The Return Of RailGate - Hansard's Revenge

Boss: Sorry, Luke. I'm just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.

Luke: Nah - calling it your job don't make it right, Boss.

Cool Hand Luke, 1967

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Newsy Updates and Nouveau Banter Can Be Found In The Tidbits That Follow The Post
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Who'sReallyTheBoss?
NotTonyDanzaVille

Now, by all accounts B.C. government lawyer Mr. George Copley is a fine and upstanding public servant.

However, it is not Mr. Copley's exemplary record of longterm service to the people of British Columbia that is at issue in so far as his role as the deliverer of the 'solicitor-client privilege' message to the Railgate Court is concerned.

Instead, what we really need to know is who Mr. Copley's boss is.

Reporter Keith Fraser raised this issue in his fine, yet succinct, piece in yesterday's Vancouver Province (stuff in brackets mine):

Kevin McCullough, a lawyer for (BC Railgate co-accused Robert) Virk, told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett (on Friday Dec 14/07) that there is an issue as to who is giving instructions on whether to release the documents (under the claim of 'privilege').

Court heard from government lawyer George Copley that deputy attorney-general Allan Seckel is currently giving instructions to him. Prior to Seckel, it was former deputy cabinet secretary Joy Illington, who reports to the B.C. cabinet.

"The real issue is as to when that shift occurred," said McCullough. "When does the shift occur that puts Mr. Seckel in that position?"

So, having read this far, you just might be asking yourself - why?


Why does it matter who Mr. Copley's real boss is?

Well, because Mr. Copley himself made it an issue when he quoted from an exchange that took place between Opposition Leader Carole James and Premier Gordon Campbell in the Legislature last spring to justify the government's claim of 'solicitor-client privilege'.

However, Mr. Copley, apparently, did not quote from the following passage of the same exchange, which has been recorded for posterity in Hansard, the official legislative record (beginning at pg 8245):

C. James: I certainly would expect that the Premier's office will be involved in deciding documents to go forward and not go forward. We've heard discussion previously about cabinet confidentiality and other questions that sometimes come up.

My question would be to the Premier. Will he commit to releasing documents without invoking privilege?

Hon. G. Campbell: Again, I would go back and say that obviously there are issues with regard to cabinet confidentiality that must be and would be considered in these issues. Having said that, my goal and the objective of the government throughout has been to proceed with an unfettered and, frankly, independent process.

There's a special prosecutor in place, and I will not be involved in those discussions. That has been delegated to the Deputy Attorney General, and he will make those decisions as he sees fit.


It's all there in that last bolded sentence where Mr. Campbell told Ms. James that decisions about document release (ie. privilege), would be made by the Deputy Attorney General NOT him and/or his cabinet (and/or his cabinet secretaries - see reference above).

Now, one could argue about what kind of privilege Mr. Campbell was speaking of wayback in May of 2007.

Specifically, was Mr. Campbell talking about 'attorney-client' privilege (ie. that which was claimed by Mr. Copley last week in the Railgate Courtroom) or was he talking about 'cabinet' privilege?

This is vitally important because they are two very different considerations, and one could easily, and not necessarily incorrectly, assume that Mr. Campbell was actually ceding 'attorney-client' privilege oversight to the deputy Attorney General while retaining the right to oversee 'cabinet' privilege for himself and/or his colleagues (and/or his cabinet secretaries).

Luckily for all of us (including the Railgate Court?), however, Mr. Campbell himself told Ms. James precisely type of 'privilege' he was ceding to the Deputy AG:

Hon. G. Campbell: I do want the Leader of the Opposition to understand what I've done here. In terms of the screening of cabinet documents, all those documents will be available to the Deputy Attorney General. He will make the decision vis-à-vis CABINET confidentiality or any of those issues in consultation with the special prosecutor. He will make the decision without any further consultation with me or anyone in the Premier's office.

So, now do you see why it is so important to find out who Mr. Copley's real boss is?

Because, if it is not the Deputy Attorney General, well......

Wouldn't that mean that some other Boss is really calling the shots and making the decisions here?

OK?


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Those of you who are card-carrying members of the RailGate Obsessives Club may well be wondering why Mr. Campbell would do such a thing - why would he be willing to part with 'cabinet' privilege/confidentiality? Well, we're not yet entirely sure, but we think that the answer, at least in part, may be buried in the pages of the 'Fairness Advisor's' report that so many of his Ministers made a fuss about at the time that the Railgate deal went down. We've already found some interesting stuff in the interim report and we're currently wading through the final report right now - more on that soon.
Update: Today, Dec 17th @ 1:00pm..... It appears to be a bit of a slow day in Railgate's Studio (ie. Courtroom )54, but we are all waiting to hear if 'Da Boss issues can be cleared up tomorrow when, according to Mistah T (Bill Tieleman), Justice Bennett is going to allow the defence to cross-examine one of Mr. Copley's assistants, Ms. Nancy Reimer, who, apparently, was involved in generating an affadavit that outlined the privilege 'issues' for the court.
Double-Secret Probation Update: As an F-troop-listed blog that knows it's place, we are humbled by all the hits we are getting today, which are most likely due to the most appreciated and prominent linkage from both Paul Willcocks and Ms. Mary. Most interesting, perhaps, is not the sheer numbers but rather the numbers that are coming from both gc.ca and gov.bc.ca domains (and very, very, very interesting subdomains).
Crazy-Trained, Pro-Wrestling and/or Mud Wrestling Mania Update: Ever-ready-with-a-quip reader Big Audible Dyne-O-Mite is wondering (off-line, of course - B.A.D. wears their cone of silence proudly and continuously) if the real Boss is not Tony Danza/Banta might it actually be Andy 'Latka' Kaufman?

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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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RailGate Revisited - Hansard's Revenge, The Prequel

AllTheObfuscationsThatFit
LedgeVille

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Teensy-Tiny Corrective Update At Bottom Of Post
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As we mentioned yesterday, and as the mainstream pro-media have probably forgotten by now because it happened three days ago, a third member of Erik Bornmann's RailGate Six, Mr. Rick Thorpe, has announced that he is quitting Gordon Campbell's cabinet.

And just what, exactly is this "RailGate Six", you might be asking?

Well, it is the six high level members of the B.C. Liberal goverment (ie. five cabinet ministers and a premier) that Mr. Bornmann said he contacted to lobby on behalf of the American RailCo "OmniTRAX" during the run-up to the sale of B.C. Rail in 2003.

Except, here's something weird.

Mr. Thorpe told Joy McPhail, when questioned in the Legislature in way back in March of 2004 (ie. a few months AFTER the Ledge Raids but a few months BEFORE the search warrants were unsealed) , that he had 'no knowledge' or 'recollection' of meeting with Mr. Bornmann.

