The Real Debt Number: Sometimes You Just Have To Listen To...

Quick Comment On Latest From Angus Reid Update... at bottom of the post.

...Uncle Rafe.

Monday 5:00pm...Still waiting for that last Angus Reid poll to drop...My advice is to ignore the latest Ekos poll (41Dipper/35BCL) for the moment as the 13Green/9Con numbers seem crazy high (and perhaps non-riding corrected) to me....

Monday 7:30pm...AReid is out....Appears the slide really has halted 45/36 (i.e. does not appear to be a hint of a last weekend before election day Wild Roseian-type collapse thingy)...I'll be back with a more detailed examination of the splits later, but a quick look leads to the following....First, those amongst us with two X chromosomes are will very likely save us all, and.....Second, even if the Green and/or Con rumps completely collapse in the ballot box this really does look to be a strong Dipper majority....

.

While Everybody Waits Anxiously For The Last Poll From A. Reid To Drop....

There'sNoSerumLike
TruthSerumVille

_____

Update: 4:30 pm Monday....Ekos is out... 41Dipper/35BCL....But looks like it is not riding corrected as 13Green/9Con looks crazy high...Still waiting for AReid to see poll-to-poll trends, especially in regions and demos (it will be the women that can save us, I reckon)...

_____

...I suggest you all head over to Ian Reid's place for a dose of real politick that matters.

Why?

Because 'moral victories' are useless.

Go give him Ian a read (pun very much intended).

You won't be sorry.

_____
And apropos of pretty much nothing at all  (except perhaps Mr. Dix' comment over the weekend about his not needing a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows)....Had to ride due West out to campus first thing this morning...Then I had to ride East back into the heart of the  Hospital Industrial Complex mid-morning...And, finally, rode West again back out to campus at lunch...And every bloody ride the wind had flipped around and was in my face...No fair!


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The Ice Bomb Bridge Revisited...They Knew.

There'sNoProtocol
LikeNoProtocolVille


And  even though they knew they pushed ahead with the Premier's pre-Christmas 'Quick Win' photo-op and opened the bridge, regardless.

Bob Mackin has the story, and it is backed with a 500 page FOI blizzard in which many folks voiced their concern and repeatedly asked about protocols and standing operating procedures to deal with ice build up that were never resolved and led one official to scribble the following in the margins of a memo:

..."(B)ut that could still fall into traffic!"...

And the exclamation point is most definitely NOT mine.

****

Interestingly, a weather station that facilitates early warnings to prevent damage, injury and, potentially, death wasn't purchased until February, some two months after the fact.

The cost of said station?

$100K.

Which, of course, means that they could have bought one hundred of the things and still had enough left over to buy 20,000 separate Christmas and/or Holiday gifts for the most needy of kids in the Province's care...

All for the cost of one completely bogus Bollywood Awards show that has most definitely not been watched by 400 million people.

And that 20,000 number is, unlike, say, what Ms. Clark likes to do so much, not just made up out of whole cloth.

Seriously.


.

If It's Sunday She Must Be Lying.

DoWhatISay
NotWhatISaid(UnlessISaySomethingDifferentInFiveSeconds)Ville


In response to a reporter's direct question about her party's full page ad in the Victoria Times Colonist that explicitly called on the voters to support Jane Sterk in an apparent effort to split the enviro/left vote in South Van Isle ridings where the Green Party support is highest, the leader of the (so-called) BC Liberal Party said the following to Global News:


...“Well the ad was intended to endorse us,” said Clark. “I think the point that we were making in that, I mean for me, as I said in the debate, I disagree with Jane Sterk on almost everything, but I respect the fact that she’s prepared to take a stand on things. She’s got guts, she’s willing to stand up for what she believes in, and I try and do the same thing. I try and stand up for what I believe in, even though people may disagree with me, because I think people want leaders who are straightforward and who are strong enough to stand up.”...

And people are seriously prepared to vote for this woman who has a compulsion, to the very end, to babble on in completely nonsensical word salad-based gobbledygook that actually argues against an outright lie she just uttered three seconds ago?

Seriously?



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Image at the top of the post from Ian Bailey's Twittmachine feed.

.

Ms. Clark Goes To Steepleton.

