TwasTheIndemnityStupidVille
From reader Bob F. who sends us this picture from the northeasterly quadrant of our fine province...
Bob then says:
"...Got this at Pouce Coupe a few days ago. We have had a few wanna be Lib leaders up here trolling the faithful. They all go quiet when BCRail comes up..."
Imagine that!
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20 comments:
Well, it was a snow job...
Lew--
Indeed, it was.
Winter, spring, summer and fall....
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RossK, I haven't put away my snow shovel. Still use that sucker at least an hour every day at minimum, and one of these days it will uncover what I'm looking for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3-5YC_oHjE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2mO870Ca1s
I'm very, very glad to hear that Lew.
I think, perhaps, it is time to go down to the archives basement and dig my shovel out also...
Perhaps I'll start...
...Here.
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Thanks Anon-Above--
Here is a chunk of another nugget, which Lew has another big chunk of, dug from the archives re: the 'plea agreement'...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dApVya1YUlQ
"What is clear is that there was no legally binding deal. There couldn’t be. The waiver of recovery of fees was not and could not be an inducement to plead guilty. As a matter of law they were not connected."
Mr. Plant made that statement before the actual October 14, 2010 plea agreement (which the government and Basi and Virk fiercely resisted disclosing) was leaked. That agreement is a legally binding deal and directly connects the pleas "on the count(s) and terms as required by the special prosecutor" to the waiver of liability for the accumulated legal fees. The agreement also stipulates sequential actions by the parties, with the signing of the waiver by the government coming last.
There was indeed an "understanding". It was based on a legal agreement formed by an offer (inducement) by the government and an acceptance by the defendants.
To my knowledge Mr. Plant has not revised his statement that as a matter of law the guilty pleas could not be connected to the waiver.
Thanks Lew--
Looks like we might have some mud on both our shovels.
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Bruce Hutchinson column:
For their crimes? For interfering illegally with an already-controversial sale of sensitive provincial assets? For triggering a interminable, hugely expensive criminal and judicial process? For their defence strategy, reliant on rumours, innuendo, and one or two malleable members of the press whom they used to promote an agenda of obfuscation outside the courts?
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/too-quick-too-easy-end-to-bc-rail-trial
one or two malleable members of the press ......
Looks like we might have some mud on both our shovels.
That's not mud - it's the emissions from the north end of a south bound cow.
Ian Reid, in comments to the RossK post “The Six Million Dollar BC Rail Deal….Mr. Plant Answers My Question” said:
“Good work getting him to state that clearly, RossK!
Because it's not true. I know that directly.”
Ian Reid was right as usual. We all know that now. But I don’t think Mr. Plant was lying; I believe he just didn’t think anyone in the Ministry of Attorney General would be foolhardy enough to put an inducement in writing. Or set up a deputy finance minister to sign the resulting waiver without the requisite authority. But they did. And they are the people who aren’t always truthful.
In April of 2011 I exchanged correspondence with the Assistant Deputy Attorney General wherein I told him there clearly had to be a negotiated agreement between the Attorney General’s ministry and the defendants involving a $6 million financial consideration, and that it was that agreement that obligated the Crown to sign the waiver effectively amending the indemnity agreements. The penultimate paragraph in his response is as follows:
“Contrary to the inference in your letter, I can confirm that the plea agreement was arranged by the special prosecutor who had no knowledge of any discussions regarding the issue of legal fees for the two defendants.”
He wrote that knowing not only was there a separate secret plea agreement with the defendants that obligated the Crown to sign the waiver only if and after the defendants pled guilty and were convicted as a result, but he had signed it himself!
David Eby, the current Attorney General, used to have quite a bee in his bonnet about the Basi/Virk deal. And the outraged NDP campaigned at one time promising a full inquiry into the BC Rail affair. But now they’ve gone silent, and Mr. Eby’s deputy is non other than the very same fine fellow that arranged and signed the Basi/Virk deal on behalf of the BC Liberal government.
I wonder what Ian Reid would think of that.
Mr. Horgan, do you have any guesses? And did you get my October 02, 2017 letter?
What I want to hear is:
We were bought off
NVG--
One of whom was, in my opinion, most obvious
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Point taken Willy.
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Lew--
The circularity is quite astonishing.
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I sometimes dream of riding the BCR up to Lillooet where I used to work for about four years, even stopped over in beautiful Shalath a couple times. I also dream of getting our railway back.
It seems straightforward to me, but I’m naive: isn’t it true there’s plenty of evidence of perfidy, cooking the books to make BCR look like a dog (when it wasn’t), and rigging the bid process (which resulted in two convictions, but plenty of unanswered questions and justifiable suspicions)...and there’s always expropriation, except I’d expect a very substantial discount for the — uh — theft...or is that just a dream, too?
Didn’t the NDP at one time commit to an inquiry into the corrupt sale of BCR? Are they betraying us?
Who would the NDP rather run against in the next election? Todd Stone? Wilkinson? Were those guys around back then in the bad old BCR scandal days? Or what about Mike de Gong? Now there’s one helluva dirty shirt.
So, if an inquiry was to start in the foreseeable, would that help Stone or Wilkinson in their leadership bids, given they could imply de Gong would be vulnerable and therefore not as able to beat the NDP?
But, if de Gong won the leadership, would he be any less vulnerable if an inquiry were called, say, a bit closer to the next election? Like, when all the boobytrapped and tampered evidence has been more thoroughly parsed and a solid case synthesized? Would it be better not to indict too soon?
I guess I’m still dreaming. Wake me up when we get to Lillooet.
Just a small, probably irrelevant point: if that photo is from Pouce Coupe, surely the abandoned railway would be the Northern Alberta Railway, not BCRail...
“CN had also maintained ownership of the portion between Hythe, Alberta, and Dawson Creek, British Columbia, where it connects to former BC Rail trackage. The trackage between Hythe and Dawson Creek fell into disuse in 1998, but CN agreed to re-open it as a condition of purchasing BC Rail.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Alberta_Railways
If the BC NDP kill Site C it will also knock off CNR / BCR 'ballast' spur line to the site as well.
Thanks JH.
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