And no one had to file an FOI request to get that information because Hansard recorded it, in it's entirety, for posterity:

J. MacPhail: Has the minister ever been involved in a meeting with Mr. Bornman? I think his first name is Frank. I'm sorry. I've just had one of those moments. Is it Frank?

.....(A Voice: Erik.).....

J. MacPhail: Erik. I'm sorry — Erik Bornman, the lobbyist that until recently was with Pilothouse. Has the minister ever attended a meeting in his capacity as minister where Mr. Bornman was present or where that meeting was arranged by Pilothouse?

Hon. R. Thorpe: Not to my knowledge.

J. MacPhail: I'm asking it about the minister personally, so I assume that he would either be able to answer yes or no. I don't think he has menopausal moments. I may be wrong.

.....(A Voice: Don't be so sure.).....

J. MacPhail: Yeah. I can't imagine why a minister would say, "Not to my knowledge," when that's the case. Can the minister say whether his staff, either in his previous portfolio or the current portfolio, met with any lobbyists or any people with interest in the B.C. Rail deal?

Hon. R. Thorpe: I have no recollection or no knowledge of that.

But here's an even stranger thing.

Mr. Thorpe did recall meeting with Mr. Bornmann's partner in OmniTRAXian lobbying, co-'Pilothous' principal Mr. Brian Kieran:

Hon. R. Thorpe: I believe I have met with Brian Kieran, both in opposition and as a member of the government.

J. MacPhail: Can the minister remember the nature of the meeting when he was a cabinet minister?

Hon. R. Thorpe: No, I can't remember the details, but I can assure this House that I never met Pilothouse consulting with respect to the B.C. Rail partnership.

J. MacPhail: How is it that the member so assured on one point but not any other?

Hon. R. Thorpe: They have many customers.

Hmmmmmm......and just who might some of those many customers be?

Well, here too, Mr. Thorpe fills us in:

J. MacPhail: No, no. I know that. You should see the lobbyists' registration. They — Pilothouse — are claiming a lot of success. But I'm asking the minister how it is that he's so assured. He can't remember what he met Pilothouse on or Brian Kieran, but he's so assured that it wasn't about B.C. Rail. Can he remember what it could have been about?

Hon. R. Thorpe: You know, over the years, I've met Mr. Kieran on other issues. I can't remember if it had to do with auto dealers. I can't remember if it had to do with the breweries. I can't recollect the details of that, but I do know that I did not meet with them with respect to the B.C. Rail partnership.

So, there you have it.

Car dealers and brewers maybe, but B.C. Rail most definitely NOT.

Only one small problem with that.

Mr. Kieran also had a "RailGate Club" of his very own.

And five of the members were EXACTLY the same as Mr. Bornmann's including, you guessed it, Minister Thorpe (click image below to enlarge).



Looks like somebody has some 'xplainin' to do.

OK?


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Many, many, many thanks to lynx, who is one of the regulars and most insightful commenters over at Mary's place, for pointing us towards the right drawer over at the Hansard library.
Speaking of which, those little gems that Joy MacPhail left behind for us in the farthest corners of the HLib are worth their weight in way more than gold. I hope she has been sufficiently thanked for all the work she did, so much of which was thanklessness personified at the time (especially given that she was working pretty much sans staffers thanks to the actions of the gold key member of Mr. Bornmann's RailGate SixClub that was left OFF of Mr. Kieran's).
Teeny-Tiny Corrective Update: In the original iteration of this post I put up an official BC Govt lobbyist affiliation page for Mr. Kieran that indicated a RailGate Six that was exactly the same as Mr. Bornmann's. This was not quite correct because, while that equivalent group of six was also, apparently, lobbied by Mr. Kieran on behalf of OmniTRAX, the actual 'subject' in that case was the Fort Nelson Line (hmmmmm.....pretty sure Gary E. might have something to say about that). Instead, for OmniTRAX's interest in the 'BC Rail Evolution' Mr. Kieran's RailGate group was only five (ie. the same five cabinet ministers as Mr. Bornmann, including Mr. Thorpe, but no premier). Apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

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RailGate Media (un)Coverage Unraveling

IfATreeFallsInTheCourtroom
WillAnybodyHear?Ville



Well......

I've finally have made it all the way through Bill Tieleman's very fine "RailGate Round-Up b/w Alphabetical Guide To All Players", linkage included.....

And boy, is my brain tired.

Truth be told, most of my hunting, pecking and linkage reading involved re-thinking stuff I'd already read about.

Like remembering what, exactly, was the connection between Gary Collins' former deputy minister of finance Paul Taylor, Brian Kiernan and Glen Ringdal.

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But that is not to say I did not learn some new things, perspective included, from reading every single word of Mr. Tieleman's latest missive that likely has Mr. Chase and the other members of the Premier's OIC-Infotainment Network blackberrying each other like crazy (both with and without bonus/mocking smiley faces attached).

Factually, the following are three new golden spikes that Mr. T. handed me.....

I knew nothing of the first spike:

Camille BAINS. Media. Bains is a Canadian Press reporter whose diligent stories are now missed, as she has been reassigned and CP is not regularly covering the case.


Which is a darn shame because, overall, I think that outside of Mr. Tieleman, Ms. Bains put as much, if not more, time and effort into covering RailGate than any other proMedia Journo in this town.

I might have known about the second spike if I paid more attention to such things, especially after I slagged a late 2007 story from Ms. Bains not because of what was in the piece but rather because of what was not.

Wendy COX. Media. The B.C. bureau chief for Canadian Press is not covering the case nor is she editing CP coverage of it, but is only mentioned in the category of the "small world" of media and politics.....


So, while she's not covering the case and/or editing the coverage of it, one has to wonder if Ms. Cox is involved as bureau chief in making decisions about reassigning and not replacing reporters who are/were.

Covering RailGate, I mean.

And I ask this because of the third spike Mr. T' handed me, a spike I most definitely should have known about, especially given the government of Gordon Campbell's 'alleged' penchant for 'media monitoring' and the list of cabinet ministers who fled that same government when the RailGate train came chugging slowly down the track back in early 2004.

What the heckfire am I babbling about?

Well, once you read Ms. Cox's full entry from Mr. T. things should be a bit clearer:

Wendy COX. Media. The B.C. bureau chief for Canadian Press is not covering the case nor is she editing CP coverage of it, but is only mentioned in the category of the "small world" of media and politics -- Cox is the wife of former B.C. Finance minister Gary Collins.


The LINO Red colouring of the last phrase is mine, all mine (ie. not Mr. T's).

OK?


