC people just don't count in Ottawa. All Ottawa does, is grab our tax money and we the BC people, can go to hell, and pray we will get some crumbs back in return.
 
5:39,

I know what you mean.

BC people DO count, and never let "them" convince you otherwise.

The problem is those Rocky Mountains and the difficulty of getting NEWS to fly over them toward where so many Canadian citizens live, i.e., eastern Canada.

Big politicians count on us to give up when the obstacles are ... well, the Rocky Mountains. But that doesn't count so much anymore, with the Internet, and instant messaging. We can keep the spotlight on the issues and keep reminding the federal MPs that there's a tragedy unfolding in BC which is partly their fault.

Also, I really think they DO care ... the problem is that they don't KNOW about BC Rail. Our job is to tell them ...

Please don't give up. Right now, I'm patiently trying to obtain a list of witnesses who are scheduled to speak at the Eric Bornman hearing on April 26. Simple, democratic request: the list of witnesses, for those of us who are interested in Bornman's role as Crown witness in the BC Rail affair.
 
wouldn't it be fun if that list of witnesses included all those who dodged the bullet in Courtroom 54?

Nah, too much to ask for.....but I daresay Dave Basi would make an interesting witness.....
 
Mary,

When you do get the list pleasepost it for all to see. I think that retribution can be done after the LSUC hearing - whatever the outcome. At least we will know who is promoting and supporting crooked "so called lawyer" applications and cwe can act accordingly.

Thanks
 
To Mr "Thanks",

I'll certainly share the news, if the Law Society of Upper Canada does decide to let us have the list of witnesses testifying at the Bornman hearing.

What do you mean by "retribution can be done "after the hearing" ... ??? It has an ominous sound.

Also, we don't know whether any of the witnesses will be supporting or denouncing Bornman.

It won't be long now, however, until we know.
.
 
there is no way a Law Society, any Law Society, would admit anyone into their fold that has knowingly passed along bribes, to compromise a govt operative into handing over confidential documents that would give advantage to one over another in respect of a bidding process.

Quality of character is paramount. Look how much one rogue member cost the BC Law Society for fake real estate conveyances!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/06/05/bc-martin-wirick-sentenced.html

There is no Law Society that would accept another rogue. Except for maybe a Law Society from a Banana Republic, or some other crooked jurisdiction.
 
Anonymous 7:11,

I want to believe you; truly, I do.

But I must ask: what if the Law Society of Upper Canada doesn't KNOW the full story of how the sale of BC Rail morphed into an explosive trial in BC Supreme Court? I'd bet that they might know very, very little if they read only the Ontario editions of The Globe and Mail and Tornto Star, or even if they follow the news on CBC. Those Rocky Mountains are a formidable barrier.

Erik Bornman a "rogue"? So far as I know, he has been convicted of nothing. Quite the opposite (in some ways of thinking) he was Berardino's little helper, in making himself available to assist the Crown Prosecutor.

Citizens must keep a close watch on events, and we must get used to speaking up when it can clarify the issues. The Bornman "good character" hearing is certainly one such moment in BC history.

I don't really believe you're advocating complacency, are you?

P.S. Have you read "Lawyers Gone Bad" by the former Dean of Law at U. of Western Ontario? The author, Philip Slayton, is not saying all lawyers are bad (or good), he makes the point of describing the challenging, often disturbing legal environment in which lawyers work. Included are some very strange decisions by Law Societies.
 
BC RAIL, BC FERRIES, BC HYDRO, BC RIVERS, Etc.
 
Anonymouse 10:12,

Please complete your message.

What is it that you'd like to say?
.
 
... the wholesale theft of assets rightfully owned by certain North American Indian tribes and bands.

Just to set the matter straight.

The Govt gets to play santa claus with the First Nations' Assets by granting 990 yr leases to big business buddies, so that they may parachute into BOD positions after their political winds stall.

BC Rail tracks span across land stolen from The First Nations.

It never belonged to the people of bc, if never belonged to David Basi, Campbell, or anyone living downtown Vancouver or Victoria, just in case you forgot.
 
.
Anonymous 10/04/11/1:11,


What is it about this statement that you don't understand:

BC Rail belonged to us all.

.
 
Didn't someone say "Follow the Money"?
Gordon Campbell, Basi and Virk were merely facilitators. Had this case proceeded to its logical conclusion you can bet that there would be some serious revelations!

What I want to know is:
1) How did Basi & Virk manage financially over those seven years before pleading 'guilty'?

2) How are they managing these days?

3) Are they in someone's (beside the taxpayers) employ?

4) When and in what amount do they start collecting their taxpayer funded pensions?

5) Did they pay taxes on the $6 million 'employee benefit' provided by their taxpayer employer?
 
