Recent Posts
Connect with:
Friday / March 29.
  • No products in the cart.
HomeStandard Blog Whole Post

Bob Mackin

B.C.’s Deputy Premier was already scheduled to visit Lynn Valley on March 26, to rally the troops for North Vancouver-Seymour NDP MLA Susie Chant’s re-election campaign. 

Someone in the government communications department thought it would be a good opportunity for him to promote the month-old, election year budget.

Mike Farnworth faced criticism from North Shore social service agency reps on March 26 in Lynn Valley (Susie Chant/X)

A dozen representatives of local social services agencies came to meet him at the Lynn Valley Legion. Not one wearing NDP orange pom-poms. 

First to speak was Don Peters, the longtime chair of the North Shore Community Resource Society’s Community Housing Action Committee. He described his agency’s mood as “grim.”

“Frankly, there are no affordable rents on the North Shore, certainly not at shelter rates,” Peters said. 

“Many callers to the agency are desperate in these times of soaring rents and normally zero vacancies, and we fear for the plight of increasing numbers of near-homeless North Shore renters,” Peters said. “More often than not, seniors.”

Peters pointed to West Vancouver council’s rejection of proposed protections for Ambleside corridor apartment renters last November. A watered-down version passed at the end of February and there is no guarantee it will help seniors stave-off real estate tycoons looking to transform the area for a younger clientele. 

Peters also pointed at Victoria and Ottawa for doing too little, too late. 

“Despite another flurry of federal and provincial housing interventions and announcements, we feel real housing relief is years away,” he said. 

Farnworth repeated the NDP talking point about restricting Airbnb in order to free up inventory. He said he realized the housing crunch is a national problem, while talking to a cab driver en route to an airport.

“He explained to me how Montreal had a reputation as being affordable, not anymore. We hear the same thing in Toronto, in Calgary and Alberta, they’re talking about,” he said. “It is frustrating because we’re making a lot of changes, that will benefit as you said in the long the longer term. And it’s the short term right now that I think is the big challenge.”

B.C. Solicitor General Mike Farnworth (Mackin)

One attendee said she noticed an uptick in abused women choosing to stay with their abusive husbands or return to them, “purely because they can’t get housing.”

“It’s very, very horrific, it’s not for the faint of heart. These women are choosing to stay in those situations, because the only other option is to be homeless.”

Another said the $10-a-day childcare rollout “hasn’t gone that well” for parents with special needs children, who additional red tape and costs. 

Farnworth offered more platitudes. But no solutions. 

“Housing is for people, housing is for families. Housing is not, in essence, a commodity. Housing is for people and it’s for communities,” he said.

“If you have that stable base, then you’re able to maintain the social network, you’re able to access the services that you require.” 

Last to speak was Deborah Buxton, 70. The former NDP party worker lost her job as a family support worker, became homeless in January 2022 and lived in her car for a year. 

“I just can’t work like I used to, I would be willing to, I just can’t,” said Buxton. “I got health issues like most people my age.”

Hollyburn Family Services found her shelter in the Lu’ma Native Housing Society-managed Travelodge near Marine and Capilano. Tenants at the facility, mostly people with addictions and mental illnesses, are being evicted at the end of May, to make way for condo tower construction.

“So I don’t know what the government can do. I just don’t think they’re going to be able to help.”

The hour came to an end. Farnworth did more listening than selling the NDP’s election year budget. He briefly seemed overwhelmed. “Whatever ideas you’ve got, bring them to the table. Because, what we’ve seen up until now clearly has not worked in terms of making sure there’s housing.”

As for that invitation to media, only Global BC cameraman Pat Bell and this reporter showed up. After one of the attendees expressed reservations about appearing on the TV news, Farnworth admitted he was unaware of the invitation. 

“I’m surprised as well,” he said. 

* * *

And another thing…

Farnworth was also unaware of a sombre local anniversary.

Memorial bench near Lynn Valley Library (Mackin)

He was scheduled to join Chant and her supporters later for a round of door knocking before a round of drinks at Brown’s Social Pub near the Lynn Valley library.

