One Of The Companies That David Basi Brought To The Pilothouse Table...

AllTheFriendsAndUncles

OfInfluenceThatFitVille

....Is Now Known As Western Forest Products

More solid gold from Keith Fraser's report on RailGate court documents released yesterday:

".....(never called Crown Star Witness Eric) Bornman told police that at the time the payments to Basi began, he was heavily involved in the Paul Martin federal Liberal leadership campaign and so his recollection of events was not as good as it was at later times.

From the latter half of 2001, following the May 2001 landslide election of the provincial Liberals, Basi referred two other clients to Bornman and Pilothouse, the Victoria lobby firm he helped run along with Brian Kieran, another Crown witness.

He said a company called Hydroxil Solutions and Doman Industries were referred to him after Basi was approached by a New Democrat who wanted to know a good firm to use in dealing with government....."

And since 2004 Doman Industries, after restructuring, has been known as Western Forest Products.

Hmmmmmm......where have we, and Ida Chong, heard that name before?

Oh yes, we, and we can only presume Ms. Chong's constituents, remember now (with an assist from a Victoria Times-Colonist editorial from April of 2008):

The provincial government and Community Services Minister Ida Chong have looked after the interests of Western Forest Products and large landowners along the Island's southwest coast over the last 14 months.

But they have ignored the concerns and interests of Capital Regional District residents. Government has enriched the forest company's shareholders while obtaining no public benefit. It has sabotaged community-based regional planning, damaging the interests of south Islanders.

Forest Minister Rich Coleman set things in motion early last year. He agreed to remove 28,000 hectares of land owned by Western Forest Products from the company's tree farm licences, an area about four times the size of Saanich.

It was a great gift to the company. Under the tree farm licences, Western Forest Products had to manage the property as if it was Crown land. That meant higher forest sustainability and environmental standards and permanent limits on raw-log exports. The licences also required the land to be maintained as forest, protecting the future of the industry and blocking development.

The company, or its predecessors, had been compensated handsomely for including the land in the tree farm licences. But Coleman negotiated nothing in return for releasing the land -- no compensation for taxpayers, no parks or community consultation.

His only explanation has been that WFP asked for financial help and he delivered. He has yet to release any economic or community impact studies......

Isn't that special?

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