RailGate's Most Accredited Media Member Weighs In

ThePeople'sJournalist
Courtroom54Ville

I am convinced that Robin Mathews has spent more time in the RailGate courtroom than Special Prosecutor William Berar(n)dino.

Mr. Berardino is a fine fellow who was once partners with the even finer fellows that appointed him, former Attorney General Geoff Plant and former Deputy Attorney General (and now current Deputy Minister to Gordon Campbell), Mr. Allan Seckel (no conflict there, no siree). However, despite the fact that he is, allegedly, one of British Columbia's top legal minds, Mr. Berardino often left the RailGate pre-trial proceedings to his juniors (ie. he was nowhere to be found).

In contrast, Citizen Journalist Mathews has been there just about every single day since the very beginning.

Thus, Robin has also spent more time in the RailGate Courtroom than either presiding judge so far.

In fact, early on in the proceedings, when it became clear that the public was being shut out of the process, it was Robin who went to bat for us and convinced then judge Bennett to correct the situation.

As a result, at least in part, a flood of documentary evidence ultimately became available for the public's perusal, culminating in the court's release of 15 binders filled to bursting with things like appointment letters, Emails, financial information, fundraising details, propaganda strategies, and even a pretty much daily 'tell all' journal that was kept by an insider as the deal to sell/not sell BC Rail was going down. Unfortunately, this is all stuff that we are no longer allowed to talk specifically about, especially if we consider ourselves to be 'publishers'.

Which I do.

Consider myself to be a 'publisher', I mean.

Even if it is only as a publisher of this little F-Troop list blog.

However, while I cannot tell you specifically what's in, for example, the tell-all journal, I do feel that it is my duty as a citizen of the Province of British Columbia to let you know, without actually publishing any of them, that every single pdf-ed page of those 15 binders is still available for scrutiny by your personal peepers, here.

And if you go to the summary page and read some of the evidence that has been selectively placed there, I think you will understand why we, the citizen journalists who have been paying attention, call complete and utter Bullshit! on people like the editorial writers of the Globe (and no longer Empire) Mail when they write circumscriptive, corp-lovin' codswallop like this. Not to mention the fact that we will continue to point and holler at the mountains of cowshit that were never, allegedly, ever dumped on Jim Sinclair's lawn when people like Vaughn Palmer, Keith Baldrey and Bill Good continue to opine, on the public airwaves, that the RailGate defence has made a lot of accusations without providing any evidence.

Why will we continue to call out this crap?

Because, as detailed above, we know the evidence exists.

And so do they.

Heckfire, some of that evidence even exists in Mr. Palmer's own previously-published columns.

But.......

Just to be crystal clear, the evidence is most definitely piled highest in the many RailGate columns written by Mr. Robin Mathews over the years, most of which are archived forever at our good friend Mary's place and/or at Vive le Canada.

And now, finally, with the trial really, and still somewhat surreally, on for real, Mr. Mathews has written his first column of the post-pre-trial era.

An era where publication bans, either imposed from the court on high, or from a proMedia herded by its editors and/or its own collective tail, will no longer stand.

Because the citizens are watching and they are speaking loudly, forcefully, and often eloquently.

In fact, some of the best recent examples of that force and eloquence can be found in the fantastic thread of informed comment from the citizenry that followed the egregious Globe editorial mentioned above.

And, clearly, a citizenry that wishes to remain informed about what is really going down in RailGate courtroom from here on in would be well advised to read the columns of the most highly accredited member of OUR media.

Which would be Mr. Mathews.

OK?



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I must confess that there is only one thing that I have been really concerned about throughout the first week of the new post-pre-trial Era of real, honest-to-goodness Goldenness, which is the nagging feeling that a whole lotta of the evidence that we know exists may have been retroactively pulled back by Judge #2....This is something that Robin put very succinctly in his latest column when he wrote: "....(Defence lawyer) Mr. McCullough would ask the judge to mark a document for identification (for the jury) or as an exhibit (a part of evidence)..... She would agree, or disagree....." It's that last bit that really has me worried. In fact I recall an exchange where Mr. McCullough said something to the effect of 'not now?' and the Judge retorted with something like, 'Maybe never.'....Most worrisome, that.....
Of course, there is someone else who has also spent a kingheck lot of time in Courtroom 54, and that is Bill Tieleman.....Bill is, most unfortunately, away at the moment taking care of things, and folks, that really matter, but his archives will singe your eyebrows if you want to either get up to speed, revisit all the major events, or, perhaps, most important for the weeks to come, get to know the back stories of the almost all of the major players....

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