It happened to be the eve of the third anniversary of the deadly stabbing rampage in Lynn Valley Village square. 

Farnworth admitted to this reporter that his staff did not brief him about that. 

On March 27, 2021, drifter Yannick Bandaogo randomly killed a woman and injured several others. Last summer, he pleaded guilty to second degree murder and attempting to murder five other people. A B.C. Supreme Court judge sent him to jail for at least 15 years. 

Five days before that awful afternoon, an amateur photographer captured images of an apparently homeless Bandaogo sleeping behind the building that houses Chant’s office.

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here

Bob Mackin B.C.'s Deputy Premier was already scheduled

Bob Mackin 

Good luck, Metro Vancouver, you’re going to need it. 

North Vancouver’s MP, the Liberal natural resources minister, said March 26 that Ottawa would not bail out the $3.86 billion North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant. 

In March 2017, Jonathan Wilkinson announced a $212 million federal grant to the facility, when it was budgeted at $700 million and expected to open in 2020.

On March 22, the regional district’s commissioner, Jerry Dobrovolny, announced the new price tag is $3.1 billion higher and the plant is expected to open a decade late, in 2030. He also said Metro Vancouver would return to senior governments to help ease the regional tax burden.

“It would be a very challenging thing for the province or the federal government to say that we are going to contribute to cost overruns in one case, because you would not be able to say we’re going do that for North Vancouver, we’re not doing it for Halifax or we’re not doing it for Regina,” Wilkinson said after announcing a $490 million contract for North Vancouver’s Seaspan to build new coast guard vessels. 

“So, at the end of the day, the region is going to have to find a pathway through which to manage the incremental costs. I don’t think that they should be looking to the province or the federal government for additional funds.”

B.C. Deputy Premier Mike Farnworth was noncommittal. 

“I hope they fully look into why the overruns,” Farnworth said March 26 in Lynn Valley. “Let’s put it this way, the overrun on that wastewater treatment plant could build SkyTrain to not just the North Shore, but to Port Coquitlam, as well. So it is quite concerning when you see that kind of an overrun, far in excess of anything that we have ever seen in the province.”

In 2017, before that year’s election, the BC Liberal government put up $193 million for the plant. 

Farnworth said the regional district must fully explain to member municipalities, the public and the province what went wrong. 

Metro Vancouver blamed pandemic work stoppages, supply chain challenges, construction material inflation and deficiencies by original designer and builder Acciona. After it was fired in 2002, Acciona sued for $250 million. Metro Vancouver countersued for $500 million. 

Metro Vancouver has not published the report that informed the decision. Chair George Harvie said that would be up to Dobrovolny and Metro Vancouver’s lawyers. 

Acciona remains very busy in British Columbia. It was part of the main civil works contract on the Site C dam, which doubled to at least $16 billion under the NDP. It is also building the $2.83 billion Broadway Subway and the $1.37 billion Pattullo Bridge replacement. Those projects have been delayed, but the NDP government has not updated the cost estimates. 

“I know the company has engaged in a lot of large building projects, not just here, but globally as well,” Farnworth said. “They’re one of the major contractors that do this kind of work. There is a limited number that do. I think what’s important here is to see what’s gone on and how things went so, so off the rails.”

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here

Bob Mackin  Good luck, Metro Vancouver, you’re going

Bob Mackin 

The engineer who led the ­turnaround of the troubled Johnson Street Bridge replacement in Victoria said the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster in Baltimore was an accident waiting to happen. 

Six people are presumed dead after the Singapore-flagged MV Dali container ship lost power and crashed into the 2.6 kilometre-long bridge early March 26. 

When one part of the bridge came down, it all came down, in what Jonathan Huggett called a “progressive collapse.”

MV Dali on March 26, 2024 (NTSB/YouTube)

“It’s just unbelievable that on something as strategic to the United States, the Baltimore port,  with a major highway crossing, why the hell would you have no protection for the supports?” Huggett said. “I mean, it was just a matter of time before a ship was going to lose power.”

