ThereVille
It would seem, based on events of the past week or so, that the Lords of GordCo, Inc. and the Keepers of Clarklandia may never leave us...
First, this, from Sam Cooper of Global News about our former premier's Sgt. Schultz defense b/w a light throwing of Darth Vader under the bus while responding to questions during the ongoing money laundering inquiry:
... (Cullen) Commission lawyer Patrick McGowan grilled (former B.C. Premier Christy) Clark on whether she was aware from 2011 of increasingly urgent reports coming from the enforcement branch and casino surveillance units, showing that bags of $20 bills were being commonly used by high rollers to buy casino chips and that the cash was dropped off inside or near casinos...
{snip}
...Clark said it wasn’t until 2015, after her then-finance minister Mike de Jong took casinos over from Coleman, that she was directly informed of an “all-time high” spike in suspicious cash transactions. Within two weeks of de Jong’s report, Clark said, the pair worked together to implement the Joint Illegal Gaming Investigation Team, a special casino-crime police task force...
And then Bob Mackin determined that former Clarklandian apparatchik Jean Paul Fraser has been 'assisting' Northern Vancouver Island mayors to help them put the fish farming industry's best foot forward:
Email obtained by theBreaker.news under the freedom of information law shows how closely mayors of four Northern Vancouver Island municipalities worked behind-the-scenes with salmon farming lobbyist John Paul Fraser...
{snip}
...Fraser was the BC Liberal government’s deputy minister of communications under ex-Premier Christy Clark. He is also the son of Paul Fraser, the late the conflict of interest commissioner who never found an MLA broke the law during his more than a decade in office...
And, apropos of absolutely nothing at all, the good Mr. Fraser once worked with Ms. Clark's former life partner, a fine fellow named Mark Marissen who himself both made and reported his own 'news' recently:
And then along came a very different finest of the fine fellow named John from days of yore pretending that the province of British Columbia is actually Europe.
Or some such thing:
...A 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games that encompasses more of B.C. than the Lower Mainland and a ski resort town will be part of John Furlong's pitch to the Vancouver Board of Trade on Friday...
{snip}
..."B.C. is not small. This is Germany, France and England combined. It's a very big area," Furlong said...
It would seem, based on events of the past week or so, that the Lords of GordCo, Inc. and the Keepers of Clarklandia may never leave us...
First, this, from Sam Cooper of Global News about our former premier's Sgt. Schultz defense b/w a light throwing of Darth Vader under the bus while responding to questions during the ongoing money laundering inquiry:
... (Cullen) Commission lawyer Patrick McGowan grilled (former B.C. Premier Christy) Clark on whether she was aware from 2011 of increasingly urgent reports coming from the enforcement branch and casino surveillance units, showing that bags of $20 bills were being commonly used by high rollers to buy casino chips and that the cash was dropped off inside or near casinos...
{snip}
...Clark said it wasn’t until 2015, after her then-finance minister Mike de Jong took casinos over from Coleman, that she was directly informed of an “all-time high” spike in suspicious cash transactions. Within two weeks of de Jong’s report, Clark said, the pair worked together to implement the Joint Illegal Gaming Investigation Team, a special casino-crime police task force...
****
Email obtained by theBreaker.news under the freedom of information law shows how closely mayors of four Northern Vancouver Island municipalities worked behind-the-scenes with salmon farming lobbyist John Paul Fraser...
{snip}
...Fraser was the BC Liberal government’s deputy minister of communications under ex-Premier Christy Clark. He is also the son of Paul Fraser, the late the conflict of interest commissioner who never found an MLA broke the law during his more than a decade in office...
****
And, apropos of absolutely nothing at all, the good Mr. Fraser once worked with Ms. Clark's former life partner, a fine fellow named Mark Marissen who himself both made and reported his own 'news' recently:
****
And then along came a very different finest of the fine fellow named John from days of yore pretending that the province of British Columbia is actually Europe.
Or some such thing:
...A 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games that encompasses more of B.C. than the Lower Mainland and a ski resort town will be part of John Furlong's pitch to the Vancouver Board of Trade on Friday...
{snip}
..."B.C. is not small. This is Germany, France and England combined. It's a very big area," Furlong said...
