Bob Mackin
The Trudeau Liberal candidate in Vancouver Kingsway was mentioned in evidence collected by RCMP detectives who investigated Christy Clark’s controversial 2011 BC Liberal leadership win.
Ex-BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark and Liberal candidate Virginia Bremner in 2017 (Facebook)
Virginia Bremner is challenging NDP incumbent Don Davies in the Sept. 20 election.
On the eve of the Feb. 26, 2011 party election to replace Premier Gordon Campbell, Virginia Bremner’s husband Hector Bremner and two other party insiders received a pair of email messages from Clark’s only caucus supporter, Harry Bloy, the Burnaby-Lougheed MLA.
The two messages, leaked in 2018 to theBreaker.news, contained a total 99 personal identification numbers to be used in the online and phone voting system.
Bloy’s first email ended: “Use different lines. Virginia, Filipino Community? Thanks, harry”.
theBreaker.news wanted to know whether Virginia Bremner co-operated with the RCMP investigation. She did not reply.
RCMP and Special Prosecutor David Butcher probed the handling of PIN numbers after then-NDP leader Adrian Dix complained to authorities about possible violations of the Election Act in 2013.
In the end, only former BC Liberal operative Brian Bonney was sentenced to house arrest for breach of trust in the party’s Quick Wins multicultural outreach scandal. The trial was cancelled when Bonney pleaded guilty.
During the 2018 sentencing hearing, Butcher told B.C. Provincial Court that voting irregularities were found in the leadership contest that resulted in Clark’s narrow victory over Kevin Falcon under the regionally weighted, preferential ballot system.
Though proxy voting was not prohibited, Butcher said that Bloy used his connections “and his connections’ connections” to amass the PIN numbers.
“Those connections gathered blocks of PINs which were supplied to Mr. Bloy, who provided them to other Clark supporters, who entered them online — block voting in a proxy process,” Butcher explained.
Hector Bremner later worked as a poll captain during Clark’s May 2011 Vancouver-Point Grey by-election win over the NDP’s David Eby. Clark eventually hired Virginia Bremner as a receptionist in the Office of the Premier.
Hector Bremner won a seat for the NPA on Vancouver city council in a 2017 by-election. The following year, he ran for mayor under the Yes Vancouver banner and finished a distant fifth behind winner Kennedy Stewart. Clark’s longtime political advisor and ex-husband, Mark Marissen, managed both campaigns.
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