Is Fifteen A Leaky Number?

WhichListIsWhich
PotentialVille

Yesterday, we made a bit of a fuss about whether the potential list of potential witnesses for the potential RCMP investigation into the Air India bombing is actually a list at all.

Why?

Well, because this, apparently, is the major reason why the Bains/Saini familial connection was 'relevant' (ie. if Mr. Saini is, indeed, on this potential list of potential witnesses then Liberal MP Mr. Bains, who is Mr. Saini's son-in-law, would have been in a potential conflict of interest when he, himself, voted against extending the ATA provisions in yesterday).

You got all those potentials?

Good.

Because, here's the next weird thing......

Suddenly last night, in the wire stories chronicling the vote, the list was concrete and it had a real, not a potential, number attached to it.

First, from the CP:

Neither of the provisions due to expire Thursday has ever been used. However, the RCMP has been planning to use the investigative hearing provision to compel 15 individuals to testify about their knowledge of Canada's worst terrorist attack - the 1985 downing of Air India Flight 182, which claimed 329 mainly Canadian lives.

Second, from the AP:

Although the provisions were never used, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was planning to use the investigative hearing provision to compel 15 individuals to testify about their knowledge of Canada's worst terrorist attack — the 1985 downing of Air India Flight 182, which claimed 329 lives.


Now, in addition to that somewhat Kafkaesque number, the wording in these reports is also important because, apparently, it turns out that investigations that are already underway can still utilize the ATA provisions in question even though they have expired.

Now, if you go back (again) to the original report on the familial connection between Messrs Saini and Bains by Kim Bolan it is, to put it mildly, very difficult to surmise that the RCMP investigation into the Air India Inquiry is not 'ongoing':

The Vancouver Sun has learned that Bains's father-in-law, Darshan Singh Saini, is on the RCMP's potential list of witnesses at investigative hearings designed to advance the Air India criminal probe.



Given that, it becomes even harder to discern the real problem re: the Saini/Bains connection?

After all, if there is a probe/inquiry going on that needs to be advanced, wouldn't that mean that the ATA provisions would have still applied regardless the outcome of the vote in the House yesterday.

But, leaving all that aside for the moment, the weirdness continued this morning when CBC Radio News reported that the RCMP won't say whether it actually has any investigations underway that will continue to utilize the ATA provisions (I heard it on the 8:00am PST World Report).

Which brings us all the way back to the beginning, because.....

If the RCMP won't say, how did the Vancouver Sun 'learn' that there was a potential list last week and how did the wires 'learn' that there is an actual list of 15 individuals?

Unless there really was a leak, not about the Bains/Saini connection (which is what we concluded here), but rather about the list.

Which sure would be an interesting development, indeed, if it turned out to be the case.

'Potentially' speaking, of course.

OK?

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This post was updated to include the links back to the original story by Ms. Bolan and her 'apparent' comment left at Dan's place.

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