Damn I get tired of hearing the "white people never owned anything here" line of divisive crap...the definition, based on the possession of an Indian Act status card, vs other people of aboriginal descent who DON'T have those cards, often living the same town, but who are castigated for being "settlers" and pretty much have it indicated to them that they should leave. Same with the mounting prejudice against white people among visible-minority immigrants "this is our country now" etc (or just hostile stares at people for being "big and white" - like I am - or living "our way", not theirs...).

Don't they realize this is all "divide and conquer" and intentionally so? Not just First Nations governments but even First Nations political extremists who don't even like their "Indian Act governments" are caught up in a sea of hatred and division and possessiveness and jealousy/rivalry, and want to dispossess the people who lived alongside them, generally peaceable, intermarried with them, hired them (often at better wages than whites) but now disown their own in-laws and cousins based on the "us and them" psychology that bother governments and academia pander to now. All it does is keep people, the people, from being united so the corporations can have their way. And that "way" includes suckering First Nations and their aboriginal rights in order to get lines of credit and also moral approval for highly questionable projects, whether that's mines or power projects or "agreements" like the St'at'imc Energy Agreement.

Buy-offs with built-in race hatred used as the motivating force; "Get even" as the brand of politics used to sell band governments and radical native politicians alike so as to dispossess the rest of society, particularly so-called "Europeans" (a term which distastefully is now used for people born in Canada in racial terms). What are we supposed to do if the natives take it all over and push us all out, and take back "their" resources? Will Europe take us back? Is there somewhere else to go? We are becoming a people dispossessed - and slandered - by the very people we helped and opened our hearts and doors to (doors in the case of the "New Canadian" visible minorities, who even have had our history revised to suit their resentments and prejudices, and aren't even interested in the history of culture of the rest of us; multiculturalism has been a one-way street).

cont....
 
cont....

"White people never owned any of this, they stole it all" etc.....rank racism. "White people had the upper hand and excluded Chinese etc and allowed us to work for lower wages and it's their fault even though we offered to and got them mad, but those were racist whites and the money motive has nothing to do with it, they were just stupid racists".

It still sticks in my craw that about the very same time Ottawa was grovelling over the Head Tax, and that "Iron Road" diatribe flick about the building of the CPR, and the forelock-tugging about lower wages paid to the Chinese in railway construction etc - about that same time, the Chinese community, money and political and academic, had no problem at all about using 1/3 wage Mexican labour to build the Canada Line.

And other than the coverage about BVB in the Indo-Canadian Times, mostly about how it was allegedly a racist conspiracy against "the brown guys", the "ethnic press" has said little or nothing about BC Rail, BC Hydro, privatization etc etc etc...the politics of division, of creating separate communities of bias/desire that can have nothing in common - IMO this was all deliberate. Divide and Conquer.

... the wholesale theft of assets rightfully owned by certain North American Indian tribes and bands. etc etc etc

Subtext: all the non-natives here who thought they had a stake in this place are not welcome, they deserve what they don't get, they should leave....except for those nice bankers and executives who have given us even fatter payola than Ottawa has given us, and now we can call ourselves CEOs and Directors and snub our noses at other people for not having the same skin colour as ours.

All I know is I was born here, this is where I'm from. Do I have no rights at ALL??

I know you'll say this is off-topic Mary, and material you'd rather not get into; but I'm just so TIRED of hearing prejudiced, pretentious, hateful crap like what anonymous just spewed I had to rant. Stuff like that makes me puke; and if anything is turning me, as a life-long supporter, against native culture and rights and history; we are all one people, called the human race. We weren't here from "time immemorial" but we didn't come here to steal; our parents came here to work. WE WERE BORN HERE What does that make us? Apparently no better than the Romany in Europe, or the Untouchables in India. Somehow we are branded as "settlers" and "conquerers", as we watch tax money go to fund the elaboration of the politics of cultural division as I see with the way native rhetoric is going on the one hand, and multicultural revisionism and particularism on the other.
 
Skookum, respectfully, you do have rights, just not Aboriginal Title and Rights.

You may be born here, but unless you have a Birth Right based in Fact and Law, the Land you were born on aint yours, and sure and heck aint Basi's.
 
WELL WHERE THE FUCK DO I BELONG THEN????

What am I supposed to do - send half of me to Norway, my right arm to France, my left leg to Ireland, the remainder to England, and hope for a patch of land to call my own??

If aboriginal rights mean "NOBODY else has rights" - then fuck aboriginal rights, fuck them all to hell. Don't tell me I have rights when you tell me your rights are better than my rights. FUCK YOU.