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Originally, I was going to sub-head this post 'YouCanRunButYouCan'tFlyVille'....
Just so you (and maybe she?) know/knows.....there were other times when I praised Ms. Bains' work effusively. We, the members of the RailGate's Obsessive Club, owe Ms. Bains a debt of gratitude.


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RailGate Round-Up

ForThoseWhoWishToFlock
BigFishVille

Rafe Mair published a very interesting column in The Tyee today.

Essentially, it goes against the grain of the professional punditocracy in this province by pointing out Mr. Gordon's Campbell's true political weaknesses.

Here's just one (of my favorite) examples:

"BC Rail, the railway W.A.C. Bennett bought to be an engine driving the northern economy, was sold to CN Rail, now an American company. The government's power to help remote places prosper was sold to the Americans. Whoopsy daisy and oh, dear me, I forgot it was "leased" not sold but as a wag (me) pointed out, the lease is for so long that if you looked the same time backwards you'd be in the reign of Ethelred the Unready."


Now, while my maiden grandmother's name was Ethel, she was not red, and she was most definitely not unready.

And neither is our good friend BC Mary (unready, I mean) who has the definitive website for all things RailGate.

*****

Mary was also kind enough to put up a link to this little F-Troop list blog in the comments to Mr. Mair's post.

Thus, if you would like a few musing on RailGate of my own here are few good places to start.....

What The Canadian Press Didn't Say About Railgate: This post Fisks a conventional 2007 year-end media re-cap to demonstrate how such stories can lull the public into a false sense of 'everything's just fine here' even when the people writing them are not actually trying to do such a thing.

Release The RailGate Tapes!: In which we ask which might be worse - the alleged crime or the cover-up?

Return Of RailGate Hansard's Revenge: Which begins with the following cool handed quote:

Boss: Sorry, Luke. I'm just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.

Luke: Nah - calling it your job don't make it right, Boss

And then, of course, there are the posts on Stonewalling and Limited Hangouts.


Hope you all enjoy them.

And don't forget, the place to keep right up to date, and read some really lively discussion amongst the Anon-O-Mice is over at Mary's place.


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And if you are more into long running dramas than courtroom (anti)thrillers, there is always 'The Dobranos'.

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A RailGate Document Dump To Call Our Own...

AllTheWitnessesThatFit
UnderOathVille


The RailGate Trial is, allegedly, scheduled to begin, for real, on Monday May 17th.

So, in the spirit of Gordon Campbell Government Friday afternoon document dumps, we thought we would offer-up the following on the eve of the coming trial.....

(click to enlarge)

Which is a list of Mr. David McLean's contributions to the Political Party of Gordon Campbell since 2005 that, according to Elections B.C., currently total $189,157.50.

Mr. McLean, in case you missed it, is the Chairman of the Board of CN Rail.

And, just in case you've forgotten, given that the Ledge Raids occurred more than six years ago, CN Rail won the bid to privatize BC Rail, in the wake of a hastily assembled 'fairness advisor's report' after other potential bidders made a fuss about favouritism, from the Government of Mr. Gordon Campbell in late 2003.

And just in case you didn't know it, especially given how little the 'fully-accredited' proMedia told us about what went down BEFORE the defendants in the RailGate proceedings were charged, it was CN Rail that was the subject of those calls of favouritism.

Now.....

Given that we are just one of the cultists who make stuff up regarding all matters RailGate, we will leave it to other enterprising and, of course, fully-accredited 'journalists' to dig up Mr. McLean's earlier contributions to the party of Mr. Campbell if they so choose.*

OK?



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*But if they don't, you can pretty much make book on the fact that we will.....
*Oh, and for the record, as of this writing, the last known proMedia report from an 'accredited journalist on all matters RailGate was April 29th, 2010...Nothing of import to see here folks...Move along....Enjoy your weekend and don't bother yourself with all those crazy little trivial things like who owns and profits from the collective assets of British Columbians (and, on the flip side, who doesn't).... Because when there is news to report they (ie. those most fully accredited) will, of course, report it....


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Late Night With RailGate....Did She Or Didn't She?

AffidavitsGoneWild
ClearAsMudVille

The latest, from the Globe's Mark Hume, suggests that the Director of Gordon Campbell's Ministry of Information Retrieval.....errrrr.... 'Messaging And Collaboration Services', Ms. Rosmarie Hayes, may have actually tried to stop the contracted-out IT shop from destroying the RailGate Tapes after she first directed the very same company to destroy them.

Or some such crazy, mixed-up thing:

"....In a story Thursday , the Globe reported the affidavit filed by Ms. Hayes states her department in May ordered EDS to expunge the tapes created prior to 2004, then later requested the material not be disposed of. Because all the affidavits filed with court Thursday were sealed, it remains unclear exactly what directives were given, when and by whom....."


What also remains unclear as mud is whether the files were, indeed, really and truly, actually destroyed according to a report on what Gordon Campbell's man in the RailGate courtroom, Mr. George Copley, had to say Thursday according to a report by the CP's Steve Mertl:

"....Copley also told (RailGate Judge Elizabeth) Bennett on Thursday that some of the emails involving three of the 33 people covered by the defence request may still exist after all...."


Sheesh-O-Rama-Llama-Ding-Dong!


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Meanwhile Harvey Oberfeld, who is going to be on CFUN tomorrow talkin' RailGate, has just let slip that he thinks that, in the end, the government of Gordon Campbell, just might get precisely what it has always wanted.......And I think I can guess what that might be......Aaaaargh!

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The Revenge Of The RailGate Nerds.....

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.....DIY Edition

NewMediaToTheRescue
CitizensOfJVille

Yesterday was reasonably interesting from a RailGate point of view.

Which is kind of strange if you stop to consider the fact that the court proceedings themselves are, once again, nowhere to be found.

Anyway, first there was Mike de Jong's total eclipse of the reality sun-type response to Leonard Krog's point of privilege in the British Columbia Legislature (see line 1815).

Then there was Tom Hawthorn's profile of the hardest working man in the RailGate press gallery, blogger Bill Tieleman, in the Globe and (nolongerEmpire)Mail.

One of the things I liked most about the piece was that it laid Mr. T's political affiliations out on the table but did not denigrate them:

In between bouts of journalism, Mr. Tieleman worked as communications director for then-NDP-premier Glen Clark for six months and handled communications for the B.C. Federation of Labour for six years. He will mark the 10th anniversary of launching his West Star Communications consultancy later this year.

Which is quite a contrast, indeed, to the insinuations of another commentator also writing in the Globe not so long ago that we have already discussed at some length.

There was even a little, 'ahem', slightly off-colour humour in the thing which, if it were to occur, would probably do for RailGate what the 'duet' between Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon has done for the career of Jimmie Kimmel*.