AndTheAbsintheSoonFlowedLikeTheMighty
FraserVille


Our intrepid mid-Valley political party volunteer Mr. Beer 'N Hockey, who began the campaign working for either four or seven candidates, I'm not entirely sure which (regardless, the actual number has since dropped precipitously for various and assorted sundry reasons), was at a stump stop for the leader of the BC Liberal Party yesterday: 

Yesterday I had to attend Christy Clark's visit to Steepleton. When asked to attend I asked the campaign's volunteer leader, "Don't the toilets need cleaning out?"...

{snippety doo-dah}

...When I got to the once empty new car showroom, a pretty good a metaphor for the Liberal's election platform, I found the stage already set up, flanked by a PA system big enough for two KISS concerts. If the Liberals spent half as much of their gunnysacks of money on bullsh*t like big PA systems for people who do want to hear a f*cking word of what their leader says and spent it developing ideas and policies people might actually believe maybe they would not have had her visiting a once solid Liberal seat such as Steepleton South with four days left in the campaign...

{snippety doodle-dandy}

.... There were about a hundred people there, probably less. I wondered if I was the only person there who was not a paid movie extra.


Ya.

And....

Go Moe Go!


______
As for the absinthe?....Well, you'll have to go read the entire thing to get that...But just to be absolutely clear, Beer made absolutely no mention of either Ibogaine or Boo-Hoo trains....
As for the image at the top of the post?....Well, the junior Segrettis stoppin' by will just have to ask the Wizards of West Annexerly Place with the grey hair about that.

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Ya, But....Which One's Thelma?

There'sNoSnarkLike
MurphSnarkVille


The irrepressible Dan Murphy, with an assist from Kai Nagata, goes full-on Grand Canyon...

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In These Times, Can Ms. Clark Commit A Revolutionary Act?

DeceitTruthAnd
AllThatVille

It came up the other day when I rode Bob Mackin's most loquacious Twittmachine feed for an hour or so waiting to see what extra, post-Jas Johal doc-release, stuff he had on BC Rail.

And, despite a number of the posts I have written over the last few weeks, the thing that came up over at Uncle Bob's was not something I had expected.

But, as someone who tries to pay attention, it was a thing, in the form of a question, that had been gnawing on my brainstem for quite sometime without my even knowing it.

So.

Here is that thing, I think, that must be asked....

Specifically...

Since the campaign started, has anything of significance uttered or proposed by Christy Clark actually been based on actual facts?

****

I mean, surely, there must be a few, or even one such thing, right?

So I decided to go hunting for such a thing...

And then, well....

I read the following, in the Dean's latest, this morning:

“I don’t know how many times I’ve had this discussion,” said Clark when asked about the NDP’s six-point lead during a session with The Vancouver Sun editorial board. “I’m going to ask you to go back and look at the 8,000 other comments about the value of the kind of polling that you (media) guys focus on.”

The survey in question was conducted by Ipsos Reid for Global TV and aired on the station’s noontime broadcast, about the same time that the results were relayed to Clark.

“We don’t rely on that type of (publicly available polling) information,” Clark continued. Instead her B.C. Liberals, like other political parties, poll in much greater depth and do so pretty much every day, with the focus on key ridings instead of province-wide results.

Those internal findings have her insisting publicly that the party is still “competitive” with the NDP where it needs to be, in order to win enough seats (43 is the minimum) to secure a fourth term.

During the same editorial board session, she also scoffed at speculation that her own seat might be up for grabs Tuesday. “I’m rolling my eyes right now,” was her reply when that speculation was put to her by a reporter participating via a conference call...


Look.

There are still three days to go.

And I guess it is still possible that Ms. Clark will show up at her next presser disguised as  Tania so that she can then proclaim that, in her heart, she has always been a Revolutionary just before she starts firing come clean truth bombs right, left and center about how the Free-Enterprise Liberation Army (and/or MarkyMark) made her do it.

But.

Somehow I doubt it.

OK?


______
Header buggin' you?......Orwell.


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The Endorsement I've Been Waiting For.

Decency
MattersVille



From The Georgia Straight:

Burnaby-Lougheed

Jane Shin (NDP)

Shin, who moved to Canada from South Korea as a child, has come under waves of criticism from the B.C. Liberals for calling herself a doctor, even though she graduated from medical school. She’s an articulate, caring, and hard-working candidate who will probably be a far better representative than the soon-to-retire B.C. Liberal incumbent, the hapless Harry Bloy.

_____
Why?....Well, this....And this too.........Not to mention this as well....  OK?


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BC Liberal Pay-To-Play.....Independent Liquor Division.