Structural and operational reinforcements would have helped keep the bridge standing. 

“It’s fundamental engineering 101, you’re supposed to check that, in the event of some catastrophic failure, it doesn’t destroy the entire bridge,” the Surrey engineering consultant said. “So okay, we took out one support. So the pieces on each side of that are probably going to collapse, but right on the far side, it took down that as well. So everything went. So there’s a design flaw in it.”

Huggett noticed the bridge, in a major, heavy-traffic port, was lacking heavy-duty reinforced support islands that could have cushioned the blow of a heavy load collision. It also should have had diversion structures, in order to cause a ship to change course away from where it would have made the biggest impact. 

“As I understand it, the ship was doing between seven and eight knots, and it weighed 100,000 tonnes. That’s an enormous load,” he said. 

Without ways to stop or divert a freighter, a tugboat stationed at the bridge around the clock would have provided another layer of mitigation, to push the ship. That it does not appear to have been escorted by a tug is also troublesome. For the smaller Johnson Street Bridge in Victoria, the harbourmaster requires a two-tug escort. 

“Going to be serious implications on the economy of the Northeast United States, supply chain, the cost of rebuilding,” Huggett said. “Wouldn’t you think it would have been a good idea to have some kind of tug, stationed at that bridge pier?”

Tugs escort freighters through the Lions Gate Bridge and Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet. But both are in need of diversions and reinforcements, which are under consideration by Port of Vancouver. 

The original Second Narrows Bridge collapsed during construction in 1958, killing 19 men. The freighter Japan Erica hit the railway bridge beside it in 1979. One section fell into the inlet and rail service was temporarily suspended between North Vancouver and Vancouver.

President Joe Biden has vowed to rebuild the Key bridge. Huggett said the 1977-opened span will unlikely be another steel truss design. Instead, he expects it will be a cable-stayed bridge. 

“If they do that, they can increase the span and make the channel wider.”

Supply chain expert Glenn Ross of ACC Group in Surrey said the Maersk-chartered ship managed by Singapore’s Synergy Maritime, began its journey in Busan, South Korea, stopped in Shanghai, China, went through the Panama Canal to New York and Norfolk, Va. before Baltimore. Its next stop was Colombo, Sri Lanka. 

Ross said the ship appeared to be near its 10,000 capacity of containers, but almost half of the containers were empty. 

“This ship doesn’t look like it took on too much ballast water because the bottom line is so visible above the water,” Ross said. 

“Something’s wrong here, because this ship is looking very high out of water.” 

Ross said the global shipping industry is facing a challenge because of the dangerous conditions in the Red Sea, where Hamas-sympathizing Houthis have attacked ships. That has forced companies to take the longer route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. 

“Nobody can afford to see any one of these ships sidelined,” Ross said. 

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here

Bob Mackin  The engineer who led the ­turnaround

Bob Mackin

The chair of Metro Vancouver said he was occupied in another meeting on the afternoon of March 22, at the same chief executive Jerry Dobrovolny revealed that it would cost $3.86 billion to finish the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant by 2030. 

The project was supposed to cost $700 million and be open in 2020.

Jerry Dobrovolny (upper left), Treasury Board president Anita Anand, George Harvie and Surrey Board of Trade’s Anita Huberman (Huberman/IG)

“It was a meeting that I had to attend, I was chairing that one also, that’s why I wasn’t there,” said George Harvie, who is also Mayor of Delta. “I had full confidence in Mr. Dobrovolny, our commissioner, to hold that press conference.”

Dobrovolny’s announcement came on a Friday afternoon in the middle of spring break, the week after a task force of regional politicians chaired by Harvie recommended carrying on with the project. It had been set back by pandemic delays, disputes with the original builder, Acciona, and a change in scope from secondary to tertiary treatment. After Metro Vancouver formally fired Acciona in early 2022, the Spanish company sued the regional district for $250 million. Metro Vancouver countersued for $500 million. 

Dobrovolny suggested the project could cost the average North Shore homeowner $775 a year over three decades to pay the additional cost. Harvie admitted his constituents won’t be spared. He said they’re looking at $80 per year under the regional sewage funding formula.