Heckfire, Mr. Hawthorn even went out of his way to mention Robin Mathews and our own favorite Ms. Mary.

But still, I couldn't help but note the condescension in Mr. Hawthorn's words when he said:

Mr. Mathews's cynicism about the judiciary is never far from the surface and BC Mary's conspiratorial musings about the motives of CanWest journalists are pointlessly distracting.


Which, of course, is codwallopicism in the extreme.

Because I could pick through the stuff of any of Lotusland's pro-media columnists, or radio talk show hosts, over the last year and-a-half or so (ie. the approximate length of time that Mary's place has been going flat out) and I could dig up literally dozens of examples of ridiculous opinions, or worse, that were based on little or nothing at all.

Which definitely has not been the case re: Mary's opinions about the press coverage, or lack thereof, of the Railgate proceedings.

And the thing is, the pro-journo people are paid to do what they do.

And they have researchers and producers and editors and publicity machines to help people pick up the phone and answer their calls.

Whereas, all a blogger has is what they, and their audience, can do, to do it DIY.

So the decks are all stacked against them from the beginning.

But if they're good they'll have staying power.

Which is precisely what both Mr Tieleman and Ms. Mary have.

OK?

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*The actual Silverman/Damon coupling can be found at the tube of you - but be careful because it is most definitely NOT keyboard safe. It is, however, hilarious (as for the comeback with Ben Affleck?......not so much).


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In Which Ron Gets More Obvious Than Ever.

TheSinsOfThe
OmittedVille


In his latest column, Mr. Mason of the Globe does some amateur psychoanalyzing of our former premier before he gets down to brass tacks about who the next leader of the BC Liberals might be.

After mentioning the usual suspects, Mr. Mason then wrote the following about someone he thinks would be a 'strong contender' for the leadership:

...Another person apparently getting pressure to consider it is Gary Collins, the former finance minister under Gordon Campbell. (Mr. Collins is related to a Globe and Mail staff member, who was not involved in this piece.)

Mr. Collins, who was in government from 1991 to 2004, has worked in the private sector since retiring from politics and would be a strong contender should he decide to take the plunge...


Gosh.

I think Mr. Mason my have left out a couple of details there.

Specifically, why, exactly, did the good Mr. Collins step down from the Golden Era government of Gordon Campbell in 2004?

And...

Where, exactly, did he fly away to before landing in the private sector?

Why might those two specific bits of missing information matter to British Columbians who are interested in a more complete description of the track record of a very fine former politician who could, potentially, become a future leader of a major political party in this province?

Well...

...You know (from the autumn of 2010, just after the six million dollar Railgate Trial ending deal went down):

We have already established the following.....

....Former RailGate era Finance Minister Gary Collins once worked for David Ho's now defunct Harmony Airways.

....Current Deputy Finance Minister Graham Whitmarsh, who helped Deputy AG David Loukidelis put together the super-secret $6 million dollar plea-copping bonus-baby deal that ensured that former Minister Collins would never have to testify, under oath, in front of transcripts of RCMP surveillance wiretaps, at the RailGate trial, also worked for Harmony back in the day.

But here's something we didn't know, courtesy of Sean Holman's (still!)fantastic archives over at Public Eye.....

.....Current Deputy Finance Minister Whitmarsh was 'relieved' of his duties at Harmony on Nov. 30th 2006.

....Former RailGate era Finance Minister Collins resigned from Harmony just one day later on Dec. 01 2006...


Imagine that!


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For those interested, the above connections and associations form the core of an important, in my opinion at least, unanswered question about Railgate (scroll down to the question in red if you want to skip the preamble).


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RailGate Gone Wild....Was There Really A Lib-Connected Linchpin?

ClearTheTrack
HereComes(ADisaster?)ShackVille


So.

There have been all kinds of speculative statements today from columnists, legislators and lawyers that BC Premier Mr. Gordon Campbell's former campaign manager was working for both BC Rail and CN Rail around the time that the former was long-term leased (ie. not sold!) to the latter in late 2003.

But what is the actual evidence that such a simultaneous duality was really going on?

Well, for that, we look to the citizenry's Eye-Witness-In-Chief on all things Railgate-related, Mr. Robin Mathews.

The following is a passage, posted at our good friend Mary's, from Mr. Mathews that deals with a period in spring of 2004 when the actual 'deal' was apparently in jeopardy:

....The Discovery package of documents, (RailGate defence lawyer Kevin) McCullough said, from the Crown for 2003, apparently showed Kinsella identified as a political advisor to the CN. Between 2002 and 2005, however, we know he was employed by BC Rail.

The "problem" arose, apparently, because - without consulting CN - Gordon Campbell made a television appearance in which he attempted to placate the Northern B.C. population about the deal with CN. In the presentation, Campbell apparently stated that the rail track was not in the sale. CN was alarmed because they would lose money, tax advantages and rail scheduling opportunities if that were so. Kinsella, McCullough alleged, was at that time the point man for CN.....


So, again, at this point there would appear to be court documents which have led the RailGate defence team to allege that Mr. Kinsella was "a political advisor to (the) CN" and "the point man for CN" while he was apparently also being paid by BC Rail during the period when the deal was being consumated.

But what about this linchpin thing?

Well, here is what another RailGate defence lawyer, Michael Bolton, said OUTSIDE the courtroom today, as quoted by the VSun's Neal Hall:

...."What we have right now indicates to us that Mr. Kinsella appears to have been a very pivotal person in the entire BC Rail transaction, and we have very, very, little documentation of what he was doing." he explained to reporters.

"There is material referred to in court today that indicates he was engaged in some work for BC Rail and doing work at the same time for CN."...

Clearly, the only way we're truly going to know what really went down is if somebody, or some group, is able to follow the money.

And I'm talking about the ALL of the money, not just a few thousand here or there that may, or may not, have been tossed around to win friends and influence uncles.

In my opinion the only way to do that is to get rid of all of this silly secrecy/bankers' privilege garbage by holding a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred public inquiry.

Which sure would make a great campaign promise right about now don't you think?


.

Running Off At The Mouth On All Things RailGate....

....And More

Fellow blogger, colleague, uke-lover, and Canadian expat, the Reverand Paperboy finally dragged me kicking and screaming onto the new-fangled, audio-visual-digital-mojo-wire (aka the 'skype-cycle') so that he could interview me for his weekly podcast titled 'The Maple Syrup Revolution'.

****

I wanted to to talk about the origins of the Bloggodome and how we both got into it....

He wanted me to explain RailGate....

We ended up doing both (although only the RailGate part made it onto this week's show; apparently the more free-wheeling stuff will go up next week).