There'sNoGriftLikeASymbiotic
GriftVille

_____

Friday 6pm....Breaking...Angus Reid's latest about to drop....CTV's Rob Brown is tweeting gap is no longer closing...Instead is widening...Will details be out by 8:01pm?

_____

Writing in 24hrs, Jeremy Nuttall and Bill Tieleman have the story.

Here's their lede:

The BC Liberal Party raised more than $300,000 from liquor businesses in a single day in 2010 just weeks before the provincial government introduced substantial changes to the Liquor Control and Licensing Act, a 24 Hours Vancouver investigation has found

The changes included a section that “allows inducements for the sale of liquor subject to regulations or a direction of the general manager” by liquor manufacturers to liquor licensees, according to notes explaining the legislation.

Elections BC financial disclosure records show that on March 24, 2010, the BC Liberal Party received at least 12 liquor business donations of $15,000 each, plus a $25,000 contribution from the Alliance of Beverage Licensees of BC.

Independent liquor industry sources told 24 Hours the BC Liberal Party held an event March 24, 2010, at which liquor industry officials each paid $15,000 to meet with then-premier Gordon Campbell and Rich Coleman, the minister responsible for liquor distribution, over lunch at Gotham Steakhouse in Vancouver to discuss industry liquor issues.

The records also show dozens of smaller liquor business donations, for a total of $302,500 on that day...

And who ran the 'Alliance of Beverage Lisensees of BC' (ABLE) in 2010, back in the days before Ms. Clark was brought in to replace the Mr. Campbell?

Bingo!

...ABLE BC’s executive director at that time was Kim Haakstad, who later became Premier Christy Clark’s deputy chief of staff before resigning over the ethnic outreach memo scandal...


But here's the thing you may have forgotten....

The year before, despite the success of the carbon tax misdirection at the beginning, the BC Liberals started to feel the heat as the 2009 campaign moved on, which only intensifed after Carole James banged Mr. Campbell like a gong, repeatedly, during the debates.

All of which meant that they needed one of their patented wedge issues on a silver platter for the final push.

And Ms. Haakstad was only to happy to oblige them with the 'three bucks a six-pack' gambit which, as you might expect, Mr. Michael Smyth of the Province swallowed whole:

...In what the industry is calling the NDP's "six-pack attack", private store owners are warning an NDP win on May 12 could increase the price of a half-sack of suds by three dollars! Private beer stores currently account for 55% of all the brew sold in B.C. and (Carole) James has vowed to jack up their wholesale costs by six percentage points...

..."It would mean a $12 six-pack could jump to $15." Kim Haakstad, executive director of the ABLE, told me (Michael Smyth) yesterday. "I think this is the first time in historay a political party has run a campaign on a promise to increase beer prices."...

Mr. Campbell quickly flung the platter over the proMedia ramparts and, as you might expect, the rest of the puffed-up punditry picked it up and ran with it, this despite the fact that the real problem was actually one of the BC Liberals own making that Ms. James and the Dippers were trying to fix.

Sound familiar?


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The 801 Club Revisited: Why I Disagree With Gary Mason's Latest.

AllTheObviousnessThatFits
OnTheSurfaceFilmOfAVeryShallowPondVille


Last night, writing in The Globe, Mr. Mason explained why he thinks the 801 Club is doomed:

...The 801 dreams were born when it looked like voters would assign Ms. Clark to political oblivion – when they thought voters would do the dirty work for them. That is not likely to happen now. There is a good chance Ms. Clark will try to stay on as Opposition Leader even if a Liberal loss includes her own seat. A few 801ers I spoke to in the last few days were still talking bravely about dumping her even if she found a way to get a seat. But much of their earlier bravado has disappeared.

Here is a fact many overlook in this discussion. Yes, Ms. Clark did not enjoy the support of her caucus when she was made leader. Many didn’t like her. But most of those people are gone. Ms. Clark went out and recruited a whole new gang, many of whom, if they get elected, will owe her their loyalty. The anti-Clark crowd in caucus could well be a minority, which would make leading a mutiny that much more difficult...

Now.

It's not that I completely disagree with Mr. Mason's analysis about the changes to Ms. Clark's caucus, especially after all the strong-arming that went down during the 'nomination' process (although there are a couple of wildcards that managed to slip in there, including Smilin' Sammy's stomping of Little Lord Lorne).