****
Finally, one of the Ghosts of GordCo, Inc. Land Deals Past is being forced to raise its still entirely opaque head above the public awareness parapet:
The B.C. Supreme Court has set aside two days to hear arguments on whether the public can see the contract that privatized the Little Mountain lands in Vancouver more than a decade ago.
The case could be heard as early as Thursday, although one of the lawyers involved says it's on an overflow list awaiting a judge.
The years-long effort to reveal the details of the purchase agreement between B.C. Housing and developer Holborn Properties has been the subject of a protracted freedom of information battle between the developer, the Crown corporation, the CBC and co-applicant David Chudnovsky...
{snip}
The Little Mountain lands lie between Queen Elizabeth Park and Main Street in East Vancouver, just south of Nat Bailey Stadium. The six-hectare site was home to 224 units of social housing that existed from the 1950s until the land was sold in 2008 by the B.C. Liberal government to developer the Holborn Group.
In 2009, all but four units of social housing were demolished.
While displaced residents were promised that they would be able to return to newly-built social housing, only 53 units were ever constructed...
The B.C. Supreme Court has set aside two days to hear arguments on whether the public can see the contract that privatized the Little Mountain lands in Vancouver more than a decade ago.
The case could be heard as early as Thursday, although one of the lawyers involved says it's on an overflow list awaiting a judge.
The years-long effort to reveal the details of the purchase agreement between B.C. Housing and developer Holborn Properties has been the subject of a protracted freedom of information battle between the developer, the Crown corporation, the CBC and co-applicant David Chudnovsky...
{snip}
The Little Mountain lands lie between Queen Elizabeth Park and Main Street in East Vancouver, just south of Nat Bailey Stadium. The six-hectare site was home to 224 units of social housing that existed from the 1950s until the land was sold in 2008 by the B.C. Liberal government to developer the Holborn Group.
In 2009, all but four units of social housing were demolished.
While displaced residents were promised that they would be able to return to newly-built social housing, only 53 units were ever constructed...
Will we never be rid of them?
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12 comments:
Oh, Little Mountain, please keep reporting on that. In my opinion, the current government ought to simply give that developer back his money and tell him, the land ought never to have been sold and then the current government can build affordable housing for families making "150K a year or less and work in the city of Vancouver. I'm not advocating "social" housing, but affordable housing, which would include both high and low earners and those on disability pensions, etc. A real mix. That piece of land would solve more than a few housing problems in the city. These units need to be family friendly.
When making decisions regarding this land the politicians might want to remember that most first responders, nurses, fire fighters, police, etc. live outside of Vancouver. In a disaster, the citizens of the city will be on their own. No one living south of the Fraser is going to leave their families and homes to come into Vancouver to deal with the results of an earthquake or some such disaster. People who are in the works dept. certainly can't afford to live in the city. how do you expect to deal with burst pipes etc, in an emergency. We need to build housing for essential workers. It need to be affordable and central. Little Mountain fills the bill. whatever went on during the sale always left me feeling a little queasy. Didn't trust it, so I am looking forward to it all.
Saw a small clip on the news of the hearing. Some former player kept giving very vague answers sort of like she didn't think so, didn't remember. wonder where her brain suddenly went.
Don't trust much of what has come out of christy's mouth either. Dont' think we will get to the bottom of it in our life time. Lots of people knew what was going on in the casinos, even if you didn't go there. Government didnt' do anything about it. Too many were making money. Money laundering kept the economy of this province moving nicely, in my opinion.
Its nice to see in the new federal budget that corporations can no longer hide behind them. the "owners" will have to be listed. Just like the Panama papers so nicely reported out to us.
Really liked that "picture" Australia had up about the "Vancouver model" of money laundrying. Was just so clear. What did B.C. do? Nothing. One could say the B.C. Lieberals wweren't an overly bright group, but really no one could be that stupid as to not have known. If they were truly that stupid they ought not to be sitting on any boards they now are. if they can't remember what happened a few years ago and don't have notes from that time, perhaps they need to see their doctors regarding dementia.
Hey I was looking forward to ALL your links BUT not one works....
https://www.blogger.com/# = Fish Farming Link broken
https://www.blogger.com/#
The Cullen Commission will always have to deal with these people (as expected) that have a terrible memory loss problem. (Re: Lori Wanamaker also!!)
Some places that are haunted (the ghosts of GordCo Land) stay that way forever. Kind of like the thought of Covid hanging around for years and years.