And it was more fun than I could have possibly imagined.

****

Not sure I did really good job at getting to the true heart of the matter of all things RailGate for at least a couple of reasons....

First, the Rev. now lives in Tokyo, and he is not a native of Lotusland either, so there was a lot of upfront explaining to do regarding how a Liberal is not necessarily even a neo-liberal here in B.C.....How polarized things are politically....And how easily a 'faux' big-tent party, where people who are not way, way, way right or left can be easily convinced to park their votes, can be hijacked....etc....etc....etc...

And second, there is that darned retroactive "pre-trial publication ban" business which really does make it difficult to fully explain things to folks who haven't lived with the 'history' of the thing from the get-go.

****

In retrospect, the one aspect about the debacle that I really did give short-shrift to during the interview, I think, was 'Project EveryWhichWay' and all it entailed that was NOT directly related to the LedgeRaids....But other than that I think got most of the important stuff across without harming any and all pub-bans.

If you like, you can go and check it out for yourself, here.....

Oh, and if you need a program to keep up with all the players, Bill Tieleman has assembled a very fine one here.....

(and sorry for the yelling on the podcast - until I got used to the Skype thing I thought I was trying to shout all the way across the Pacific Ocean)


_______
Hey!.....Did anybody else notice that the 'lectronic half of the Ledgie Boys told the Goodship Watercarrier this a.m. that the RailGate trial is 'bogged down in procedural wrangling' and that it is 'no longer certain' that the trial will go forward at all.....Where the heckfire did that come form?....I mean, that is one helluva a trial balloon for Mr. Baldrey to suddenly send aloft outta nowhere don'cha think (Mr. Palmer kept his lips completely zipped and the Goodship then cut immediately to commercial)?....Gotta wonder if Baldrey been talking to somebody on the inside on the side opposite to that which Gary Mason 'allegedly' get his stuff....I dunno for sure....But....Regardless...I'm pretty sure I can hear the buzzing of PAB-Bots.....


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RailGate's Red Glare - Bombshells Start Dropping

Lob-Shop-A-Go-Go
DeputyAttorneyGeneralVille


Well, well, well......

Mr T., Bill Tieleman, has had a first pass at 'The Railgate 8000'.

(ie. the 8000 pages of BC Rail documents obtained by the defence by FOI that were released by the court last week)

And one of the things Mr. T. found was an Email from lobbyist Jamie Elmhirst, who was once a lobbyshop partner with Brian Kieran and Erik Bornman(n), to a Deputy Attorney General by the name of Allan Seckel in April of 2005.

According to Mr. T's report.....

Elmhirst wrote Seckel to tell him that he and Kieran were "proud to announce a re-branding our public affairs partnership" and ask Seckel to "update your contact records." The next five pages of documents are blanked.



Looks all innocuous and kinda/sorta spam-like, right?

Which had the apologists, including Norman Spector on the Goodship Watercarrier this morning, screaming.....

'So What!'

Indeed.

But let's not forget that Mr. Kieran and Mr. Bornman are, apparently, scheduled to be key witnesses in the Railgate trial given their involvement as lobbyists for one of the failed bidders that led them to, allegedly, pass along inducements, cash or otherwise, to the accused when the latter worked for the government of Premier Gordon Campbell, the man who offered up the public's railway for sale in the first place.

And as for Mr. Seckel?

Well in his role as Deputy Attorney General in the government of Premier Gordon Campbell he has already had a significant hand in the Railgate court proceedings.

Specificallly, he's the very fine civil servant who acted as the 'decider' on just what 'privileged' documents generated by the Cabinet of Premier Gordon Campbell would be released to the court.

How do we know this?

Well, first check out this passage between Opposition Leader James and Premier Campbell in the Legislature on May 28, 2007:

C. James: I certainly would expect that the Premier's office will be involved in deciding documents to go forward and not go forward. We've heard discussion previously about cabinet confidentiality and other questions that sometimes come up.

My question would be to the Premier. Will he commit to releasing documents without invoking privilege?

Hon. G. Campbell: Again, I would go back and say that obviously there are issues with regard to cabinet confidentiality that must be and would be considered in these issues. Having said that, my goal and the objective of the government throughout has been to proceed with an unfettered and, frankly, independent process.

There's a special prosecutor in place, and I will not be involved in those discussions. That has been delegated to the Deputy Attorney General, and he will make those decisions as he sees fit.


Then, check out this story from Keith Fraser in The Vancouver Province that was published a few months later in Dec 2007:

Kevin McCullough, a lawyer for (BC Railgate co-accused Robert) Virk, told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett (on Friday Dec 14/07) that there is an issue as to who is giving instructions on whether to release the documents (under the claim of 'privilege').

Court heard from government lawyer George Copley that deputy attorney-general Allan Seckel is currently giving instructions to him. Prior to Seckel, it was former deputy cabinet secretary Joy Illington, who reports to the B.C. cabinet.

So there you have it....a partner of one of the scheduled star witnesses in the case, whose offices were also raided at the time of the Ledge Raids in 2003, contacts a DAG in 2005 who turns out to have played a key role in the pre-court hearings as revealed by the Premier in 2007.

And this is irrelevant in 2009, how, exactly?

(especially given that the trial STILL hasn't even started....)


______
First wrote about the whole privileged document thing, which later exploded again when folks learned of a certain well known content-consultant's role in the process a few months later, in a piece titled 'Hansard's Revenge'.

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RailGate Game-On!......PseudoLiveBlog....

AllTheTies
ThatBindVille

___________________________

Updated @ 8:00pm to correct for syntax and inadvertent mistakes of little consequence that arose due to fast typing while multi-tasking during day....I also bring up a point about previously published material of a very specific nature at the bottom of the post...would welcome any and all opinions on that matter....
___________________________

10:21am Tuesday May 18, 2010: Judge Ann MacKenzie has started to instruct the jury....SP Berardino should start laying out his 'case' soon....Hmmmmm......Will we finally get a more fulsome report on his RailGate 'Top 40' (of potential prosecution witnesses)?....

12:00noon Tuesday May 18, 2010: Terry Donnelly of CBC British Columbia is reporting that SP Berardino began his opening statement about 11:30am....Already, defense lawyer K. McCullough has jumped up twice to object vociferously....Judge MacKenzie has warned McCullough that he will be removed if he does it again....

1:15pm Tuesday May 18, 2010: Gosh, there sure are a lot of deflector spin spanners being thrown into the works over in Victoria today, eh....'lectronic Media has gone silent....Not a peep out of She-Who-Is-Related-To-Two-Of-The Crown's named potential witnesses...Here is a link to Keith Frasers' report of Kevin McCullough's outbursts and admonishment mentioned above....