“Now, we have to go through a full review of this through our budget process, which is happening just in a very short time. That’s where it’ll be discussed and a decision made by the board as a whole,” Harvie said.

Asked if the task force documents, including the final report will be made public, Harvie said that decision will be left to Dobrovolny and the Metro Vancouver litigation team.

Harvie said the construction industry has changed immensely in recent years, to the point that “there’s no such thing as a fixed price anymore.”

“I would like to see a real good study done insofar as the future of these big projects in today’s world.”

The massive cost overrun at the North Vancouver project recalls the words of Bent Flyvbjerg, a business professor at Oxford University, who has analyzed megaprojects around the world. 

In his Iron Law of Megaprojects, Flyvbjerg said big infrastructure comes in “over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again.”

“Overruns up to 50% in real terms are common, and over 50% overruns are not uncommon,” Flyvberg’s research has found.

The big reason is ego. Architects want visually pleasing products and engineers are excited by building the longest/fastest/tallest. Politicians have a tendency to want monuments that benefit themselves and their cause. Business people and trade unions want revenue and jobs.

At the March 22 announcement, Dobrovolny said the board would return to the federal government and provincial government to seek more funding. In 2017, the two combined for $405 million. Dobrovolny and Harvie met March 11 in Surrey with Anita Anand, the federal treasury board president. 

Harvie said Metro Vancouver mayors are “struggling” to find sustainable funding, for transit and utilities as population continues to increase. Major developments, such as the Broadway Corridor and Jericho Lands, will put more pressure on Vancouver to provide drinking water and sewage treatment. 

“When you look at the intended growth that the province and federal government are putting on local governments,” he said.  “We need to find it, we can’t continue to provide water and sewage services without assistance from the province and the federal government.”

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here

Bob Mackin The chair of Metro Vancouver said

For the week of March 17, 2024:

Rather than solve the affordable housing crisis, David Ley predicts pro-development politicians like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, B.C. Premier David Eby and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim will do more harm than good.

David Ley (UBC)

Ley is the professor emeritus of geography at the University of British Columbia and author of “Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines” (2010) and “Housing Booms in Gateway Cities” (2023). On March 20, he spoke at the Local Democracy Project’s forum at UBC Robson Square on “Civic Government: Corporate, Consultative or Participatory?”

Ley said that Vancouver already had an over-supply of housing and it did not translate to lower rents. The rush in 2024 to up-zone neighbourhoods without public hearings and “build, build, build!” will result in more evictions and government-led gentrification.

“The survival options are the options that we will see increasingly: living in camper vans, homelessness, encampments,” Ley said. “I fear that current policy, plus the federal immigration policy which is reckless, in terms of the capacity of cities to provide services — including housing services for this population — I think that this is simply an inevitable outcome.”

Hear Ley’s speech on this edition of thePodcast. 

Plus, the Sin Bin and this week’s Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

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

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

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
thePodcast: Rush to solve housing crisis with more density, less democracy a recipe for failure
Loading
/

For the week of March 17, 2024: Rather

Bob Mackin 

Metro Vancouver believes the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant will cost $3.86 billion and be substantially complete in 2030. 

That is more than $3 billion extra and 10 years later than originally planned. 

Commissioner Jerry Dobrovolny made the announcement March 22, the week after a task force of regional politicians held its last monthly closed-door meeting.

A timeline of how the biggest infrastructure scandal in North Shore history unfolded. 

Feb. 14, 2014

Metro Vancouver board directed staff to do a design/build/finance deal for the Lions Gate Secondary Treatment Plant and seek senior government grants. The project was estimated at $700 million. 

March 11, 2017

North Vancouver Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson announced a $212 million federal grant to the Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant project and B.C. Liberal Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Peter Fassbender announced a $193 million grant at the same photo op. 

April 5, 2017

Metro Vancouver approved Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP for the $525 million design, build, finance contract. “New wastewater management regulations in Canada require all primary treatment plants in urban areas to upgrade to secondary treatment by 2020.”

