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Bob Mackin

Despite widespread criticism of its pandemic communications, the B.C. NDP cabinet promoted the bureaucrat in charge on April 28.

Jeffrey Ferrier (left) and Don Zadravec (LinkedIn)

Don Zadravec dropped the assistant from his title, to become Deputy Minister of Government Communications and Public Engagement. He had been in charge of the department since last fall, when Donna Evans departed after a year-and-a-half in the job. The last entry in Evans’s calendar was the day before Premier John Horgan’s Nov. 26, post-election swearing-in.

GCPE was budgeted $28.3 million for the 2021 fiscal year.

Zadravec was part of the NDP cabinet’s day one communications appointees on July 18, 2017 as an executive director under GCPE Deputy Minister Evan Lloyd. He handled ministry support and media relations for Crown corporations and special projects before becoming the ADM of communications and media relations in September 2019. 

The promotion will mean a significant pay raise. For the year ended March 31, 2020, Evans was paid $207,084 and Zadravec $146,404.

The third wave of the pandemic has heralded the end of the Horgan government’s honeymoon, as reporters across B.C. have called for more transparency and less confusion. Latest examples include the bungled announcement of the regional leisure travel ban, Horgan’s quip suggesting people in their 20s and 30s weren’t doing enough to battle the pandemic and various government websites errantly downplaying the airborne spread of the virus.

Zadravec is in his second tour of duty as an NDP-loyal bureaucrat. His previous stint was 1993 to 2000. He worked August 1999 to May 2000 in the Premier’s office, where interim NDP leader Dan Miller’s aide was future premier Horgan.

Zadravec later spent 10 years at National Public Relations. While there, he was registered to lobby for pipeline company Veresen.

Premier John Horgan, April 19 (BC Gov)

National PR was also the previous career stop for the April 9-hired Jeffrey Ferrier. Ferrier is now executive director of communications for the Ministry of Health.

Ferrier, a former Ontario NDP operative, had been with National for two years as vice-president after five years at FleishmanHillard.

Ferrier’s lobbying client list boomed when the pandemic began. L’Oreal Canada, Uber, Sport Maska Inc., Sobeys Inc., Whirlpool Canada and Dollarama hired him to be their go-between with the NDP government on COVID-19-related issues.

Ferrier’s appointment by cabinet came several weeks after the government’s embarrassing “Self-Care Bingo” Tweet in late February. The lighthearted attempt to lift the spirits of pandemic weary British Columbians fell flat and led to an apology after gaining nationwide media attention.

Among the suggestions for peace of mind on the satirical bingo card was to build a blanket fort.

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Bob Mackin Despite widespread criticism of its pandemic

Business, News, Opinion

For the week of May 2, 2021:

The BC Liberal politician who transformed gambling from charity fundraisers to big business was on the virtual stand April 28 at the Cullen Commission. 

Rich Coleman, who was in Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark’s cabinets, was asked what he knew and when he knew it about money laundering and loan sharking in B.C. casinos.

On this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, hear highlights of Coleman’s testimony under oath at B.C.’s money laundering public inquiry.

The inquiry is heading toward its scheduled May 14 completion. Commissioner Austin Cullen has until December to deliver his findings and recommendations to the NDP cabinet. 

Plus commentaries and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.

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For the week of May 2, 2021:

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

The NDP government is paying the head of British Columbia’s troubled coronavirus vaccine rollout $22,000 a month.

theBreaker.news has learned that Vancouver Coastal Health chair Penny Ballem received the $220,000, no-bid contract on Jan. 13 to be executive lead of the Immunize BC program through October.

Penny Ballem (left) and Premier John Horgan (BC Gov)

The existence of Ballem’s contract was confirmed the same week the program was thrust into chaos again, when Fraser Health Authority hosted pop-up vaccination clinics in Surrey and Coquitlam. Prompted by social media, people from outside the hotspot areas flocked to the lineups — some even camped out overnight. But many went home disappointed.

