Saturday, July 26, 2014

Railgate Not Quite Dead Yet...Hey, Mr. Palmer! What Do You Mean By 'Tit-For-Tat'?

BuryingTheAlreadyVeryWellSubmerged
LedeVille


At the tail end of his latest VSun column, which mostly focussed on Kathleen Wynne's effective freeing of Laura Miller and her sterling character, Vaughn Palmer slipped the following into the mix, pretty much out of nowhere:

...A committee of the B.C. legislature has been reviewing the report of the independent auditor general into the decision to waive repayment of $6 million in legal fees, incurred by the two ex-B.C. Liberal party aides who pleaded guilty to corruption charges in connection with the sale.

Was the waiver tit-for-tat for the guilty plea? New Democrats on the committee want to put that question to the two now-departed-from-government officials who had central roles in the waiver: former deputy attorney general David Loukidelis and former deputy minister of finance Graham Whitmarsh...



'Tit-For-Tat'?

What is that Mr. Palmer, some kind of code?

Are you saying that the evidence at hand (which includes Mr. Loukidelis' own written statement and a letter received by a reader written/signed by the then Assistant Attorney General, Richard  Fyfe) suggests that there may have been a prior inducement (or, as former BCL Attorney general Geoff Plant wrote, an 'understanding') for the accused to cop a plea so that they would later receive the big payout?

Come on, Mr. Palmer, please tell us, one way or the other, what you really mean.

Because, without such clarity, isn't it pretty hard for we, the great unwashed, who can't possibly understand your intricate insider-info-backed codification, to get exercised about such a thing?

And if we don't get exercised as a result of all this nicey-nice codification?

Well....

'Fading from the public consciousness' and all that.

Right?


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Of course, Mr. Palmer doesn't actually have to tell we, the Whackadoodle Cultists of Railgate (BC Mary!), about what likely really went down...Weirdly, we have now actually outlived the 'Ledgie Boys and the Watercarrier' show that attempted the cult naming and shaming in the first place...Imagine that!

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

AGT has published scads of BC Rail docs that the MSM is loathe to touch... perhaps VP is doing his own version of 'parallel construction' to keep up some sort of delusional illusion.

RossK said...

Anon-Above--

I don't think so.

It's just this wink-wink-nudge-nudge stuff from the fine proMedia folks 'in the know' that drives me crazy.

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Dana said...

Old whores don't care about anyone's opinion. Their only concern is whether they get paid. All we got in the BC media is old whores. And none of them have been able to keep their teeth - which is a comfort to several of the resident emasculated gentlemen in Madam's assembly.

Lew said...

RossK is right. Mr. Palmer knows exactly what went down, its legal and political implications, and who holds the keys to exposing the details of this debacle to the public.

But for some reason he is content to scratch the surface from time to time, never getting his hands dirty or publicly prodding the right folks for answers to meaningful questions on our behalf. A true journalist would be leading the quest for answers, not trolling around the edges with nuanced simplicities. In short, he is failing us while pretending to do otherwise.

Anonymous said...

Lew said..

Lew has made a very good & true statement. The media in BC is a disgrace & "failing" citizens.
I have felt that way for a long time and because of their lack of professionalism, BC has suffered with a government that gets away with murder.

Guy in Victoria

Anonymous said...

Even in 2014 still think all of BC is getting railroaded.

Liberal BC business model- load up!public sector in key parts/positions with liberal friendly people to approve
Contracts of interest more easily,not necissarily in public interest.?Have some spouses of media work for province?
Look at Argentina today.