Sometimes A Clarklandian Is Just A Clarklandian...

...And Sometimes He's The Third Man.

_____

Update Tues Apr 22nd 6:00pm...The original form of this post indicated that Mr. Paul Fraser was appointed B.C.'s Conflict of Interest Commissioner by Christy Clark....That was incorrect...The good Mr. Fraser was appointed by Ms. Clark's predecessor, Mr. Gordon Campbell...The post has been corrected...Thanks to an Anon-O-Mouse who caught the error

_____

Remember what our fine Premier, Ms. Christy Clark told the proMedia, and anyone else would listen after Matthew Millar's third story broke in the NaPo about her demonstrable pre-premier connections to a subsidiary company of RCI, which itself is a company that our fine Premier has done her best to pump while in office?

I mean, it was only a couple of weeks ago, right?

Well...

For the record, here is what Ms. Clark told the VSun's Rob Shaw:

...“I never did any work for the company, I wasn’t paid by the company, I never attending any meetings at the request of the company, and as far as I know the company never really got off the ground,” she said at the legislature...

Which is a pretty emphatic statement, no?

Except...

As we have already pointed out, there is documentary evidence which suggests that something quite different may have gone down with said 'company' given their letter-based overture to the University of New Brunswick a number of months after their incorporation. In addition, this letter was dated a full two months after Ms. Clark's first monetary compensation was due to arrive based on the company's original invitation/contract to her.

An invitation/contract, by the way, that Ms. Clark herself signed off on.

And last week Bob Mackin unearthed more paper involving additional overtures to (gasp!) Ms. Clark's kinda/sorta alma mater, Simon Fraser University.

And while very few of the proMedia heard have followed up on such documentary evidence, have no fear because the good Premier offered a 'don't worry, be happy' - type solution that seems to have satisfied said herd:

...(Ms. Clark) said she’d be happy to forward the matter to B.C.’s Conflict of Interest Commissioner for review...

****

With all of the above as pre-amble...

Please recall that the Conflict of Interest Commissioner that Ms. Clark was referring to is a very fine public servant by the name of Mr. Paul Fraser who was originally appointed by Ms. Clark's former boss, then Premier Gordon Campbell.

And please also recall that Mr. Fraser was forced to recuse himself from John van Dongen's recent complaint that revolved around Ms. Clark's actions in the run-up up to the sale/not sale (i.e. 990 year lease) of BC Rail by Mr. Gordon Campbell and friends, one of whom Ms. Clark likes to give bundles of our cash so that she can fly on private jets to exotic and hard to reach (by commercial airline route) locales like Edmonton and Regina.

And with that we finally arrive at a number of matters that get to the real heart of the matter here....

First, this, from Matt Millar's original VanObserver piece about how Ms. Clark once worked for Burrard Communications in her pre-Premier days just before the fine folks from BurrardComm went to work flack-hacking for Enbridge:

Which is how we know that BurrardComm, whose founder is Ms. Clark's former husband Mr. Mark Marissen, did such flack-hacking.

But...

Just who is this John Paul Fraser fellow named in the federal lobbying documents anyway?

And why does J.P. have a monicker that is so similar to that very fine conflict commissioner that we discussed above, but only because Ms. Clark herself indicated that he should make a ruling on the appropriateness of her not having disclosed her association with Burrard, Translink and a subsidiary of RCI, which itself has a business relationship with BurrardComm.

Well, as you may have already surmised, Mr. J.P. Fraser is the son of Mr. P. Fraser who is the above-mentioned conflictyness commissioner.

And what, you may be wondering, is Mr. Fraser the younger up to these days?

Well...

Kai Nagata filled us in on that one in his recent Mark Marissen-approved piece on the Dogwood Initiative's website:

...Where is John Paul Fraser now, the former Enbridge lobbyist? He’s an assistant deputy minister, appointed to lead the government’s strategic planning team after helping Clark win her leadership campaign...


Put another way, the former Enbridge lobbyist, MMarissen business associate, and son of the current conflict commissioner is now a full-fledged member of the Clarklandian flack-hackery that is paid, not by them, but instead, by you and me.

****

Look.

Protestations from Ms. Clark herself, and from Mr. Marissen also, about Ms. Clark's lack of direct involvement with various companies and entities Burrard Communications has worked 'for' and/or 'with' in the past based on when she was 'hired', whether or not she was officially 'lobbying', and/or whether or not she, herself, was 'paid' are not the point.

And neither are the bleatings of local proMedia press poodles who say that everything is fine and on the up-and-up because of multiple such 'technicalities'.

Because what all of this demonstrates, regardless the technicalities is that these fine folks are now, and/or have been, at some level, all in this together.

And that's what matters.

And that, in my opinion, is what should be followed up and chased down by the local proMedia like it was a thousand million back-decks (built from the product of raw logs shipped back from overseas), coming down the mountains.

OK?


.