Ballem’s contract is more lucrative than what a retired general got from the Ontario government in late November. Rick Hillier was paid $20,000-a-month, plus expenses, through March 31 to begin the rollout in Canada’s most-populous province.

Ballem was contracted the same day that she appeared with Health Minister Adrian Dix on a hastily organized teleconference to announce she had taken over the job from Ross Brown, the VCH director of pandemic response. Premier John Horgan introduced Brown as the province’s vaccine czar on Dec. 9.

Clockwise from upper left: Terry Wright, Marnie McGregor, Dena Coward and Mary Conibear

On Jan. 17, four days after the shakeup, former Vancouver city manager Ballem hired her former city hall assistant communications director, Marnie McGregor, and three ex-Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics executives: executive vice-president of transportation Terry Wright, managing director of Games operations Mary Conibear and Paralympics director Dena Coward. Ballem joined the VANOC board when she was hired as city manager in 2008.

The four contracts are each worth $56,000 and run through April 30.

Wright’s responsibilities with VANOC included procuring a fleet of motor coaches for Vancouver 2010. After the Games, VANOC reported a $40 million cost overrun for chartering buses and drivers from as far away as Florida.

Dix appointed Ballem chair of VCH at the end of 2018. Ballem, who received $43,000 plus $4,605 expenses in 2020, replaced Brown just two weeks after a key meeting was called to organize the Immunize B.C. operations centre command team.

“The purpose of this committee is to establish oversight and governance for the planning, implementation, and administration of mass COVID-19 vaccination to ensure the province is fully prepared to immunize key populations in B.C. by Jan. 1, 2021,” said the Zoom meeting notice, obtained under the freedom of information law.

Dr. Ross Brown (right) and Dr. Bonnie Henry (BC Gov)

Pfizer/BioNTech announced their vaccine candidate Nov. 9. Health Canada approved its use in Canada on Dec. 9. Six days later, on Dec. 15, Vancouver General Hospital care aide Nisha Yunus became the first British Columbian jabbed.

On March 9, the first day seniors were eligible to book appointments, the Telus phone system crashed. The company apologized.

As of April 29, almost 1.66 million British Columbians had received their first vaccine dose, but only 90,296 are fully immunized. Washington state, by comparison, has delivered 5.2 million jabs.

Meanwhile, a former labour leader scored a $50,000 no bid contract just before Christmas.

Jim Sinclair, the Dix-appointed chair of Fraser Health in September 2017, was given the contact Dec. 20 to chair a COVID-19 workplace safety working group. Sinclair spent 15 years as chair of the B.C. Federation of Labour, which donated $1.4 million to the NDP between 2005 and 2017.

Sinclair was paid $33,239 by Fraser Health for the year ended March 31, 2020.

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Bob Mackin The NDP government is paying the

Business, News

Bob Mackin

British Columbia’s top Mountie accused the Surrey Police Service’s chief of poaching.

B.C. RCMP commander Jennifer Strachan (left) and Surrey Police Chief Norm Lipinski.

In a March 11 letter, obtained via the freedom of information law, Commanding Officer Jennifer Strachan told Surrey Chief Norm Lipinski that she had received complaints from numerous RCMP personnel receiving calls at work from Surrey Police recruiters, asking if they would consider retiring from the RCMP and joining the new police force.

“I want to share my concerns that these calls are coming into colleagues via their RCMP phone numbers and during work hours. A number have expressed their discomfort,” wrote Strachan, who runs the Surrey-headquartered B.C. division. “I fully support you and your team in accomplishing the enormous task of recruiting new employees, but would respectfully request that your human resources team adjust their approach to avoid further complaints.”

Strachan wanted Lipinski to be mindful that the transition is stressful for those directly impacted, particularly those that work at the Surrey RCMP detachment.

“Ultimately, our two agencies will need to work together in the future, and I know that you are as committed to encouraging positive working relationships among all our employees, as I am.”

When he finally replied March 23, Lipinski denied Strachan’s allegation and delivered a zinger in return.