Instead, it's Mr. Mason's thesis that it is the caucus that actually matters most that I disagree with.

Because if Mr. Mason had bothered to put on his goggles and look just below the surface, surely he would have realized that absolutely nothing has changed down in the muck and the mire where the real deals get done.

Including at PavCo, where the still secret plans for the Casino-Industrial-Complex will almost certainly  be revealed on May 15th if Ms. Clark wins.

And at BC Ferries, which is being run by a fine bunch of snout-in-troughers who have already, even according to Ms. Clark, run up a billion dollar deficit while they have pushed fares (i.e. those things you and I pay) through the roof.

And at Translink, which is still being run into the ground by the very folks that Gordon Campbell hand-picked to do just that.

And at BC Hydro, where all those IPP contracts will continue to be honoured while we, the suckers, pay the price for the next 100 years or so.

And at the Pacific Carbon Trust, where the board makes sure that cash-strapped schools and hospitals give our hard-earned money to the corporations run by the folks standing just behind the curtain.

And then there are the most excellent folks standing just behind the curtain themselves...You know, the ones that pay-to-play to build the boondoggles, steal the land, rape the rivers, and frack the land for nothing.

And then there are the appartchiks inside the machine who are still there...In fact, the very fine fellow who did not take the Railgate pay-off deal to Cabinet is now pretty much everywhere...And then, of course, there are those that do all that investigating of things like secret plumbing operations inside the Premier's office...

And as for those folks who ran the secret plumbing operations inside the Premier's office, some of whom funnelled government-collected personal information to party databases ...Where are they today?....At this very minute?

And, finally, where will the very fine fellow who, apparently (at least according to Mr. David Basi), could once be counted on to help "get the fluff out of this sh*t" be if Ms. Clark's penchant for serial obfuscation puts her over the top on Tuesday?


_____
Speaking of pay-to-play...Norm Farrell is on that subject over at his place today.
Where'd Railgate go, you might be asking...Well... I figured I'd give some of the big guns a chance to revisit it in the wake of the release of the pay-off docs, especially the Dean given the fact that it was he who carried the water on the 'contingent' liability thing...

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Is The Real Reason That Ms. Clark Could Win Because Of Codswallop...

...Like That Just Published By Macleans Magazine?

Macleans has just posted a piece titled '10 Reasons Why Christy Clark Could Actually Win The B.C. Election' under the byline of Nancy MacDonald.

Here is a chunk Ms. MacDonald's top reason:

1. Clark’s highly effective campaign

The (BC) Liberals have managed to frame the conversation on fiscal and economic issues—taxes, government spending and major projects like pipelines, liquefied natural gas and fracking—on which they are strong. That makes the NDP, who promise to increase taxes and government spending, show little to no interest in balancing the budget, and oppose resource mega-projects look like a risky choice...

Now.

Just go back and read that bit again before we move on....

****

Do you see where I'm  about to go  here?

Specifically, do you see that every single one of the BC Liberal 'strengths' listed by Ms. MacDonald  are, in reality, actually great weaknesses.

Taxes - Ms. Clark and the BC Liberals have indicated that they will be raising taxes recently.

Government Spending - It is Ms. Clark and the BC Liberals who have overspent more in the last two years than any other British Columbia Premier/Government, ever.

Pipelines - It is Ms. Clark who has done nothing whatsoever but grandstand on the matter of pipelines.

LNG and Fracking - It is Ms. Clark and her minions who have given us nothing but Trillion Dollar Sparkle-Ponies and non-existent Prosperity Funds that she says she will used fix her massive overspending and even more massive, unacknowledged real debt of approximately $180 billion sometime, somewhere in the future.

Budgets - Throughout the campaign, including in both the radio and television debates Ms. Clark lied, repeatedly, with malice aforethought, about her budget.

****

So...

What does this actually mean, especially given that Ms. MacDonald goes into full BC Liberal Party (built on the public dime) attack website mode with that 'risky choice' descriptor of the NDP thing at the very end?

Well, in my opinion, it means that it is codswallop like this piece in Macleans magazine which enable Ms. Clark and the BC Liberals to say that white is black, and up is down, and 2 + 2 = 180,000,000,000 that is the real reason that she is not polling at negative infinity at the moment.

OK?


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Ya, But....Can Ms. Clark See Point Grey From Her House?

WhoseRidingIsThis
AnywayVille


You may have seen the TeeVee footage of Christy Clark casting her ballot for first herself and then, second, Margaret MacDiarmid.

