Recent Posts
Connect with:
Tuesday / April 8.
  • No products in the cart.
HomeStandard Blog Whole Post

For the week of April 6, 2025:

Transparency International Canada is sounding the alarm. Canada has fallen on a world anti-corruption ranking and Canada is behind China and Russia in real estate secrecy and anti-money laundering practices.

Trevor Loke (Google Meet)

The executive director of Transparency International Canada says voters deserve better from whoever forms government after the April 28 federal election. 

Trevor Loke is Bob Mackin’s guest on this edition of thePodcast.

Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Have you missed an edition of theBreaker.news Podcast? Go to the archive.

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
thePodcast: Why voters should care about combatting corruption, money laundering and foreign interference
Loading
/

For the week of April 6, 2025: Transparency

Bob Mackin

The Vancouver Whitecaps could bring Major League Soccer back to Hastings Park.

But not to the Empire Field site, where they launched in 2011 and where the North American Soccer League franchise played from 1974 to 1983.

Hastings Racecourse on Oct. 12, 2024 (Mackin)

The Whitecaps’ ownership confirmed in an early evening statement on April 4 that they are “currently in discussion with the City of Vancouver regarding the construction of a stadium at the PNE fairgrounds site.”

A source told theBreaker.news that the two parties have a memorandum of understanding to explore building a soccer-specific stadium at Hastings Racecourse.

Hastings Racecourse has operated as a thoroughbred horseracing venue since 1892. Slot machines were added in 2008, but it has not lived up to expectations for leaseholder Great Canadian Gaming.

Where would that leave horseracing? The president of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association of B.C. is wondering.

“Nobody has talked to us,” Dave Milburn told theBreaker.news. “It’s shocking to hear that this is being contemplated without any notice or our group being informed.”

Last December, the Greg Kerfoot-controlled Whitecaps announced they retained Goldman Sachs to find a new owner. The club has a sweetheart lease at B.C. Place Stadium, where B.C. Pavilion Corporation keeps the food and beverage revenue. B.C. Place is undergoing a $109 million renovation demanded by FIFA in order to host seven matches during the 2026 World Cup.

A source told theBreaker.news that a new stadium deal could be the catalyst to complete the sale of the club. The Hastings Racecourse land could be transferred to the Whitecaps’ new owner, who would be responsible for financing the stadium project.

The announcement by the Whitecaps comes on the eve of a civic by-election. Two seats are up for grabs.

Mayor Ken Sim’s 2022 ABC Vancouver campaign included a photo op in the Hastings grandstand. But not to discuss the ponies. He is in favour of expanding SkyTrain under or over Hastings Street and onward to North Vancouver.

A new stadium would be a logical magnet for a station.

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

Bob Mackin The Vancouver Whitecaps could bring Major

Bob Mackin

The NDP-aligned party aiming to keep a seat on Vancouver city council in the April 5 by-election is concealing the mining background of its candidate.

Bike lane campaigner Lucy Maloney’s career with Australian mining giant BHP is omitted from the OneCity Vancouver website. It calls her a holder of a law degree and an MBA who built “a career in both the public and private sector.”

A LinkedIn profile lists Maloney’s jobs as superintendent of sourcing and contracts for BHP Billiton Worsley Alumina Pty. Ltd. from 2008 to 2011 and health safety, environment and community and risk specialist for BHP Billiton Minerals Exploration beginning in March 2011.

Her husband, Scott Maloney, held multiple roles for BHP from 2007 to 2017 in Australia, Singapore and Chile. He is now vice-president of environment for Vancouver copper and zinc giant Teck Resources Ltd.

Maloney did not explain why OneCity omitted her BHP experience from the website.

“I supported operations in rural communities producing aluminium, copper and potash, which are necessary for the climate transition, and to feed the world,” Maloney said by email.

According to the Corporate Research Project: “BHP Billiton has often been the subject of controversy over its hardline labour relations policies and what is seen as its overly aggressive pursuit of new mining opportunities in poor countries.”

Prominent NDPers endorse anti-Israel COPE candidate

Ex-Burnaby-Lougheed MLA Katrina Chen and retired Richmond city councillor Harold Steeves are urging voters to send Sean Orr to 12th and Cambie on April 5.

However, former Minister of Finance and Minister of Advanced Education Selina Robinson hopes voters look elsewhere on the ballot.

“Be sure to exercise your right to vote in the upcoming by-election and please don’t elect someone who has no interest in keeping Jews safe, especially when antisemitism is at an all time high,” Robinson wrote on Facebook. “All Vancouverites deserve better than this.”