I was born here, have nowhere else to go, have always called it my home, have been proud of the beautiful valleys I've called home. Now you tell me I should be a refugee to somewhere else, that anything I thought I owned in common with everyone around me I don't actually have any say in because I wasn't classified as an aboriginal by the racist and evil INDIAN ACT????. I grew up pro-native, interested in native culture, open to native history and in fact know probably a lot more of BC native history than your own pretentious ass does, and have stuck up for native people over and over.....and you tell me because I don't have "a birth right based in fact and law, the Land I was born on ain't mine"??

What am I, a Palestinian then? A Jew to be driven from the new Reich? What about my native-descent friends who don't carry a fucking Status Card, but who still have native ancestry? You would deny them too because they don't have a piece of the Indian Act tattooed on their ass?????

"nobody has the right to buy and sell the earth for private gain" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKmpA_A6RBA

Horrendous that the people who fought for and recognized native equality are now told by native politicos that they have no rights, and no respect, and don't deserve any, because of "laws" trumped up the conquerers you so loudly complain about stealing from you?? So that justifies you stealing BACK? "Oh, it's not stealing, you don't own anything, you're just a white person who should find somewhere else to go".

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

If aboriginal rights and aboriginal power means the kind of race-defined cultural-political tyranny your mouthy self is shooting off about, then fuck aboriginal rights all to hell. Aboriginal rights don't include the right to take back railways you never built, or power projects that Americans are going to wind up owning after your band governments are suckered hook, line and sinker. And it doesn't include the right to tell a good few million people "you don't have rights that are as good as my rights".

You're one fucked-up individual, Anonymous 7:51....you sound like a fucking NAZI.
....cont.
 
...cont

Sorry for the profanity Mary, I'm just really choked to hear such arrogance about "rights" that mean that I am a man dispossessed, a man that doesn't have a country, without a right to a home or a place to say "I'm from here". I'm gonna save up comments like these from Anonymous 7:51 and maybe use them as the basis for a refugee claim for Norway or another of my ancestral homelands - maybe the EU will recognize the mounting racial injustice in Canada and let me "back"....Norway's too busy letting in Moslems, though, they have the immigration priority there, and the higher birth rate, and 50% of Norwegians won't be Norwegian by ancestry as of 2020....though Norwegians are not as racial-prick as our anonymous, hateful friend here, and consider ANYONE born in Norway to be FULLY Norwegian....

Shocking isn't it that the values and agenda that Anonymous is rubbing in our/my face are foreign imports? That they're not an aboriginal ideology, but one formed in other countries....including my homelands??

PS my name's Skookum1, as in Skookum-one. Get it right, you racist bastard; and don't tell me I "appropriated" that name from native culture; it's part of my culture, of the place I was born in and the history and language I was raised around. Or do you want to take that away from me too, along with my dignity and my home.

FUCK YOU Anonymous asshole. Aboriginal rights just lost one of their long-time most vocal supporters.

it's time for "one people, one law, one government, one nation". Oddly enough that's a National Socialist (Nazi) - but you're the Nazi, not me.

Sow division as you are doing, and history will reward you with a crop of violence. Not from me, but from others who increasingly feel dispossessed and alienated by the course that native and immigrant politics is taking....and they have no pacifist, tolerant upbringing as I have had, and also a taste for bloodsports and an existing dislike for aboriginals....

Be careful what you wish for, because it will come back on you in spades in time.

As for me, when I can find a way out of this blighted, ignorant, bigoted province, I'm gone; but I wish I could have had a nice life in Seton or the Bridge River; but I'm told I have no right to be there, and am treated as a second-class person when I'm there, or actually at risk of being beaten because of my skin colour

Dixie as run by natives. Welcome to the 21st Century's version of "liberation".
 
the same government that made the laws you're flouting in my face is the same government that made the laws that say I'm a citizen and I have a right to be here. Obviously you're cherry-picking laws to suit and enhance your prejudices and it's disgusting
 
Skookum1 is hurting and he's angry. Understandably angry when all is considered, especially his great love for his homeland around Bridge River and Seton Lake.

Skookum1 has given us more BC history than I ever learned at university. He's the real thing, solid gold.

So I want readers to see what he says in response to being told he has no right to his British Columbia identity. But I have removed some things which, quite frankly, can be read as a scream of pain. Such things should not be happening here.

Skookum1 wrote:
Sorry for the profanity Mary, I'm just really choked to hear such arrogance about "rights" that mean that I am a man dispossessed, a man that doesn't have a country, without a right to a home or a place to say "I'm from here". I'm gonna save up comments like these from Anonymous 7:51 and maybe use them as the basis for a refugee claim for Norway or another of my ancestral homelands - maybe the EU will recognize the mounting racial injustice in Canada and let me "back"....Norway's too busy letting in Moslems, though, they have the immigration priority there, and the higher birth rate, and 50% of Norwegians won't be Norwegian by ancestry as of 2020....though Norwegians are not as racial-prick as our anonymous, hateful friend here, and consider ANYONE born in Norway to be FULLY Norwegian....