1:40pm Tuesday May 18th, 2010: CKWX is reporting that SP Berardino says that $27K in cheques were written for A. Basi and that most ($25K) made it's way back to D. Basi...Does this mean that A. Basi is in the docket for a measly few thou?.....Eyewitness 'WX reporter Shane Bigham tells us the critical details of the defendents' collective couture and their placid demeanors in court...Did that kid get 'Media Accreditation' while Robin Mathews did not?....Sheesh.

1:55pm Tuesday May 18, 2010: Unless I'm mistaken, the only proMedia outlet running comments is CBC BC, here (but almost all the comments are context-free and are essentially irrelevant in the extreme)....

1:58pm Tuesday May 18, 2010: Neal Hall is the first ink-stained wretch out of the gate with details of the alleged 'bribes'....Essentially the same as what we heard, as noted above, from CKWX....SP Berardino alleges cash came from Liberal-Connected LobShop principal E. Bornman(n) to A. Basi with most then funnelled back to D. Basi....SP Berardino says witness list now culled to new and improved RailGate Top 30 (used to be 44).....And, get this!!!!!...There will be tapes played by SP Berardino involving first round 'bidding numbers'!....(can't wait until defense plays their tapes!....Will there be anything involving wolfian repasts?)...Also, an extra $20K in perks directly to defendents from OTrax alleged....Hall's story, (up first in the Montreal Gazette....say what?) is here....

2:05pm Tuesday May 18, 2010: notsoGiant98 runs RailGate 4th up, at the very back-end of their 2:00pm newscast....Eyewitness report from reporter M. Bernardo is useless....But news reader's tag at very end indicates prosecutions' first witness will be......wait... for.... it.....Martyn Brown!...Fireworks from Defense soon to come?....Something interesting going on though....Prosecution seems to be running an 'early taint' line.....This is interesting because it might be used later to cut-off any 'quid pro quo' strategy from defense (not supposed to talk about the latter, apparently* but you can always use the search box at the top left of this page if you are so inclined)....Here's a weird one.....Has anybody else but me noticed how similar the vocal stylings of C. Clark are to those Nardwuar The Human Serviette?.....

2:25pm Tuesday May 18, 2010: More fulsome report, after the initial one in M. Gazette (see above), from Neal Hall and Lori Culbert now up in VSun here.... In addition to the bribes and perks SP Berardino says he will also call Mark Marissen to talk about potential 'job opportunities' with FedLibs of Paul Martin... Meanwhile..... C. Clark on CKNW just keeps-on -keepin'-on with the Nardwuar impersonation (see above), this time focussing blindly on water distribution problems in Africa....Hey!.....Guess what?....SP Berardino also alleges that B. Virk didn't know about the $27 in bribes that E. Bornman(n) is supposed to have funnelled to the two Basis.....Crazy one, that... Another note to the the 'Supreme Court Media Accreditation Committee', headed by Mr. Hall.....Is the SP's name actually spelled Berandino....Gosh Spanky....Did you and your precious Gang just make an error in fact?....

3:20pm Tuesday May 18, 2010: Joe Schneider of Bloomberg (non-Lotuslandian-Ya!) News was in the RailGate House today and he is reporting that B. Virk is alleged to have provided E. Bornman(n) (acting, presumably as OmniTrax' agent) with the 1st round of bid numbers (presumably what the initial RailCobidders were willing to pay for our BC Rail 'assets') three days before the official BC Rail Restucturing Committee got them....Hey!....I think we know that committee....In fact, we know it's precise make-up, at least as it was constituted in late 2003, because we have, in our possession, an Organizational Chart that just keeps on giving....And no....We did not get the chart from a pre-Trial Hearing release or from a ProMedia Outlet........Instead, we the Brigade of so-called-useless amateur Bloggers collectively dug it up ourselves in a flurry of both online and offline communication that led to our hunting down of once-used-and-soon-forgotten 'Interim Fairness Report' on the BC Rail Sale (more on all this later)....Meanwhile, here is the chart itself.....Enjoy!....

6:00pm Tuesday May 18th, 2010....Missed it, because I had to pick-up littler e. from Tapdance class but......Mr. Gordon Campbell's Chief-Of-Staff Martyn Brown took the stand late in the day for prosecution....Said that D. Basi and R. Virk took oaths to serve the public trust and that in so doing they were not suppposed to take any gifts or renumeration 'beyond what you are allowed to do'....(Whatever the heckfire that means).....Alrighty then....Will Mr. Brown be cross-examined by the defense tomorrow?....


_____
*I am going through my old stuff carefully to parse what we, ourselves, discovered and/or gleaned back in the days, months and years in the run-up to the RailGate's fo' real opening today.....Why?....Because we have come to the conclusion that such information is fair game for discussion precisely because it is information that did NOT arise from a pre-trial hearing.....

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RailGate Remainders...Our Top Ten Questions Continued...The Pay-Off

SubJudiceThis!

NoLongerBeforeTheCourtsVille

Number 8.

In the fall of 2010 the RailGate trial came to an abrupt halt just as the former BC Liberal government Finance Minister (and David Basi's last boss), Mr. Gary Collins, was about to take the stand.

Both the abruptness and the halt of the trial were facilitated by the sudden announcement of a six million dollar deal that some, myself included, have suggested should be viewed as a pay-off to the defendants and their legal teams.

Now.

A lot of attention at the time was focussed on the roles that then Attorney General Mike 'I Bake Cookies!' de Jong and one of his deputies, Mr. David Loukidelis, played in the brokering of that deal.

However, what was essentially all but ignored by the proMedia was the fact that the current Finance Minister, Mr. Colin Hansen, and one of his deputies, Mr. Graham Whitmarsh, also helped put together that deal and, presumably*, approved the actual dollar amounts paid out in the pay-off (which, of course, were not their monies, but instead were ours).

But wait, there's more!

Which is the part that I find most egregious given that it was, to the best of my knowledge, completely ignored by the Lotuslandian proMedia....

Specifically, Mr. Whitmarsh was recently a business colleague of Mr. Gary Collins.

Here is how I described the business relationship between Mr. Whitmarsh and Mr. Collins (and its potential significance) at the time:

....Former RailGate era Finance Minister Gary Collins once worked for David Ho's now defunct Harmony Airways.

....Current Deputy Finance Minister Graham Whitmarsh, who helped Deputy AG David Loukidelis put together the super-secret $6 million dollar plea-copping bonus-baby deal that ensured that former Minister Collins would never have to testify, under oath, in front of transcripts of RCMP surveillance wiretaps, at the RailGate trial, also worked for Harmony back in the day.