April 10-issued stop work order for the $779M North Shore sewage plant project (Mackin)

Aug. 31, 2018 

At the groundbreaking ceremony, North Vancouver City Mayor Darrell Mussatto said: “It will be done by the end of 2020, which is wonderful, and will replace the oldest facility that Metro Vancouver has in wastewater.”

Jan. 10, 2019

In an interview with theBreaker.news, Metro Vancouver chair and Burnaby city councillor Sav Dhaliwal said: “It is exactly what we have signed, on budget and on time.”

Jan. 17, 2019

Report from project manager Paul Dufault said the approved budget increased to $777.9 million. 

April 4, 2019

Subcontractor Tetra Tech sued Acciona for $20 million. 

April 10, 2019

District of North Vancouver issued stop work order.

Construction site signs from North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant (Mackin)

 

March 12, 2021

New budget number. Metro Vancouver finally revealed that the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant would cost $1.058 billion and be finished in 2024.

Oct. 15, 2021

Metro Vancouver said it would cancel the contract with Acciona. 

Jan. 20, 2022

Metro Vancouver issued termination notice to Acciona, claiming the Spanish company had abandoned the site, shrinking crews from 300 to 50 workers. Acciona denied. 

Acciona knew it was coming. One of its employees, Anika Calder, took photographs of a confidential Metro Vancouver report dated Jan. 17, 2022. Calder had been visiting her father, Coquitlam city manager Peter Steblin, who used Greater Vancouver Sewage and Drainage District chair and Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart’s log-in credentials.

Feb. 25, 2022

Metro Vancouver hired PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc, as the general contractor. 

Sept. 20, 2023

Columnist Kirk LaPointe in the North Shore News, “Shocking bill coming for North Shore wastewater treatment plant”

“…it will be best to read the next line sitting down. I’m told the new estimate is coming in at … $4 billion.”

Sept. 30, 2023

Metro Vancouver chair George Harvie struck a task force to review options to complete the project, with a mid-2024 target to report findings and recommendations. Meetings happened monthly behind closed doors. 

March 22, 2024

On a Friday afternoon in the middle of Spring Break, Dobrovolny announced the board has approved a $3.86 billion budget, for substantial completion in 2030. 

He said the “average household impact” is $725 per year for North Shore residents over 30 years. For Vancouverites it’ll be $140 and Richmonders $70. 

“The litigation is is active with Acciona, and so I can’t get into specifics on that. I have not spoken to the RCMP, but I can’t get into the specifics of the litigation that’s ongoing.”

Dobrovolny made the announcement solo on the 29th floor of Metro Vancouver’s Metrotower III offices. None of the mayors or councillors on the Metro Vancouver board attended. 

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here

Bob Mackin  Metro Vancouver believes the North Shore

Bob Mackin 

Call it Vancouver city hall’s Starting XI. 

The 11-member FIFA World Cup 26 Secretariat is the central hub for organizing Vancouver’s hosting of seven World Cup matches and the FIFA Fan Festival in June and July 2026.

Jessie Adcock (LinkedIn)

Jessie Adcock, the former chief technology officer, is back at 12th and Cambie. She started a contract in January that pays up to $270,000-a-year as the secretariat lead, according to the city hall freedom of information office.

The other major contractor is Dave Jones, the co-lead of integrated safety and security. Jones, the retired chief of the New Westminster Police Department and Metro Vancouver Transit Police, joined last year on a contract worth a maximum $160,000 annually. 

Nine staffers are under them, with acting city clerk Rosemary Hagiwara being the most-senior. 

Hagiwara, who was paid $158,561 in 2022, is the coordination and alignment lead for the secretariat. She joined city hall as a licensing manager in 2002. 

Ex-Sport Hosting Vancouver assistant manager Taunya Geelhoed is the operations lead, Sherwood Plant the transportation and mobility lead, Kevin Nguyen the strategy lead and Natasha Qereshniku the communications lead. 

