Railgate Renumerated....Just How Much Has CN Rail Given To Gordon Campbell?

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(the short answer, for those in a hurry, is approximately $340,000)
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On Friday we asked if Lotusland's proMedia would actually get to work and start doing a little digging of their own in the run-up to the BC Rail Trial that is scheduled to begin, for real, tomorrow.

And the specific question we asked was whether they, the fully-accredited proMedia 'round here, would look into how much Moola, exactly, CN Rail and its various associates who won the BC Rail Privatization bid in late 2003 have given to Gordon Campbell and his BC Liberal Party.

(a.k.a. the group of very fine folks that awarded CN Rail the 990 year lease/not sale of BC Rail's Crown, but non-Spurriffied, Jewels)

So....

To give the fully accredited proMedia Gang, a gang that knows so much better than lowly Bloggers like us, a leg-up, we decided to do a quick search of the BC Elections website and quickly found that CN and just one Chief Associate had given Mr. Campbell et al. approximately $190,000, after the fact, (ie. post-2004).

But, since then it has been, essentially...... Crickets.

And not just on this particular issue, which we consider to be critical given that what happened during the 'bidding process' itself gets to the heart of the matter/critical innocence at stake issues for the three accused, but on ALL ISSUES pertaining to RailGate, as pointed out earlier today by our good friend BC Mary....

As such, given that it is now the Sunday afternoon before the Monday morning start of 'The Trial', we decided to do a little more digging, and came up with the following, from Bill Tieleman writing in the GStraight, way, way, way back in March of 2004.

...Prior to the government choosing CN, both OmniTRAX and Canadian Pacific complained that the BC Rail process was unfair to them. Several media reports said the government was determined to award the deal to CN. CN has donated about $150,000 to the B.C. Liberals since 1994.....


So where does that get us to now?

Well, using my rudimentary math skills, I get at least $340,000 given both before and after the deal went down.

Which is quite the wad of cash, no?


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Oh, and for those wondering....Yes, the PAB-Sters are hard at work setting the Spinnakers on a Sunday.....How do I know?....Well....They've been visiting this little F-Troop-list blog today which is something that never, ever normally happens on a weekend.....Ha!

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