Shocking isn't it that the values and agenda that Anonymous is rubbing in our/my face are foreign imports? That they're not an aboriginal ideology, but one formed in other countries....including my homelands??

PS my name's Skookum1, as in Skookum-one. Get it right, you racist bastard; and don't tell me I "appropriated" that name from native culture; it's part of my culture, of the place I was born in and the history and language I was raised around. Or do you want to take that away from me too, along with my dignity and my home.

[Blistering insults removed.] Aboriginal rights just lost one of their long-time most vocal supporters.

it's time for "one people, one law, one government, one nation". Oddly enough that's a National Socialist (Nazi) - but you're the Nazi, not me.

Sow division as you are doing, and history will reward you with a crop of violence. Not from me, but from others who increasingly feel dispossessed and alienated by the course that native and immigrant politics is taking....and they have no pacifist, tolerant upbringing as I have had, and also a taste for bloodsports and an existing dislike for aboriginals....

Be careful what you wish for, because it will come back on you in spades in time.

As for me, when I can find a way out of this blighted, ignorant, bigoted province, I'm gone; but I wish I could have had a nice life in Seton or the Bridge River; but I'm told I have no right to be there, and am treated as a second-class person when I'm there, or actually at risk of being beaten because of my skin colour

Dixie as run by natives. Welcome to the 21st Century's version of "liberation".
 
WELL WHERE THE FUCK DO I BELONG THEN????

What am I supposed to do - send half of me to Norway, my right arm to France, my left leg to Ireland, the remainder to England, and hope for a patch of land to call my own??

If aboriginal rights mean "NOBODY else has rights" - then fuck aboriginal rights, fuck them all to hell. Don't tell me I have rights when you tell me your rights are better than my rights.

I was born here, have nowhere else to go, have always called it my home, have been proud of the beautiful valleys I've called home. Now you tell me I should be a refugee to somewhere else, that anything I thought I owned in common with everyone around me I don't actually have any say in because I wasn't classified as an aboriginal by the racist and evil INDIAN ACT????.

I grew up pro-native, interested in native culture, open to native history and in fact know probably a lot more of BC native history than your own pretentious ass does, and have stuck up for native people over and over.....and you tell me because I don't have "a birth right based in fact and law, the Land I was born on ain't mine"??

What am I, a Palestinian then? A Jew to be driven from the new Reich? What about my native-descent friends who don't carry a fucking Status Card, but who still have native ancestry? You would deny them too because they don't have a piece of the Indian Act tattooed on their ass?????

"nobody has the right to buy and sell the earth for private gain" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKmpA_A6RBA

Horrendous that the people who fought for and recognized native equality are now told by native politicos that they have no rights, and no respect, and don't deserve any, because of "laws" trumped up the conquerers you so loudly complain about stealing from you?? So that justifies you stealing BACK? "Oh, it's not stealing, you don't own anything, you're just a white person who should find somewhere else to go".

If aboriginal rights and aboriginal power means the kind of race-defined cultural-political tyranny your mouthy self is shooting off about, then fuck aboriginal rights all to hell. Aboriginal rights don't include the right to take back railways you never built, or power projects that Americans are going to wind up owning after your band governments are suckered hook, line and sinker. And it doesn't include the right to tell a good few million people "you don't have rights that are as good as my rights".
 
Isn't it funny, Mary, how in claiming the railway belongs to Natives, only the name Basi surfaces? Not Campbell? Not Clark? Not Falcon? Not David McLean? Not Hunter Harrison??

Name me a native politician or so-called native "leader" who've spoken out about the corrupt transfer of this railway to private companies. Name me one. Maybe they've all been too busy kissing up the BC Liberals and learning to be like their new business partners:

Fascists.

It could even be this is a Liberal troll sent here to rant about Basi and direct all the problem onto him; really I think it's just a clueless idiot who's been sucked in by Liberal-troll rhetoric, or who really just doesn't know fuck-all about what happened to BC Rail and what the case is really about. Maybe it's all three.

But it still stinks, and it's too common an attitude among natives young and old. Ironically, their elders didn't think or behave this way....they've learned from academics, and from watching our own politicians and media, and taught themselves, and nurtured this hatred all on their own.

"We don't care about your democracy because we're not part of it". yeah, right, like the band governments lining up to suck at the corporate teat are democratic to start with. Like follows like, birds of a feather flock together. One corrupt government dealing with another corrupt government. Yeah, you're not part of our system all right, partly because you exclude yourselves from it, partly because the devil now occupying the throne is cut of the same cloth as your own blessed leadership.

Rotten to the bone, and full of hate and lies.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home