Rounding out the team: Kirsten Jasper from the Vancouver Emergency Management Agency (manager of operational readiness), Arthur Ruiz (senior marketing and digital strategist), Dan Maloney (project manager) and Kevin Cho (financial analyst). 

Qereshniku refused to provide the list of staff names and titles when a reporter asked. She referred a reporter to the city’s access to information and privacy office. That office’s manager, Cobi Falconer, said in an email that the number of city staff working on the project will increase. 

Falconer refused to provide the current annualized pay rates for the the staff members. Last year’s rates are scheduled to be published in April as part of the city’s 2023  statement of financial information. 

Former New Westminster and Transit Police chief Dave Jones (LinkedIn)

“The FWC26 Secretariat is structured as a project rather than a department,” Falconer said. “This means that staff are assigned to this work, while they remain in their home department within the city, the Board of Parks and Recreation, the Vancouver Police Department, and/or the Vancouver Public Library. Some of these staff positions are working on the FWC26 event planning and delivery full-time, while others are doing so part-time. Further, each staff member is working on this project for a specified period of time – this period of time may be a few months or up to approximately four years.”

Adcock started her contract the same month she joined the board of scandal-plagued Atira Women’s Resource Society. The former HSBC executive spent eight years at City of Vancouver, interrupted by a leave of absence in the fall of 2015 when she unsuccessfully ran for Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in the Port Moody-Coquitlam riding. The NDP’s Fin Donnelly defeated Adcock by almost 3,000 votes.

Seven years after the election, Adcock joined the federal bureaucracy in 2022. First as CEO of the Canadian Digital Service, then as senior assistant deputy minister of the Treasury Board secretariat and senior advisor to the chief information officer. 

The B.C. NDP government has refused to release the latest budget figure while it awaits estimates for B.C. Place Stadium renovations. Toronto’s budget rose from $290 million to $380 million. 

In early 2023, Vancouver city hall was expecting to spend $230 million based on hosting five matches at B.C. Place and the FIFA Fan Festival at Hastings Park. In February, FIFA assigned seven matches to B.C. Place between June 13 and July 7, 2026. 

The NDP government in Victoria and ABC-governed Vancouver city hall are both concealing their contracts with FIFA. 

Seattle city council released its agreements last August. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which obtained the Toronto deal via freedom of information, has called the arrangement one-sided, in favour of FIFA. 

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here

Bob Mackin  Call it Vancouver city hall's Starting

Bob Mackin

A year before the U.S. Congress voted to demand China’s ByteDance sell the popular TikTok video app, B.C.’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) was busy removing it from government devices. 

At the end of February 2023, the B.C. government followed the lead of the federal Treasury Board, which determined TikTok posed a national security and privacy risk. That triggered a high level summary for B.C. information security staff that warned China’s national security laws could allow the government there to demand data about TikTok users in B.C.

(TikTok/Douyin)

“This authority to gather sensitive personal information, proprietary information, and intellectual property could be used as a tool for spying and espionage,” said the review presentation, obtained under freedom of information.

Staff contacted each user individually to inform them of the ban. Names of users were censored from documents released by the Ministry of Citizens Services, but a partial list showed devices containing the app were used in Child and Youth Mental Health, Corrections Branch, Prevention and Loss Management Services and Prince George Youth Custody Centre. 

As of Feb. 28, 2023, 17 users were identified as “VIPs.” One of the emails said one of the VIPs was an assistant deputy minister, but did not name the ministry. Two days later, a report said the app had been removed by 126 users, but 332 remained, the vast majority on Apple iOS devices. 

Brian Horncastle, manager of vulnerability and risk management, delivered a TikTok security and privacy review and threat and risk assessment to chief information security officer Gary Perkins on March 9, 2023.

“Recommend continued ban as, given present situation when compared with the business value, represents an unacceptable risk to government systems,” Perkins concluded four days later. He resigned in August 2023 to join CISO Global in Arizona. 

The assessment also recommended the province investigate further if any security/privacy breaches or incidents occurred involving provincial data or the personal information of employees. Horncastle suggested that Dale Land, the director of cyber intelligence and investigation, could determine whether any such information was for sale by hackers on DarkNet, “where it might appear to have originated from TikTok.”