I would be happy to be rid of them Ross, after they pay for their myriad of misdeeds. As far as the money laundering escapade goes we've heard the expected nothing from the 3 interchangeable monkeys AKA hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil. I don't expect the great ape, Coleman, to provide any facts. RG
This group-of-four thicko politicos was never going to sign on to this zoomy whitewash and willingly start spilling their own beans in the raw (like some liberal mp talking shop back east:-).
What it would take is documented proof of criminal wrong-doing, say in the form of large unexplainable deposits moving into verifiable accounts, which could be proof to leverage against the lot of them for conspiring to breach their fiduciary trust.
The real problem is that the official watchers are as corrupt as these actors we throw up.
And make no mistake about it: Nothing has changed in the view of the media corp$(e). Those frauds wouldn't dare whisper the truth about anything that wasn't pre-approved (at that includes snooper Cooper, who always knows only what he should know and never an ounce more--because he knows his job depends on it).
Whilst this new party in power is in it to win with money, just like the last party. They seem to be fine with opening new casinos. And then consider the fact that in January, Mike Farnworth said that tit-for-tat shootings were completely unacceptable. So does that means he sanctions HA hits and opposes when people retaliate against them? Please advise. Are the BC NDP any different from the BC Liberals? In what way? They haven't brought back the OMGU. The CFSEU is still compromised and their money laundering inquiry is simply a publicity stunt to blame the previous government but what have they done to confront crime since they have been elected?
BC deserves better representation; but it's never going to get it when everybody's succumbed to the love of money, mostly because it's all they can do to survive.
Never forget:
https://nowtoronto.com/news/canada-john-furlong-olympics-truth-reconciliation
https://www.canadaland.com/i-remember-john-furlong/
eaf--
Regarding Little Mountain, the issue I always had was that it went from 100% affordable housing to 11%. Of course the BCL line at the time, which was swallowed hook, line and sinker by many at the time was that it was the same 'number' of affordable/social units when the leverage on the market units was (and still is, presumably) massive.
Now, more than a decade later, according to the linked-to story from Jeremy Allingham of the CBC, less than a quarter of even that meager 11% (i.e. 53 of 224) has been built so far.
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NVG--
Ghosts in the creaking, rusting blogsot machine!
Links now fixed I hope
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Booey, RG, and Anon-Above--
Regarding one of the receipts that the good Mr. Coleman should be required to watch at the Inquiry next week before being asked specifics about the 2009 dismantling of IGET and what was done, specifically, in the aftermath...This.
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Thanks S-B.
.
Maybe the watchers aren't really watching what they ought to.
Consider that when Australia (especially Sydney and Melbourne) were rotting to the core with corruption, change only came after a long, hard slog by a federal politician, John Hatton, finally won enough parliamentary support to get a Royal Commission of enquiry into the New South Wales Police Force, forever changing the course of history.
The Wood Royal Commission into police corruption in New South Wales, Australia, occurred in 1995 and lasted 2 years.
Even though the results saw the cleaning of the house on the policing side, many of the other players slithered away and never faced justice.
Anybody remember that Kelly Reichert, the former BC Liberal Party Executive Director was and is the brother-in-law of the RCMP investigation team's Captain, then Sgt. Kevin DeBruykere - now a senior Inspector? It was he who led 'Operation Everywhichway'.
The greatest mastermind of the era, Patrick Kinsella, is noticeably absent from this inquiry.
Nothing moved in that party for nearly two decades without his say-so, and yet he skates.
Guy's like some kind of genius, in a nasty sort of way.
Watching Global morning news today where they reported David Eby will be testifying. Holy smokes this “news” programme utterly ignored the money laundering enquiry even when the recent, premier Christy Clark was sworn in (to tell the truth I assume) let alone the current b.c. Liberal leader in Shirley Bond and other miscreants. Remember how this same station exhausted ad nauseum a story in a semi similar vein when another Clark was tangenically involved with gaming and the exchange of a personal cheque for $1500 for a $1500 patio deck and a pocket knife? Anyway, Global snooze has in their eyes I guess successfully connected Eby somehow with a money laundering enquiry and that is best they can do for today. Sheeesh
https://globalnews.ca/news/7816585/ex-b-c-gaming-minister-testimony-cullen-commission/
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