In early 2024, Orr was involved in the successful campaign, spearheaded by the pro-Hamas Samidoun, to oust Robinson from the NDP cabinet after she called Mandatory Palestine a “crappy piece of land within nothing on it.” Robinson issued an apology and vowed to take anti-Islamophobia training, but Premier David Eby removed her from cabinet and she quit the party soon after.

Last October, after the anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre and start of the Israel-Hamas war, the U.S. and Canada declared Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-affiliated Samidoun a terrorist entity.

Orr publicly expressed support on X (formerly Twitter) for an un-permitted Feb. 12, 2024 anti-Israel protest that blocked traffic on the Burrard Bridge, an important link for ambulances between downtown and Kitsilano (Orr: “not illegal”).

Orr also praised the May 23, 2024 takeover of the Samuel and Frances Belzberg library at Simon Fraser University downtown. Protesters covered the names of the prominent Jewish philanthropists and posted one bearing the name of senior PFLP leader Khalida Jarrar (Orr: “was a fantastic event”).

One of Orr’s latest endorsers is scheduled to appear in Vancouver Provincial Court on April 16. Harrison Johnston is among 13 protesters who were charged with mischief for blocking railway tracks in East Vancouver during a May 31, 2024 anti-Israel protest that delayed Amtrak travellers.

Also endorsing Orr: Atiya Jaffar, the campaigns manager for U.S.-based environmental protest charity 350. Jaffar was involved in organizing anti-Israel protests in 2023 and 2024 and the 2020 Shut Down Canada protests.

The by-election runs 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on April 5 across Vancouver to fill the seats vacated by OneCity’s Christine Boyle, who became an NDP cabinet minister last fall, and the Green Party’s Adriane Carr, who retired.

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

Bob Mackin The NDP-aligned party aiming to keep

Bob Mackin

B.C. Place Stadium will become Western Canada’s biggest non-marijuana indoor grow op next spring.

Manager B.C. Pavilion Corp. (PavCo) went to market on March 24, seeking suppliers of two small and nine large lighting rigs. They will be used to grow the new synthetic fibre reinforced natural grass surface that will be installed for seven FIFA World Cup 26 matches beginning June 13, 2026.

B.C. Place Stadium on April 30, 2024 (BC Gov/Flickr)

Deadline for bids is April 21. The tendering document says PavCo requires April 6, 2026 delivery of the lighting rigs.

In January, PavCo published a call for suppliers of lawn mowers and the hybrid sod.

The Crown corporation is spending $109 million on renovations to the 1983-built stadium.

PavCo is also seeking quotations for provision of cybersecurity services (deadline April 14) and wifi equipment (deadline April 21).

The former is a negotiated request for proposals. PavCo wants to award the contract May 12 and begin the contract on May 30. Services required include security information and event management, managed detection and response and risk management through a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week security operations centre.

“The services should include onboarding, initial training, and ongoing support to ensure robust protection of PavCo’s systems and infrastructure against cyber threats. The proposed solution must be compatible with Microsoft’s Defender for Office and Defender for Endpoint, which are currently in place.”

Meanwhile, City of Vancouver is seeking a contractor to provide wayfinding, dressing and signage services around B.C. Place Stadium, public spaces, transportation corridors, SkyTrain and SeaBus stations. The goal is to “enhance navigation, elevate event branding.”

Plans include English, French and Indigenous language signage “with the ability to adapt based on attendee demographics and FIFA requirements.”

Deadline for bids is April 22.

The city wants to approve wayfinding, dressing and signage designs by June 30 and install elements between New Year’s Day and May 15, 2026. The removal and recycling period would last from July 30-Dec. 31, 2026.

In January, City of Vancouver advertised a “Digital Infrastructure and Innovation” contract that includes 200 new surveillance cameras.

FIFA World Cup 26 sponsors include U.S. corporations Bank of America, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Verizon, as well as Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco, Qatar Airways and China’s Lenovo Computer and Mengniu Dairy.

According to the NDP government’s April 2024 estimate, it could cost taxpayers as much as $581 million to be one of the 16 tournament hosts.

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

Bob Mackin B.C. Place Stadium will become Western

Bob Mackin

The Conservative campaign is downplaying a provincial fine levied against a candidate’s municipal party.

On April 2, Elections BC announced a $5,400 penalty for Richmond Community Coalition Association (RCCA). Chak Au, a Richmond city councillor who is running in Richmond Centre-Marpole in the April 28 election, was RCC’s top vote-getter in the 2022 election.

Pierre Poilievre and Chak Au (right).

At a July 2022 fundraising event, authorized principal official Thomas Leung accepted $10,800 for the RCC school board campaign from donor Yuan Li. RCC financial agent Scott Jaroszuk was not at the event.