And now we have an explanation for why Ms. Clark tried to first vote for herself in Point Grey despite the fact that she actually lives in Fairview where Ms. MacDiarmid is running for the BC Liberal Party.

The Globe's Justine Hunter had the (slightly misspelled) story on the Twittmachine earlier this afternoon:

Which is all fine as far as it goes.

Because, after all, if you campaign as a serial liar and your approval ratings subsequently go up, presumably because the proMedia is unwilling to hold you to account for your words, deeds, and actions, why should you (or your Wizards) worry about a little (more) incompetence.

But....

What's with this thing about bringing cameras into the voting station and having them film you cast your ballot while you tell everyone in the room, including folks there to vote, as well as the entire province who, precisely, you are voting for?

Is that even legal?

Well, if you look at the election act the answer would appear to be....

No:

Voting to be by secret ballot

90  (1) Voting at an election must be by secret ballot.

(2) Each individual present at a place at which a voter exercises the right to vote, including individuals present to vote, and each individual present at the counting of the vote must preserve the secrecy of the ballot and, in particular, must not do any of the following:

(a) interfere with an individual who is marking a ballot;

(b) attempt to discover how an individual voted;

(c) communicate information regarding how another individual voted or marked a ballot;

(d) induce an individual, directly or indirectly, to show the ballot in a way that reveals how the individual voted.

(3) A voter may not be required in any legal proceedings to reveal how he or she voted in an election....

{snippety doo-dah}

... Offences in relation to voting and counting proceedings

261  (1) An individual or organization who does any of the following commits an offence:

(a) contravenes section 90 (2) regarding the secrecy of the ballot;

(b) is present at a place where voting or counting proceedings are being conducted without being authorized under this Act to be present;

(c) contravenes section 74 regarding granting employees time free from work during general voting;

(d) without authority takes down, covers up, mutilates, defaces or alters a notice or other document authorized or required under this Act to be posted.

(2) An individual or organization who commits an offence under subsection (1) is liable to a fine of not more than $10 000 or imprisonment for a term not longer than one year, or both.

Hmmmmm....

Isn't that interesting.

Then again, it's not like Ms. Clark hasn't been given a free ride by Elections BC for bringing the cameras to the polling station before.

Right?



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The 801 Club: It's Not Just The Load....And It's Not Just The Crap.

AllTheFoment
ThatFitsVille


Just in case you missed it, Global TeeVee's Jas Johal decided not to follow-up on Railgate yesterday and instead reported on the shiny baubles in the image above which apparently have something to do with some sort of BCLiberal insider cabal that is all set to put the boots to Ms. Clark and her minions one minute after the polls close at 8:01pm on Tuesday night:

"...It’s called the 801 movement, symbolizing 8:01 p.m., one minute after the election and precisely when the movement plans to begin the process of putting pressure on Clark to step aside.

The movement — made up of party members and business leaders — has already created their own buttons...

{snippety doo-dah}

...The group wants to bring in an interim leader for 18 months to two years with the goal to bring stability and credibility to the party.

Then, a leadership race will be held to choose a new Liberal leader to fight the next election.

But the movement not only wants to rid the party of Clark, but her people too including her brother, organizers like Mark Marissen, campaign chair Mike McDonald and current Liberal Party president..."

So...

How did Rich Coleman respond to all of this?

Well, in the short form at least, pretty much as you might expect:

...Fort Langley-Aldergrove candidate Rich Coleman didn't mince words calling the so-called 801 club a “load of crap."...

****

Now.

A lot of folks on the Twittmachine are dismissing this entire thing as black-ops or something.

And maybe it is, except that Mr. Johal, in a follow-up Q&A-type thingy with his own media outlet (what the heckfire is that all about anyway? - clearly I don't watch enough TeeVee), said the following:

...I’ve talked to a person with a high profile in the (BC Liberal) party, Keith Baldrey has talked to a business leader who also passed this along. It’s not one individual here, there’s a good amount of people that just don’t want her to be leader....
Regardless, like I said  off the top, it's all just shiny bauble hunting that means nothing compared to, say, the quintupling of the real debt under the great financial management of both Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark.

But never mind all that for the moment because the best part of all of this has nothing to do with the buttons shown above and/or any and all secret decoder pledge pins that may or may not be hidden on the inside of the perpetrators' lapels.