“I have discussed this issue with my deputy chiefs, and we are not aware of anyone at the Surrey Police Service making the phone calls in such a manner as you indicated. It would be helpful if you could provide specific details,” wrote Lipinksi, a former senior Mountie. “Also, I totally agree that cooperation between the two agencies is important. To that end, it is our view that the RCMP can improve in this realm.”

(RCMP)

The Surrey Police Service recruitment website says that years of prior policing will be recognized in its salary and annual vacation formulas and it includes documents about “pension options for RCMP officers.” Specifically, the transfer from the Federal RCMP Pension Program to the B.C. Municipal Pension Program. Surrey is offering $75,488-a-year for rookies to $145,584 for staff sergeants, plus a benefits package.

Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum promised the new police force would be up and running by April 2021, but could take until the end of 2023 or start of 2024. The transition is costing Surrey taxpayers $63.7 million.

The force is expected to employ 1,500 people, including 800 officers. As of April 22, Lipinski had hired three superintendents and 10 inspectors. Another 11 who are sergeants or staff sergeants are starting this month or next.

Most of Lipinski’s announced hires are former Mounties.

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Bob Mackin British Columbia’s top Mountie accused the

Business, News

Bob Mackin

More mixed messages from B.C.’s Minister of Health.

Just days after postponing all non-urgent surgeries, Adrian Dix told reporters April 26 that there is more space in hospitals. But he did not elaborate.

Royal Columbian Hospital (Fraser Health)

“The number of base beds that are currently vacant has increased since April 21 from 719 to 912 across the hospital system, and the number of critical care beds that are vacant has increased from 95 to 131,” Dix told reporters on April 26.

theBreaker.news has obtained a Fraser Health Authority memo that indicates at one major hospital the increased space is not because of decreased sickness. Royal Columbian Hospital has opened a satellite unit on the fifth floor to treat more coronavirus-infected patients.

The April 26 memo, titled “RCH Critical Care Pandemic Response Escalation,” says there are 46 beds available, including a four-bed high acuity unit on level 5N. The other 42 beds are spread across intensive care, cardiac surgery intensive care, and post-anaesthesia care units. The total number of beds available is eight more than the previous week.

From an April 26 Fraser Health memo.

“As the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic continues, critical care resources within Fraser Health are challenged,” the memo says. “We continue to work regionally to expand care capacity across Fraser Health while we continue to meet the [higher level of care] mandate of RCH. To achieve this we have moved away from ideal staffing assignments and are working in a team model of care. This is not ideal but is a functional requirement at this stage of our pandemic response.”

On April 26, B.C. government officials announced 484 people hospitalized province-wide, including 158 patients in intensive care. Of that, Fraser Health accounts for 256 hospitalized and 82 in critical care. The true numbers in both categories are likely higher, because the B.C. government does not count those who remain in hospital but are no longer actively infected.

The memo says impacts include the need for sourcing additional supplies and equipment, adjusted pharmacy set-up and limiting the cardiac surgery ICU to four beds.

Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix (BC Gov)

“Last week the next level of our critical care pandemic plan was activated given the ongoing and increasing need for additional COVID capacity. Planning has actively been occurring as we take the next steps to create additional incremental capacity. We know this is challenging and are working to ensure we support er teams to meet the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic response.”

The New Westminster hospital has plans to scale-up to 54, 57 and 71 beds if needed, including double-bunking in intensive care and setting up three beds in an operating room.

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Bob Mackin More mixed messages from B.C.’s Minister

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has declared that a child being brought up in a polyamorous household has three parents.

A child, known only as Clarke in the verdict, was born in fall 2018 to biological parents known only by their first names, Eliza and Bill. They sought a declaration that there is a third legal parent, Olivia, and that Clarke’s birth registration be amended accordingly.

Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)

The petitioners told Justice Sandra Wilkinson that they live in a “triad” — that each has a relationship with one another and each of their relationships is considered equal.