“The finding was not against Chak Au personally,” said a statement sent by Sam Lilly of the Conservative campaign. “Elections BC notes ‘RCC has been cooperative with our investigation’ and ‘RCC cooperatively brought themselves into compliance.’”

RCC co-operated with the investigation and Jaroszuk provided proof of return of the prohibited donations to Li, as required under the law.

“It became apparent that contributions originally attributed to Hui Lin, Zo Hong, Hua Wang, Isaac Pang, Jacqueline Pang, Edmond Lau, Ivan Pang, Anthony Cheung and Jian Jun Zhang, all came from cheques provided by Yuan Li from Yuan Li’s bank account,” said the Elections BC investigation letter.

RCC ran four candidates for school board (Alice Wong, Rod Belleza, Linda Zhen Li and Rachel Ling) and three for city council (Au, Sheldon Starrett and Rahim Othman). Au topped the 2022 city council polls with 16,515 votes. Wong and Belleza were elected to school board. Linda Li unsuccessfully ran in the 2024 provincial election for the NDP in Richmond-Bridgeport.

“Accepting prohibited contributions gives an elector organization an advantage in that they did not need to seek contributions from an eligible source, saving them time during a busy campaign,” said the Elections BC investigation letter.

Au did not respond immediately for comment.

Meanwhile, in West Vancouver, Mayor Mark Sager’s financial agent and former law firm partner, Ron Nairne, was fined $500 for accepting a prohibited contribution.

Specifically, a $1,087.50 discount from John Moonen and Associates Ltd. Nairne was cooperative and it was a first offence.

In January, the B.C. Prosecution Service said that special prosecutor John Gordon decided not to file criminal charges against Sager or Nairne because he believed there was no substantial likelihood of conviction. They were investigated for potentially fraudulent, post-election expenses: the purchase of $14,622.52 of furniture and $11,755 for a communications firm.

theBreaker.news reported that Sager attended a fundraiser for Mark Carney’s Liberal leadership campaign, where the cost to attend was between $0 and $1,750.

Sager said he “paid nothing” to attend the Feb. 12 event, hosted by real estate marketer Bob Rennie. Sager said he was invited by Duncan Wlodarczak, the Liberal Party of Canada in B.C.’s president and chief of staff with Onni, the real estate developer behind West Vancouver’s Evelyn master-planned community.

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

Bob Mackin The Conservative campaign is downplaying a

Vancouver voters go to the by-election polls on April 5, the eve of the city’s 139th birthday.

A baker’s dozen candidates are vying to fill two vacant seats on city council.

One of them is making a comeback: Colleen Hardwick, who was elected to city council on the NPA ticket from 2018 to 2022. In 2022, she finished third in the mayoral election as leader of the TEAM for a Livable Vancouver party.

Hardwick and her TEAM running mate, Theodore Abbott, hope voters will choose them to form a bloc to oppose Mayor Ken Sim’s majority ABC Vancouver ahead of the October 2026 civic election.

Colleen Hardwick is Bob Mackin’s guest on this special midweek edition of thePodcast.

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

Vancouver voters go to the by-election polls

Donald Trump has one.

So does Melania Trump. 

The Hawk Tuah Girl, too.  

Now Vancouver’s crypto-crazed Mayor Ken Sim is jumping on the memecoin bandwagon. 

Sim’s majority ABC city council voted Dec. 11 to study accepting Bitcoin for property tax payments and to invest some of the city’s financial reserves in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and currency fluctuations. Earlier this year, Sim travelled to El Salvador, the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. 

theBreaker.news has obtained a leaked version of the ABC Vancouver novelty coin’s mockup. ABC plans to use the Ken Simcoin to raise funds for the party’s 2026 re-election campaign. 

Sim was not available for comment. His assistant press secretary, Uno de Abril, said: “Mayor Sim is so stoked to be launching A Better Coin for Vancouver.” 

The Ken Simcoin begins trading at an 11:59 a.m. April 1 ceremony outside Vancouver city hall. 

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

 

 

Donald Trump has one. So does Melania

Bob Mackin

The Liberal candidate who apologized for suggesting a Conservative candidate be turned over to the Chinese consulate in Toronto promoted closer trade with China.

At a lectern topped by Chinese and Canadian flags, Paul Chiang (Markham-Unionville) spoke at a March 26 news conference to announce the inaugural May 30-June 1 Toronto Trade Show. He called it a “pivotal moment for global businesses, especially with Donald Trump threats of tariffs against Canada.

“Help us build better connections, drive investment and open doors for Canadian and Chinese businesses alike,” Chiang said in a short video clip posted on YouTube by Easy Canada.

