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Bob Mackin

A man wanted by United States authorities donated more than $5,500 to Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, theBreaker.news has learned. 

Bakshish Sidhu is listed on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency website as wanted in California for conspiracy to launder money, with his last known address in Surrey, B.C.

Bakshish Singh and Justin Trudeau (SherePunjab.com)

None of the allegations has been proven in court.

Sidhu operates the Basant Forex currency exchange and Basant Productions film and concert promotion agency.

Sidhu appeared on Sher-e-Punjab Radio on April 9, claiming it was a case of mistaken identity. The radio station’s website carried a photo of Sidhu with the Prime Minister.

A story in the Vancouver Sun on April 16 quoted Sidhu’s lawyer, Deepak Chodha, who said Sidhu only learned of the charge a week ago, but his client is an “honourable man.”

“Mr. Sidhu will face whatever music he has to face and will deal with it,” Chodha told reporter Kim Bolan.

Sidhu’s LinkedIn and Instagram pages are offline. A 2018 profile by Ansal Media Group Inc.’s Entertainment Magazine has also disappeared. The feature said Sidhu is involved in philanthropy and politics in Surrey and his native Zira, Punjab.

A Department of Justice news release issued in October 2015 in Los Angeles named a Bakshish Sidhu of India among seven fugitives listed in an indictment related to the arrest of Canadian Gurkaran Singh Isshpunani in September 2015 at a Buffalo, N.Y. border crossing.

The U.S. alleged Isshpunani led an international money laundering ring affiliated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. The U.S. indictment from November 2014 alleged Sidhu was involved in the March 2012 transfer of $522,000.

Elections Canada’s database shows eight donations by Bakshish Singh Sidhu from December 2017 to October 2019 — three to Liberal Party of Canada headquarters, two to the Surrey-Newton Liberal association, two to the Cloverdale-Langley City Liberal association and one to the Surrey-Centre Liberal association.

Elections Canada lists all of the donations by Sidhu from the same Surrey postal code as his Basant Productions.

Sidhu’s name is also on the attendance list for an Oct. 9, 2019 Liberal fundraiser at Northview Golf and Country Club with incumbent MP John Aldag and Bill Blair, the Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction.

Trudeau promoted Blair to Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness after the 2019 election. Aldag lost to Conservative Tamara Jansen.

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Bob Mackin A man wanted by United States

For the week of April 18, 2021:

The Cullen Commission Public Inquiry on Money Laundering in British Columbia entered its final witness phase, after two days of testimony by Peter German.

Peter German’s first Dirty Money report was released June 27, 2018 (Mackin)

The former head of the RCMP in Western Canada and head of Corrections Canada in B.C. is a law professor who wrote a textbook on money laundering.

His two Dirty Money reports in 2018 and 2019 laid the foundation for the public inquiry, which is scheduled to hear witnesses until mid-May. Commissioner Austin Cullen must report to the NDP cabinet before Christmas.

In his testimony, German explained why B.C. is uniquely attractive to organized crime and, “where you have organized crime, you have money laundering.”

Also, hear clips from director Dwayne Beaver’s new documentary, Duty to Document, about British Columbia’s broken freedom of information system and why it needs to be fixed with a law requiring the creation and retention of records.

Plus commentary and Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim headlines.

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

Now on 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.

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For the week of April 18, 2021: The

Bob Mackin

Members of Vancouver’s Uyghur community protested outside Premier John Horgan’s riding office April 12, to support the decision not to keep a controversial ex-judge as an advisor.

Members of the Lower Mainland Uyghur community protested April 12 outside Premier John Horgan’s riding office in Langford. (photo submitted)

Kabir Qurban, a Simon Fraser University student, took time-off studying for exams to travel to the capital with six others after officials said Bill Yee will not remain on the Premier’s Chinese-Canadian Community Advisory Committee.

Yee’s March 30 interview on a Toronto Cantonese radio program enraged groups concerned with China’s human rights abuses, because Yee denied China is committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims.

“When we heard he was taken out of power we were very happy, and in order to show them we were happy, we want to show up and let them know hey we’re here,” Qurban said. “Whenever you do something for the Uyghur people, whenever you support the Uyghur people, there is a beneficial party.”

Canada’s House of Commons voted 266-0 in February to declare China is committing genocide against Uyghurs, citing evidence of mass-detention, forced labour and other human rights violations from Chinese government documents, intelligence agencies and eyewitness testimony. In March, Canada sanctioned several Chinese govenment officials along with the U.S. and U.K., a move that sparked Yee to speak out.

Qurban and the group rallied outside the Parliament Buildings and Horgan’s electoral district office in Langford. The rally came four days after the group released a letter, signed by Christian, Jewish and Muslim clerics in B.C., that denounced Yee for “lacking basic human empathy towards the plight of victims but at the same time factually erroneous and misleading.”

Bill Yee (far left) at a September 2018 Chinatown ceremony with Premier John Horgan and then-Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson (BC Gov)

“Thousands of Uyghur Canadians do not have any means of communication with their parents and loved ones and China blocked and cut off all channels of family bonds,” said the letter.

Qurban said the group is also concerned with Yee and others who propagate Chinese Communist Party messages and meddle with politics and China’s diaspora in Canada.