Instead, the best part is the longer form rant that followed Mr. Coleman's 'load of crap!' bellowing, as reported by CKNW's Shane Woodford:

..."We are in the best shape we have ever been going into an election and coming out of an election in all manners and we have attracted the greatest slate of candidates I have ever seen so I think that people who want to do that just go and have your own little world but stay out of ours because we are just going go win the election."...

Don't know about you, but it sounds like Darth Vader has finally moved into the delusional stages of a 'writing on the wall' election campaign with no real upside for either him or his forces of darkness (and/or Western Forest Products and/or Pacific Western Brewing, etc, etc, etc).

I mean, the 'best shape', ever, 'going into an election'?

Gosh.

Is it possible that Mr. Coleman got up this morning, back-combed his hair, put on the largest lab coat he could find, and climbed in a Delorean to set the clock back to 2001?

And as for attracting the 'greatest slate of candidates'  he has 'ever seen'....

Was Mr. Coleman talking about oh, I dunno.....

...This?


______
Image at top of the post from Mr. Johal's Twittmachine feed....
And many thanks to reader S. for the heads-up on this and another matter of interest which I'll be writing about soon after I get back to Railgate...I've been waiting to see if the Mr. Palmer would revisit the 'contingent liability' gambit...


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The Six Million Dollar Railgate Pay-Off...How Long Did The Gag Order Last?

MoveAlongFolksNothingToDiscuss
HereVille

______

Update, Wednesday Afternoon....Bob Mackin, on the Twittmachine, says there are more Docs coming...Personally, I would be most interested in reading more wiretap transcripts...
Double Secret Probation Update, Later Wednesday...Mackin has minutes of BC Rail Board Mtg minutes from 2003/04 (deal went down in fall of 2003)...They're heavily redacted...He doesn't have them up at his place yet...

______

Last night, based on a report from Global TV's Jas Johal, we further established what we who have been paying attention already knew...

Which is that the BC Liberal Government offered Mr. David Basi and Mr. Robert Virk a prior inducement to sign a plea agreement that ended the BC Rail trial on October 18th, 2010 just before former BC Liberal Government Finance Minister Gary Collins, who was also Mr. Basi's former boss, was scheduled to take the witness stand.

Now.

According to a letter from then Assistant Attorney General Richard Fyfe to Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk's lawyers dated October 16th 2010 the prior inducement included:

...(A) complete release from liability, and a complete release of supporting security, for and with respect to repayment of Mr. Basi's and Mr. Virk's indebtedness under the Indemnity Agreements...

Please note the complete absence of the term 'contigent' when referring either to the liability or indebtedness (ie. for monies already loaned to Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk to pay their lawyers) in the passage above.

Why the heckfire does the lack of the term 'contigent' in this context matter?

Well...

We'll return to that matter later when we further discuss the matter of the 'Cabinet Cut-Out' that was invoked by two BC Liberal government appointed civil servants who apparently put together the six million dollar deal, one of whom was then Deputy Finance Minister Mr. Graham Whitmarsh, a very fine fellow who also once worked at Harmony Airlines with Mr. Gary Collins after the latter resigned as BC Liberal  Finance Minister in the wake of the late 2003 Raid on the BC Legislature that served as a prelude to the BC Rail trial,  but if you want to get a little ahead of the game on that one you can have a look at this.

But, for the moment at least, I would like to focus on a second passage from Mr. Fyfe's letter:

"...(E)ach of Mr. Basi, on his own and Mrs. Basi's behalf, and Mr. Virk agrees not to disclose to the media, under any circumstances, anything about the arrangements contemplated in this letter and attachment..."

Now.

After the deal was consumated by the plea agreement on Oct 18th, 2010 there was a massive hew and cry, and many, including then Opposition Leader Carole James, wondered out loud whether or not a gag order was actually part of the thing.

And in the wake of all that, CBC News soon reported that the gag order had been lifted on October 20, 2010, not by Mr. Fyfe, but instead by the second BC Liberal government appointed civil servant involved in the 'Cabinet Cut-Out' described above, a very fine fellow, and then Deputy Attorney General, named David Loukidelis:

"...(Mr) Loukidelis said a letter was sent to counsel for Basi and Virk on Wednesday (Oct 20th, 2010) releasing them from a condition not to publicly discuss the financial matters of the deal..."