OCIO staff also worked with experts from IBM-spinoff Kyndryl to remove the app. 

“It sounds like there is a way to purge this from the machine in an automated way, if we give them direction to do so,” Horncastle wrote to Don Costello, the director of information security. “Or, we could reach out and ask the end users to remove, however, this may be complicated for them to do so.”

A month after the ban, TikTok was still installed on 10 devices, two more since the prior week. More than two hours later, the number was down to zero. One user “seems angered by the repeated calls they have been receiving,” wrote cybersecurity analyst Camden Leith. “They have requested if it is possible to be issued a new device as they have confirmed multiple times that it is not on their device.”

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at TED în Vancouver (TED/YouTube)

B.C. staff were also in contact with counterparts in other provinces, such as Prince Edward Island chief information officer Michael Muise, who had been contacted by a lobbyist for TikTok, with PAA Inc. 

“Their website says they are a national public affairs and strategic communications firm. I received a note from them recently asking for a meeting on behalf of TikTok to discuss our concerns,” Muise wrote. “At this time I have no plans to meet with them.”

The government released correspondence between March 9 and April 1, 2023 to a reporter, but it has delayed for almost a year the disclosure of earlier records, for the Jan. 31-March 8, 2023 period. The Information and Privacy Commissioner has granted three extensions. The latest, for 75 business days, expires June 5. 

Commissioner Michael McEvoy and privacy watchdogs from the federal, Quebec and Alberta governments began investigating TikTok more than a year ago.

The federal Liberal government revealed Thursday that cabinet quietly ordered a national security review of TikTok’s Canadian operations last September. 

B.C.’s corporate registry shows that Network Sense Ventures Ltd., a company founded in 2016 in Gastown by Hank Horkoff, changed its name in August 2020 to TikTok Technology Canada Inc. That happened the week after ByteDance investor relations director Zhao Liu of Hong Kong replaced human resources head Wei Hua of Beijing as a Network Sense director. Zhao changed his address to Singapore in 2022, but Joshua Bloom of Toronto, TikTok’s Canadian general manager, replaced him last August. 

ByteDance CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared at the TED Conference in Vancouver in April 2023, where “curator” Chris Anderson asked whether the app could be used to interfere in a U.S. election. 

“I can say that we are building all the tools to prevent any of these actions from happening,” Chew said. “And I’m very confident that, with an unprecedented amount of transparency that we’re giving on the platform, we can reduce this risk to as low as zero, as possible.”

Anderson was not convinced. “I mean, how would the world know?”

Benjamin Fung, a professor in the School of Information Studies at McGill University, said TikTok’s claim that data is housed on U.S. servers is hollow because workers in China are legally obliged to co-operate when the Chinese government demands to see data.

Fung said TikTok is built on a very powerful “recommender system,” a machine learning algorithm that helps decide what the user sees. 

“This tool has the power to change people’s perception on some particular issues,” Fung said.

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here

Bob Mackin A year before the U.S. Congress

Bob Mackin

Toronto’s city manager signed a nine-page addendum to the FIFA host city contract almost two weeks before FIFA named it one of 16 cities for the 2026 World Cup. 

That is according to documents obtained under freedom of information by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and released on March 14.

(BMO Field)

B.C. director Carson Binda showed off the partly censored file outside Vancouver city hall, where officials refuse to release the local contract with soccer’s Switzerland-based, world governing body to a reporter. An appeal is underway to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. 

Toronto city hall is the latest to open its files, after Seattle city council released its contracts last August and Santa Clara, Calif. followed in January with a partly censored public version.

“Any kind of redaction with these documents, with agreements to spend taxpayer money, that’s a problem,” Binda said. “Taxpayers deserve to know how the politicians and FIFA executives are spending our tax dollars.”

The host city and stadium agreements, which are substantially the same, date back to 2018, before FIFA selected the U.S., Canada and Mexico joint bid. In Toronto’s case, it was signed by Peter Wallace, who resigned in April 2018 to join the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. 