But here's something we didn't know, courtesy of Sean Holman's fantastic archives over at Public Eye.....

.....Current Deputy Finance Minister Whitmarsh was 'relieved' of his duties at Harmony on Nov. 30th 2006.

....Former RailGate era Finance Minister Collins resigned from Harmony just one day later on Dec. 01 2006.

Which, in my opinion at least, means two more things.....

....Mr. Whitmarsh and Mr. Collins know each other because they both worked together as executives at the small, locally-based Harmony Airways at the same time.

....It is not unreasonable for a reasonable person to wonder if the government of British Columbia and, more specifically, the Premier of British Columbia under whose pleasure all deputy ministers serve, placed Mr. Whitmarsh in a conflict of interest by having him help work out a super secret deal that ultimately benefitted a previous close business associate.

****

So...

Here is my question for the current Finance Minister, Mr. Colin Hansen:

"How, exactly, was it NOT a conflict of interest to have Mr. Graham Whitmarsh, who is a former business associate of Mr. Gary Collins, work out a deal that prevented Mr. Collins from testifying in open court, under oath, about his role, or lack thereof, in the (now established) illegal leaking of documents and information to private concerns regarding the longterm leasing of public assets then under the control of BC Rail?"

Thank-you.

_____

*I say, 'presumably' approved the dollar amounts because, despite what Rafe Mair suggested at the time, Vaughn Palmer let us 'know' that this would not have gone to mini-Treasury and/or Cabinet for approval due to a (well-designed?) technicality....Now, if true, wouldn't that have been an oh-so convenient cut-out of plausible deniability?.....For cabinet, Mr. Hansen, and the then (and still!) Premier maybe....But, in my mind it makes the potential conflict with respect to Mr. Whitmarsh's involvement all the more significant.....Alas, as noted above this potential conflict appears to have never been raised by the proMedia at the time....

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What The Canadian Press Didn't Say About RailGate

CrushedByThePointyEndOfTheInvertedPyramidLead
ProJournoVille

__________________

Update: Paul Willcocks has an excellent piece in which little, lead or otherwise, is buried, in Friday's Times Colonist.

____________________

Look.

I don't want to slag the work of Camille Bains, who is a very good reporter for the Canadian Press.

And I realize that the CP has an extremely tight, lead-driven format for their wire stories.

Having said all that, I am starting to become quite concerned that the really important stuff is being wiped from our collective memory as the sporadically published RailGate stories get more and more formulaic.

What the heckfire am I talking about?

Well, as time drags on without an actual trial for the media to chew on, the vast majority of the ProJourno print stories* are boiling down to the following formula:

First - lead with the factual description of yet another bizarre procedural gambit in the courtroom.

Second - get a quote from a 'talking head'/'expert' about the legal implications of said bizarrity.

Third - finish up with a barebones explanation about what RailGate actually is.


By way of illustration, here is how Ms. Bains' RailGate story on yesterday's super-secret, cone-of-silence Supreme Court hearing fits the formula:

First the Lead On The Bizarrity.....
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled reporters and the public will be excluded from the courtroom during testimony from a police officer connected to the B.C. legislature raid case.

The officer is expected to testify that documents turned over to defence lawyers for former government officials facing several charges were censored to protect the identity of an informant.

Justice Elizabeth Bennett ruled Thursday that defence lawyers for Dave Basi, Bobby Virk and Aneal Basi could remain in the courtroom if they promised to keep the information confidential.

But Bennett allowed the Crown to file a federal statutory certificate indicating it was necessary to conduct the hearing in secret, without defence lawyers.

Crown lawyer Janet Winteringham orally filed the certificate, saying defence lawyers must be excluded to protect the confidential informant's identity.

On Thursday afternoon, Bennett began hearing arguments from defence lawyers in a separate in-camera session to determine if they should be entitled to participate in a hearing to determine the legal validity of the certificate.

That hearing was also closed to the media.

Solid stuff there - factual, but detailed and to the point (although, for those who haven't been following the case closely, they would have missed the fact that the 'Crown lawyer' Janet Winteringham is actually the 'junior' special prosecutor, which suggests that, once again, the big kahuna, Bill Beradino wasn't present when the going got tough).


Second, the implications of the Bizarrity:
"There's a secret hearing to determine whether the accused's counsel can attend another secret hearing," said Roger McConchie, a lawyer representing The Canadian Press and other media.

McConchie said the complex case that has already included several legal battles between Crown and defence lawyers is like a maze or "a nested doll situation."

"How far down is this series of nested in-camera dolls going to go?" McConchie said outside court. "This is the first time I've seen the nested doll syndrome go into operation."

He said the case is so mired in legal wrangling that a trial could be derailed.

If that happens, the public may never learn what led to the legislature raid on Dec. 28, 2003, when police carted away boxes of evidence from Basi and Virk's offices.

A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision gives judges the power to order closed hearings to avoid identifying confidential police informants.

(Justice) Bennett is presiding over pre-trial hearings to discuss evidence for a corruption trial slated to begin next March involving the three former B.C. government officials.

This, too, is fair enough - although it's interesting to note that Mr. McConchie is actually working for the CP (and other ProMedia outlets) on this matter. Thus, Ms. Bains didn't have to go very far to get his opinion.

Third - The Bare Bones Wrap-Up:
Virk and Dave Basi are former ministerial aides charged with fraud and breach of trust connected to the $1-billion privatization of B.C. Rail in November 2003, which was followed a month later by a police raid on their legislature offices.

Aneal Basi, Dave Basi's cousin, was a government communications officer and is charged with money laundering in connection with the case.

The Crown alleges that between May 2002 and December 2003 Basi and Virk received benefits from lobbyists at a firm called Pilothouse Public Affairs Group in exchange for providing them with confidential government documents regarding the sale of B.C. Rail.

Pilothouse was representing OmniTRAX, an American company that was among the bidders for B.C. Rail.

The winning bidder was Canadian National Railway.

Now, one could fuss about things like the lack of inclusion of 'Project Every Which Way' (ie. the drug investigation that led to the defendents initially becoming persons of interest), the interminable delays to the start of the trial (and all the obfuscation that has gone regarding what is, and what is not, 'evidence') and/or the connections to the provincial or federal Liberals (ie. the connections of the defendents, the connections of the lobbshop, the pol work of one of the principals of the lobbshop, and/or meetings of at least one cabinet minister with the rail company involved before the deal was done), but that might be seen as quibbling, given the format contraints.

So, what's the problem then, you may be asking yourself?

Well, it's those last two sentences, which are so cryptic that they are, in my opinion, actually misleading with respect to what really happened.