Interestingly, the good Mr. Loukidelis released a separate statement on the Cabinet Cut-Out' on the same day, October 20th, 2010, which former BC Liberal Attorney General Geoff Plant subsequently used as the basis to argue that there was no prior inducement for Mess'rs Basi and Virk to plead guilty.

Imagine that!



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Six Million Dollar Basi-Virk Agreement: "A Complete Release From Liability And....Indebtedness."

Who'sCultish
NowVille

The written documentation on the six million dollar deal has been released, and Jas Johal of Global News has the story (and the actual paper).

I will get to a whole lot more later but tonight I would like to get to the heart of the matter right off the top before the spin starts to crank tomorrow.

Specifically, I would like to point out that it a letter to the lawyers for Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk that was signed by then Assistant Attorney General Richard Fyfe on Oct 14, 2010 explicitly indicates, in my opinion at least, that there was a 'prior inducement' for the defendants to subsequently plead guilty:

"...The Province and your clients, Dave Basi and Bob Virk wish to enter into arrangements to provide Mr. Basi, his wife Iderjit Kaur Basi ("Mrs. Basi") and Mr. Virk with a complete release from liability, and a complete release of supporting security, for and with respect to repayment of Mr. Basi's and Mr. Virk's indebtedness under the Indemnity Agreements, in return for certain consideration including as described herein and in the attached.

You have advised that each of Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk intends to plead guilty in the BC Rail Proceedings on the count(s) and terms as required by the special prosecutor, and Mr. Basi intends to plead guilty in the A.L.R. Proceedings on the count(s) and terms as required by the Special Prosecutor..."

Now.

Why does this matter?

Well, it turns out that the BC Liberal government and former BC Liberal Government Attorney General Mr. Geoff Plant have long maintained that there was no 'prior inducement' offered to Messr's Basi and Virk.

Case in point....Here is what Mr. Geoff Plant wrote, on his personal blog, in the Spring of 2012 on the matter:

"...The defendants pleaded guilty. 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. But that was of course the outcome. It was done very, very carefully, to make sure the rules were followed..."

Myself and Paul Willcocks did not agree with Mr. Plant's conclusion, which was apparently based on a written statement written by then Deputy Attorney General David Loukidelis.

Here is the question I posed to Mr. Plant at the time:

"Mr. Plant first you state the following: 'The defendants pleaded guilty. 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. But that was of course the outcome. It was done very, very carefully, to make sure the rules were followed.'

Then, in the next sentence you state:'But it was understood that with guilty pleas, the claim to fee recovery would be waived.'

Now.

Based on those continguous statements, perhaps you could help me 'understand' the following:

If it was 'understood' that guilty pleas would subsequently lead to the waiver being granted, does it not logically follow that there was, for all intents and purposes, a prior 'inducement' regardless how 'carefully' things were done to make sure 'the rules were followed'?

Thanks."


Fortunately, Mr. Plant was good enough to respond, for the record:

"Ross K,

There was no "prior inducement". The offer of pleas was made first and entirely independently. The discussion about the fee waiver happened afterwards, and involved government, not the special prosecutor."

Mr. Willcocks then weighed in:

"Sorry, but the hairs are being split too finely. If there were genuine guilty pleas arranged in negotiations with the special prosecutor in place, then there was no need to break the policy on indemnities. The guilty pleas would have been secured, the trial ended and the taxpayers could have recovered at least some of the $6 million.

If they weren't in place, then the $6 million was indeed a prior inducement because it came before the guilty pleas were actually secured."

So.

It would appear that both Mr. Willcocks and myself were correct because Mr. Fyfe's letter indicates that the government was offering to provide the defendants with a 'complete release' from 'indebtedness' (eg. release the defendants from the obligation to repay the government loans that had been provided to pay legal costs if they were found guilty) BEFORE the guilty pleas were actually secured.

****

Now, of course, there are other ways you, dear reader,  may wish to describe a 'prior inducement' .

Regardless, no matter how you choose to phrase it, the fact of the matter is that, based on the documents just released by Mr. Johal of Global News, dangled a financial incentive in front of Messr's Basi and Virk to plead guilty. As a result, the BC Rail trial came to a screeching halt just before major BC Liberal government players, including former Finance Minister Gary Collins, were set to take the stand.

Which means that now, more than ever, we need a full public inquiry into the entire matter of the BC Rail sale/not sale that is not limited in scope in any way.

OK?


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I, for one, sure wish our good friend Mary was here tonight so that we could all talk this over with her....


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