Bill and Eliza lived together since the early 2000s. They met Olivia in 2013, sparked a romance in 2016 and Olivia moved in with them a year later. 

“Although Eliza’s evidence is that the petitioners agreed prior to conception that Olivia would have the role of parent to the child, it is unclear whether all three of the petitioners were committed to Olivia being Clarke’s ‘full parent’ prior to Eliza becoming pregnant,” Wilkinson wrote. “However, on the whole of the evidence, it is clear that at some point during Eliza’s pregnancy, the petitioners agreed Olivia would be involved in Clarke’s life as a ‘full parent’.”

Since Clarke’s birth, the petitioners shared parenting duties. The court heard Olivia was the first parent to feed Clarke after he was born. 

“It is not disputed that Clarke is being raised by three loving, caring, and extremely capable individuals,” Wilkinson wrote. “Unlike many family law matters which come before the court, this is not an instance of family members taking adverse positions. The petitioners are in agreement that Olivia should be recognized as Clarke’s legal parent, alongside Eliza and Bill. It is their family makeup which brings them before the court.”

Lawyers for the Attorney General were concerned that declaring Olivia the third legal parent would open the floodgates to similar court applications. They also submitted the difference between a parent and a guardian is nominal and Olivia would not achieve “many more, if any more, substantive rights.”

“I do not accept this position,” Wilkinson wrote. “There are clear and tangible differences between being a parent and being a guardian, evidenced, in part, by the legislature’s decision to distinguish between these two roles with separate designations. A parentage declaration is also a symbolic recognition of a parent-child relationship. This difference should not be minimized.”

The judge ultimately found that there is a gap in the Family Law Act regarding children conceived through sexual intercourse who have more than two parents.

“Put bluntly, the Legislature did not contemplate polyamorous families.”

“As the petitioners point out, it is uncommon for an individual to come to court wanting a parentage declaration. In fact, in many family law cases that come before the court, parents are trying to skirt their responsibilities, instead of secure them.”

So Wilkinson ruled that Olivia is a legal parent and she ordered the birth registration be amended by the Vital Statistics Agency.

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Bob Mackin A British Columbia Supreme Court

Business, Miscellany, News, Opinion, Sports

For the week of April 25, 2021:

The Cullen Commission on money laundering in British Columbia had its first marquee witness on April 20, former Premier Christy Clark.

Clark was asked, under oath, what she knew and when she knew it about corruption in B.C. casinos and the real estate market. She was also asked about donations from casino companies to the BC Liberal Party while she was premier.

On this edition of theBreaker.news, hear the highlights of her testimony. 

Plus commentary and Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim headlines.

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For the week of April 25, 2021: The

Business, News

Bob Mackin

Email obtained by theBreaker.news under the freedom of information law shows how closely mayors of four Northern Vancouver Island municipalities worked behind-the-scenes with salmon farming lobbyist John Paul Fraser.

John Paul Fraser (BC Gov)

After Liberal Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan announced Discovery Islands fish farms would be phased-out by mid-2022, North Island-Powell River NDP MP Rachel Blaney sent a letter to Campbell River Mayor Andy Adams.

“I’ve reached out to the industry to discuss next steps,” wrote Blaney on Dec. 21. “Now is the time for us to work together to make plans that will facilitate this change to protect our wild salmon but to do so in a way that doesn’t leave workers and their families struggling to make ends meet.”

“JP, have you seen this???”Adams wrote to Fraser, the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association executive director, about Blaney’s letter. “Kinda fells like being stabbed in the back, and then pulling it out and saying sorry, followed by being stabbed in the chest.”

Wrote Fraser: “Have not seen, nor do I think any of us been ‘reached out to’.”

(Blaney is married to Homalco First Nation Chief Darren Blaney, who opposes the industry.)

Adams and mayors of Port McNeill (Gaby Wickstrom), Gold River (Brad Unger) and Port Hardy (Dennis Dugas) prepared joint letters to Blaney and other federal politicians to boost the industry. Fraser helped write the letters and advised on timing, while keeping executives of fish farming companies Cermaq, Grieg and Mowi in the loop.

