RailGate Relapsing...A Cancer On The Entire Government?

TheDeanWritesHarder

AllTheIndemnitiesThatFitVille

Now here's something interesting....

It turns out that David Basi and Robert Virk were not the only ones who had RailGate Trial indemnification deals in place.

Vaughn Palmer had the story in yesterday's VSun:

"...The government also committed to paying the legal costs of four potential witnesses in the BC Rail case, including one unnamed former cabinet minister and one unnamed senior public servant..."

Now.

Here's the real thing.

Were any of those agreements made without the input of the Attorney General?

Why do I ask?

Well, as we've already discussed, and as Mr. Palmer also made clear today, there were times when the whole process was short-circuited by....

You got it.

The Finance Minister:

"...On other occasions, involving elected officials, Doyle discovered that the attorney-general's ministry was cut out of the process as well. Instead special indemnities were granted on the say-so of the minister of finance, meaning he or she agreed taxpayers should pick up the tab on behalf of a colleague..."

Or, perhaps, a 'former' colleague?

****

While it just may be coincidence, one such former colleague who had most excellent legal representation during the run-up to the trial was the former, former finance minister, Mr. Gary Collins. Here's an illustration of that fact as reported by Mark Hume in The Globe way, way back in 2007:

"... Speaking through his lawyer, Clark Roberts, Mr. Collins said if the police did tape his meeting with OmniTRAX Inc., a company that failed in a bid for BC Rail, it should be made public because it will only prove that he did nothing wrong while handling the $1-billion sale of the state-owned rail line.

"If there is any surveillance, Mr. Collins says it should be disclosed because it will completely reveal that he wasn't involved [in any wrongdoing]," Mr. Roberts said.

Funny how neither Mr. Collins nor the good Mr. Roberts has called for a release of those 'tapes' since the trial suddenly ended a little over a year ago, eh?

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