Here they are again (stuff in brackets mine):

Pilothouse (the lobbshop) was representing OmniTRAX, an American company that was among the bidders for B.C. Rail.

The winning bidder was Canadian National Railway.

Now, let's pretend you are a member of the public and that you do your best to keep up with current events but, because this is the real world, you are not obsessed with RailGate. And let's say you opened your paper this morning and read those last two sentences at the end of a wire story buried in your Globe and/or your Sun on pg S3/A11.

With a set-up like that, isn't it pretty darned likely that you might conclude that this entire thing is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot given that those last two sentences imply that the bribery did not work and that the big, bad Americans did not get their hands on our rail lines (ie. the company with the 'Canadian' moniker, CN, won the bid anyway).

So, what's missing?

What is that thing that was left unsaid at the end of Ms Bains' story that might lead a reasonably well-informed member of the public to come to very different conclusion?

Well, it is a thing called a 'Quid Pro Quo'.

Which is otherwise known as a purported before-the-sale deal, perhaps brokered by the accused and/or the lobbshop in question, between the Provincial Government and OmniTrax (who stayed in the bidding to give 'competition cover' after the other 'Canadian' railway, the CPR, dropped-out early screaming that the fix was in) for the left-overs (ie. the Roberts Bank spur-line).

Now, it's important to realize that this quid-pro-quo thing is not just a figment of the fevered imaginations of we, the non-real-world, RailGate obsessives.

Unless, of course, you also think that Vaughn Palmer is also obsessive.

Regardless, if the average member of the public knew that there is a very real possibility that bribery-fueled secret deals were used to grease the wheels of a rigged sale of public assets to a hand-picked private sector company** in perpetuity (and/or 990 years, which ever comes first), don't you think that he or she would feel very differently about this thing?

I do.

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*I'd be happy to comment on the 'lectronic media coverage of RailGate, but that would be impossible because there isn't any.
**Which also turns out to be a formerly public, now private, company that has donated about $150,000 to the BC Liberal Party since the current premier, Mr. Gordon Campbell, became its leader. Interestintly, it is also a company that, along with its chairman, Mr. David McLean, just keeps on giving.
To give Ms. Bains her due (and I really do understand the pressures of her format, and also understand that it may have been an editor who slapped those last two sentences, sans explanation, on the point of her inverted pyramid), BC Mary is reporting that she, Ms. Bains, was one of only two, count 'em two!, members of the media who were in the Studio 54 courtroom yesterday. The other one, according to Mary was our own ol' reliable (and we mean that in a good way), Bill Tieleman.

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RailGate Redux.....For Premier Campbell Some Things Were 'Interesting To Know'

PoliticalInterferenceIsNot
TwoMinutesInTheBoxVille


In case you missed it there was another RailGate hearing yesterday.

How do we know?

Because Bill Tieleman posted up the details on his blog.

Turns out that the defense (surprise!) is alleging political interference by British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell in decisions that have been made (and may still be being made) about what 'evidence' will be held back/suppressed for various and sundry types of privilege that, apparently, have nothing to do with the affairs of Mr. Campbell's cabinet.

We've written about this stuff before.

A lot.

Actually, a heckuva lot.

In fact, probably more than any sane person who is not billing lawyer's hours ever should.

Anyway.

Given all the water that has already passed under the privilege bridge, including the sinking of a previously proven protocol (which is another glorious P3 for anybody that missed it), it is not surprising that the defense now wants to know what Mr. Campbell said to whom, when.

Specifically, the lawyers for co-accused David Basi and Robert Virk, Michael Bolton and Kevin McCullough would like any recordings that were made of the interview Mr. Campbell gave to VProvince columnist Michael Smyth earlier this year when he, 'allegedly' said things like the following:

"It is interesting to know what's taking place on occasion," Campbell told me.

"I asked [Seckel] within the last couple of weeks, 'What's going on?' He said, 'The judge has got all the documents. The judge is making the choices. That's what's happening.' I said, 'Fine.'"

Hmmmmm......

Interesting that, don't you think.

Because, despite all claims that he is not 'interfering' and that he is not 'involved' and that he is not 'influencing' how evidence is being suppressed (legally, of course), Mr. Campbell is, indeed, 'interested', and thus he has apparently spoken to his man 'Seckel' about the details of all that privileged information .

And some of that material is, apparently, critical to the case because it gets to matter of, as the presiding judge Elizabeth Bennett has described it, 'innocence at stake'.

So forget all this 300,000 pages of evidence stuff, because if the critical pages are missing all that wasted wood fiber and/or pixel power means pretty much less than nothing at all.

And just who is this 'Seckel'?

Well that would be Mr. Campbell's most excellent Deputy Attorney General Mr. Allan Seckel, the man in charge of knowing 'what's going on', because he is also the guy that was in charge of the privilege suppression (or not) protocols themselves.

But don't worry, because as Mr. Seckel also spoke to the columnist Mr. Smyth way back when:

"We were going into a meeting and he said something about, 'How's it going?' And I said something to the effect of, 'Don't believe everything you read in the papers.' Then he said, 'Well, when this is all over, you can tell me about that.'

Which is certainly good to know.

But here's something just as, if not more, 'interesting'......

Mr. Seckel and his interview with Mr. Smyth was a topic of discussion in the RailGate Courtroom yesterday.

How do we know that?

Well, again, we are lucky that Mr. Tieleman was there to tell us all about it when no other media members were* (perhaps they were too busy getting ready to write all those storys about the third member of 'star' prosecution witness Erik Bornmann's RailGate Six to resign yesterday?).

Here are the details from Mistah T's report:

Government lawyer George Copley later told (Judge) Bennett that there is no government audio tape of the interview with Seckel.

"The deputy did reply to (Virk defense lawyer) Mr. McCullough's letter and said he did not record the interview with Mr. Smyth but the passages quoted by Mr. Smyth were correct," Copley said.


Which is all fine and dandy as far as it goes.

Except for this.

Michael Smyth's interview with Mr. Seckel was NOT the same interview as the one that resulted in Mr. Campbell's comments to Smyth regarding his 'interest' in privilege such that he spoke to his man Seckel.

OK?



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*OK, OK, OK! It turns out that Mark Hume, who has done some very good work in the past, did have a short piece in today's Globe but it was cryptic in the extreme. Further, it contained no mention of the actual RailGate Tape 'request' and the only quotes were made by lawyers 'outside' the courtroom which kind of makes one go, hmmmmmmmmm...... (re: attendance). And speaking of hmmmmmmm.......(re: attendance), especially given our good friend Mary's recent very illuminating exchange with VSun managing editor Kirk Lapointe, why no story today from Neal Hall (enquiring Anon-O-Mice want to know)?


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