Other speakers included Liu Linlin, a commercial envoy with the Chinese consulate in Toronto, and Lu Yuan, the CEO of the Canadian office of the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Trade Show sponsors include Canadian and Chinese entities directly or indirectly aligned with the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department.

On March 20, China hit Canadian seafood and pork exports with 25% tariffs in retaliation for Canada’s 100% tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles last October. A day earlier, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly confirmed that four Canadians had been executed in China earlier in 2025 for drug crimes.

In January, Chiang made the controversial comments directed at Don Valley North Conservative candidate Joe Tay after the Hong Kong Police issued an arrest warrant for Tay, accusing him of inciting secession. The Hong Kong-Canadian actor runs the HongKongerStation YouTube channel critical of the Beijing-controlled, Hong Kong government.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and Conservative and NDP candidates who were targeted by China’s government called for Liberal leader Mark Carney to fire Chiang.

“Mark Carney says [Chiang] should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?” said Poilievre. “Mark Carney is deeply conflicted, just in November he went to Beijing and secured a quarter billion dollar loan for his company (Brookfield Asset Management) from a state-owned Chinese bank.”

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills) posted on X: “The Liberals under Trudeau turned a blind eye to foreign interference. The Liberals under Carney are doing the same thing.”

Jenny Kwan (NDP, Vancouver East) said the Liberals have failed to follow through on hiring a foreign interference registry commissioner. She said Carney’s reluctance to replace Chiang is an insult to all Canadians.

“People who speak up against Communist China’s repressive regime are fearful for their lives and that of their families,” Kwan said at a Port Moody news conference. “That is what transnational repression looks like and we need to stand together to fight against it, and not peddle it as the way it is being done from the Liberal candidate.”

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

Bob Mackin The Liberal candidate who apologized for

For the week of March 30, 2025:

At the end of the first quarter of 2025, the MMA Panel returns. 

One week into the trade war-flavoured federal election, less than a week until City of Vancouver’s council by-election and almost a month after the B.C. NDP budget landed with a thud. Host Bob Mackin welcomes back Mario Canseco of Research Co and Andy Yan of the Simon Fraser University City Program. 

Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Have you missed an edition of theBreaker.news Podcast? Go to the archive.

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
thePodcast: MMA Panel returns at the end of 2025's first quarter
Loading
/

For the week of March 30, 2025: At

Bob Mackin

theBreaker.news has obtained Washington State Patrol (WSP) dashcam and body-worn camera footage showing the climax of an armed carjacking that began in Richmond, B.C. on Dec. 12, 2024.

The accused, Shawn Douglas Bergstrom, was almost one-third of the way through a nine-month Provincial Court probation order for a January 2024 assault in Nanaimo. The 42-year-old of no fixed address is scheduled to appear March 27 at Whatcom County Superior Court in Bellingham.

The video and related photographs and police reports about the incident were released to theBreaker.news after an application under Washington State’s freedom of information law.

The incident originated at 4411 No. 3 Road in Richmond where a man produced what was described as a large knife and demanded the driver hand over the keys to his black 2007 Toyota Tacoma. The suspect permitted the pickup truck’s owner to remove some personal effects before it was driven away. The victim reported the theft to Richmond RCMP at 12:37 p.m.

Around 1:22 p.m., the pickup truck was involved in a hit and run at the Peace Arch border crossing, where a 2021 Ford Bronco SUV was knocked out of the lineup at U.S. Customs.

WSP, Whatcom County Police and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers pursued the Toyota Tacoma south on Interstate 5, from milepost 255 to 238. Speeds ranged from 64 to 160 kilometres-per-hour through light traffic.

A WSP trooper unsuccessfully threw a spike belt into the path of the stolen pickup truck near the Bow Hill Rest Area. Another trooper performed what is known as a precision immobilization technique, or a PIT maneuver, to force the driver to lose control.

The vehicle rotated and became stuck at the side of the road, ending the 109 km journey.

Bergstrom emerged from the pickup truck and, after a 12-minute standoff, was arrested. Officers found a machete nearby. It was eventually handed over to Richmond RCMP.

Bergstrom, 42, underwent a sobriety test and was found to be not impaired. An officer’s report, however, said “the driver might have been suffering from a mental health illness based on his odd statements and erratic behaviour.”

Bergstrom was charged with possession of a stolen vehicle, eluding police, reckless driving, hit and run and second degree assault. After he was booked, Bergstrom was transferred to Western State Hospital in Lakewood, Wash. under the Washington Department of Social and Health Services competency restoration program to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

Bob Mackin theBreaker.news has obtained Washington State Patrol