(via FOI/Campbell River)

Adams suggested Dec. 28 that “industry leaders and workers flood the Facebook sites on every post [Blaney] puts out. Can’t let her get away with this BS.”

Fraser replied: “Folks will definitely pile on. This will happen.”

On the same day, Adams suggested short, mid and long term strategies involving letter writing, petitions and Facebook posts in anticipation of a snap spring federal election. The best outcome, he opined, would be more Liberal MPs, especially on Northern Vancouver Island.

“I am not advocating for any particular party, but the likelihood is that it will be a Liberal majority, and an NDP and PC candidate will not be effective, and as a result we need to have a Liberal candidate that is winnable and can work from the inside in Ottawa,” Adams wrote. “This not about party politics or affiliation, it’s about having our voice heard. Just my 2 cents for thought.”

Fraser sent the mayors a revised version of the letter they planned to send Minister Jordan. “We made a few adjustments to the earlier draft given this is a co-signed letter,” Fraser said.

On Dec. 29, Adams wrote to the other mayors: “JP suggests that we get the letter to Minister Jordan out today, and the letter to [Jordan’s Parliamentary Secretary] Terry Beech tomorrow, and JP is going to make sure that industry employees start filling the Facebook in the newspapers and wherever else its needed. He is also suggesting that we call for an economic summit later next week.”

Campbell River Mayor Andy Adams (YouTube)

On the afternoon of Dec. 30, Adams sent Wickstrom’s draft of the Beech letter to Fraser, who replied: “I’ll have something back to you in the A.M., then we get it off to Terry to really make his New Year’s Eve.”

The mayors’ letters claimed Jordan’s plan would put 1,500 jobs and the $1.6 billion-a-year industry at risk. On April 5, a Federal Court judge ruled Mowi and Saltstream should be allowed to restock farms in three locations, because the economic harms would outweigh any environmental harms. Mowi claimed it would lose $26 million and lay-off 78 people without the injunction.

Fraser was the BC Liberal government’s deputy minister of communications under ex-Premier Christy Clark. He is also the son of Paul Fraser, the late the conflict of interest commissioner who never found an MLA broke the law during his more than a decade in office.

At the end of the BC Liberal dynasty in July 2017, John Paul Fraser scored a $396,000 golden parachute when the incoming NDP government replaced BC Liberal political staff.

Last September, the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists fined John Paul Fraser $500 for failing to report that he had been the assistant deputy minister of labour, citizens’ services and open government.

Fraser is co-hosting a virtual question and answer session with the Campbell River and District Chamber of Commerce at noon April 22.

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Bob Mackin Email obtained by theBreaker.news under the

Business, News

Bob Mackin

And then there was one.

Melissa De Genova is the last Non-Partisan Association councillor left from the five elected in 2018, after Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick and Sarah Kirby-Yung quit the party on April 21.

Their decision was prompted by the Easter Monday bombshell that the board of directors secretly chose Park Board Commissioner John Coupar as the mayoral candidate for the next election in October 2022.

Sarah Kirby-Yung (left), Lisa Dominato and Colleen Hardwick say goodbye NPA

The trio will sit as independents, just like Coun. Rebecca Bligh, who left the NPA in late 2019 in a disagreement with the right-leaning board.

“We have heard loud and clear from NPA members and supporters that the actions of the board and John Coupar do not reflect the standards of transparency, integrity and accountability we all expect from the NPA and each other,” said Hardwick in a prepared statement.”

Hardwick took issue with the board’s decision not to run a fair and democratic mayoral nomination process. 

“The NPA board and John Coupar sidelined the elected members of the NPA and made a backroom deal. By any measure, it was about as old-boys-club as it gets,” she said.

NPA mayoral candidate John Coupar (NPA)

The dispute highlights a culture clash: the three dissidents are Liberal-leaning women, while the board is predominantly Conservative-leaning men.