The contract regulates almost every aspect of the tournament down to fine details, from police escorts for FIFA executives and heads of state and road closures and lane restrictions to backup power supply and advertising and commercial activities near stadiums. 

“The parties agree that they shall cooperate in good faith to minimize non-refundable taxes, duties and levies in line with applicable legislation and practice,” the Toronto contract states. 

The host city shall bear the cost of any municipal taxes, duties or levies. In the event of cancellation, abandonment, postponement or relocation, Toronto shall not receive compensation or seek compensation from FIFA.

The contract, which runs through Dec. 31, 2026, even stipulates that no other major sporting event is allowed in the host city, beginning seven days prior to the first match, all the way until seven days after the final match. There can be no other substantial cultural events, such as concerts, other than those approved by FIFA, between one day prior to a match day and one day after a match day. 

Toronto’s addendum emphasized that the host committee is responsible to plan, coordinate and procure — at no cost to FIFA — all public safety and security resources. 

“For all competition activities that will take place in and around the host city and stadium, as well as all private security resources with respect to FIFA Fan Fest in its current format,” said the document, signed June 3, 2022 by city manager Chris Murray. “This obligation extends to specific safety and security equipment required to be installed within any sites by local, provincial or federal authorities, even if used by private safety and security staff.”

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell (left) with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Seattle 26 CEO Peter Tomozawa on the Space Needle (Harrell/Twitter)

The requirement extends to fire department and emergency medical service operations at team hotels and training sites, for spectators, accreditation holders, media representatives, players and other attendees, “including… access to hospital services.” 

FIFA also required that Toronto provide it office space, at no cost, by Jan. 1, 2023 for up to 10 FIFA personnel, “at the stadium, host city centre or another similar location acceptable to FIFA until the end of the competition.”

“What’s unfair is expecting taxpayers to pick up that slack for FIFA, which is a multi-billion-dollar organization,” Binda said. 

Host cities are expected to follow all FIFA instructions and report all material information and developments about their activities, including regular budget updates. FIFA agreed to pay one-third of basic stadium rental fees six months prior to the first match in Toronto, another third 90 days prior and the final third 30 days prior to kickoff. 

FIFA is also “unfettered in its right and ability” to change and choose cities and venues.

Within the Toronto file is an additional exit clause, that allowed Toronto to withdraw its bid to host matches at BMO Field, without penalty, by the end of June 2020, if federal and Ontario financial support and security funding conditions were not met. 

Toronto city hall recently estimated the cost of hosting at $380 million. The provincial government pledged $97 million on the condition that the federal government provide matching funds.

Vancouver city hall budgeted $230 million in early 2023 when it anticipated five matches. Last month, FIFA awarded Vancouver seven matches. The NDP government has refused to release the latest budget figure while it awaits estimates for B.C. Place Stadium renovations.

Among the pages fully censored from the Toronto contract is a pamphlet titled “FIFA World Cup 2026: Host Committees Rights and Assets.”

The version Seattle released states that FIFA will allow the host city committee to buy, ahead of the public, as much as 1.5 percent of tickets per hosted match. “These tickets can be used to assist fundraising efforts and included as part of a host city supporter package.”

FIFA also provides host cities with 175 to 250 complimentary VIP tickets at each match they host and a small amount of tickets to matches in other cities — even four to attend the World Cup final that are not available for public purchase and cannot be resold.  

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here

Bob Mackin Toronto’s city manager signed a nine-page

For the week of March 17, 2024:

Kerry Mortimer

A special St. Patrick’s Day edition of thePodcast, with guest Kerry Mortimer, the chair of Gaelic Games Canada, the governing body for Ireland’s national sports in Canada.

Mortimer offers the state of hurling and Gaelic football from coast to coast and previews the 2024 national championships, coming Labour Day weekend to Burnaby. 

Plus, sounds of the 1985 Shamrock Summit, featuring the late ex-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and this week’s Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

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

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

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
thePodcast: Gaelic sports thriving in Canada
Loading
/

For the week of March 17, 2024: [caption