That board responded with a statement late in the afternoon on April 21, calling the trio hypocrites.

“Each of the three departing councillors were appointed to their role as candidates for the NPA in the exact same manner as our current Mayoral candidate, Mr. John Coupar,” said the board statement.

In an open letter to party members and supporters, the trio said the NPA “as it stands today cannot be trusted to govern fairly or responsibly and that it does not represent the values and standards that Vancouver residents and NPA supporters expect and deserve.”

Dominato called the board out of touch, while Kirby-Yung hinted toward the potential for a new party. “This story is far from over,” she said.

The anointment of Coupar triggered 2018 NPA-backed runner-up Ken Sim’s decision to seek the nomination from the newly formed A Better City party. Mark Marissen, the ex-husband of Christy Clark and founder of the Yes Vancouver party, also said he is running for mayor.

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Bob Mackin And then there was one. Melissa De

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Bob Mackin

A B.C. Supreme Court judge is charging a Flat Earth, anti-mask protester only $750 in costs after ruling Mak Parhar wasted the court’s time with a “patently absurd and nonsensical” lawsuit.

Parhar sued B.C. Premier John Horgan, Health Minister Adrian Dix and Attorney General David Eby in New Westminster last November. Parhar had been arrested and jailed four days for ignoring federal quarantine laws upon his return from a Flat Earth convention in the U.S. last October.

Anti-masker Mak Parhar (centre) at a Flat Earth convention last fall in the U.S. (Facebook)

Except, Parhar deliberately used an Internet boilerplate not recognized by any Canadian court of law.

The Attorney General of B.C. sought $1,000 in costs against Parhar, but Justice Murray Blok decided April 16 on the $750 lump-sum instead.

Blok heard the case for several hours on April 8. It involved two lawyers for the B.C. government, another for the federal government and another for the New Westminster Police Department. The B.C. government lawyers successfully argued that Parhar’s case should be thrown out because it is a version of what an Alberta judge called an “organized pseudolegal commercial argument.”

That is a fancy way of saying Parhar’s case wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. 

“The plaintiff rejects any suggestion that he is bound by, or that this proceeding is any way subject to, the Rules or, for that matter, even most societal conventions, including how he is to be referred to or addressed,” Blok wrote.

“For the sake of simplicity I will refer to him as the ‘plaintiff’ and to the other set of parties as the ‘defendants’ although I fully appreciate that he rejects those terms and in his initiating document he utilized his own terms. Similarly, he rejects the use of the name that was bestowed upon him at birth (Makhan Singh Parhar), viewing it as an artificial construct that does not identify him as a person. Instead, he stylizes his name in a fashion associated with OPCA litigants (i:man:Mak of the Parhar family).”

Parhar called himself a prosecutor and demanded to use a courtroom in New Westminster for his so-called “Parhar Court” trial against those that caused his arrest for violating the Quarantine Act. He also claimed the four lawyers for the defendants in the hearing on April 8 had no standing and that the B.C. Supreme Court was a fraudulent entity.

New Westminster courthouse (B.C. Courts)

“The plaintiff interrupted his submissions at one point in order to yield the floor to a colleague [Ontario’s Christopher James Pritchard], who made a few remarks, though the colleague emphasized he does not act for the plaintiff. These comments were generally to the effect that the plaintiff has a right to a trial by jury so that he may be judged by the people, and that this Court and its rules have no jurisdiction. He said ‘contract makes the law’ and the plaintiff had not consented, which I took to mean the plaintiff had not consented to be subject to the provisions of the Quarantine Act or the Rules.”

Blok ruled that Parhar abused the court process by filing documents “to utilize this Court’s infrastructure for the purposes of his fictional court.”

As for Parhar’s arrest, the judge said “it was a hard way to learn that laws do not work on an opt-in basis.”

Parhar still has an opportunity to challenge the Quarantine Act charges, Blok wrote, “which hopefully he will do on more conventional grounds” during a Provincial Court trial.

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Bob Mackin A B.C. Supreme Court judge

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