“We’re not too happy with that, especially as Canadian citizens on indigenous territory, running away from our own indigenous territory,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chinese-Canadian Human Rights Concern Group said April 14 that one of its members complained to the RCMP about death threats by text and phone on April 11. It appealed for help from Solicitor General Mike Farnworth and Attorney General David Eby, after it claimed the RCMP did not do enough to investigate.

The 13-member group had written an open letter on April 7 that was critical of the CCP and called for Yee’s firing from the 2018-announced, NDP government committee. The group did not make the victim of the death threats available for an interview and declined to publicly identify the RCMP detachment that handled the complaint.

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Bob Mackin Members of Vancouver’s Uyghur community protested

Bob Mackin

NDP MLAs went on a pre-election spending spree last summer that may have broken B.C. Legislature rules.

Jagrup Brar’s mailing to constituents (Norm Letnick/Twitter)

An analysis by theBreaker.news of invoices shows that nearly all of the 19 MLAs involved in a targeted mass-mailing represented ridings the party feared losing.

Together they combined for almost $145,000 taken from the Legislature budget to pay for printing and mailing letters, leaflets and postcards to constituents in the days before Premier John Horgan called a snap election.

On Sept. 22, the day after the Legislature was dissolved for the Oct. 24 election, contractor Mail-O-Matic Services Ltd. of Burnaby invoiced the NDP Government Caucus for $52,157.24. The invoice shows $92,647.80 was already paid.

Caucus spokesman Ed May said “all mailings are in full compliance with Legislature rules, and that no mailings occurred during the election period. The invoice you referenced was for mailings that occurred prior to that date.”

However, the Legislature handbook for MLAs includes a section titled “Use of Constituency Office Allowance” which governs spending on newsletters, household flyers, or advertisements in print, online or broadcast outlets, but with strings attached.

States the handbook: “The content of these advertisements and messages is restricted to announcing or reporting on constituency office activities, how to contact the Member, the role played by the Member in the legislative process, and services provided by the Member to constituents. Members may not use constituency office resources or funds to distribute or mail physical or digital content which promotes partisan or political messages or solicits financial support.”

George Chow transit shelter ad (Twitter)

NDP Government House Leader Mike Farnworth, who is a member of the Legislative Assembly Management Committee, did not respond for comment.

Of the $78,387 in postage charges listed on the Mail-O-Matic invoice, Courtenay-Comox’s Ronna-Rae Leonard was the biggest spender at $7,511.45. Leonard swung the BC Liberal riding to the NDP in 2017 by just 189 votes.

After a 200-vote loss in 2013, Jagrup Brar turned Surrey-Fleetwood into an NDP riding in 2017. The postcard in his mailing contained generic, non-local messages about healthcare and education and a quote and photo of Dr. Bonnie Henry. The letter lauds Premier John Horgan and Health Minister Adrian Dix and promotes the NDP government’s restart plan. Brar’s mailing cost $3,290.94 in postage fees.

The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation’s B.C. Director said what the NDP did is part of a concerning federal and provincial trend across the political spectrum. Kris Sims said it is “disappointing” and called on the NDP to repay the treasury.

We’d like to see it stop,” Sims said in an interview. “I was born in the morning, but I wasn’t born this morning. Most common-sense people know if you’re ramping up to an election, you shouldn’t get a whole bunch of stuff printed with your name on it, if your name is going to be on the ballot.”

Sims wondered why the NDP couldn’t make do with what it already had. The party already received the $1.6 million per-vote subsidy that replaced corporate and union donations and raised $6.3 million in donations from supporters during 2020.

The disclosures also show that Vancouver-Fraserview MLA George Chow was charged $10,269 by Outfront Advertising for six transit shelter ads in his riding beginning Sept. 14. Chow’s poster ad referred to the NDP government’s bailout funding to TransLink. Meanwhile, two MLAs bought bulk masks that were branded with their names for giveaway in-person and by direct mail.

Bowinn Ma models her branded mask (Twitter)

North Vancouver-Lonsdale’s Bowinn Ma, who upset a BC Liberal in 2017, ordered 3,000 custom facemasks from Dad’s Printing on July 27 for $10,416 and 2,000 adjustable earloop facemasks for $8,187.20 on Aug. 31 from Dad’s. The prices also included polybagging.

Ma promoted the second shipment of masks on Sept. 1, exactly three weeks before Horgan made her riding his first Lower Mainland campaign stop. 

Delta North’s Ravi Kahlon, who also beat a BC Liberal in 2017, spent $11,648 on 4,000 masks from Dad’s Printing on Aug. 5.

Neither Ma nor Kahlon responded for comment.

“Advertisements are common and regular costs for any MLA office and appear on a variety of platforms and products,” May said.

Sims suggested Ma and Kahlon could have given away masks without using the items for campaign brand-building. 

“Who doesn’t want a free mask? Lots of people are really worried, it’s a good way of building community,” Sims said. “But why not just put the B.C. logo on it then? Why do you need to put your name on it?”

Throughout last summer, Horgan played coy when asked by reporters if he would call an election one year early, during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the party left a trail of breadcrumbs about its intention to break the confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party in order to gain a majority.

Ravi Kahlon sent masks after the election was called (Tom Zillich/Twitter)

In early June, it held a series of campaign planning and training seminars for party workers. One of the sessions was about socially distant campaign tactics.

In late June, the government communications department held a series of economic restart telephone town hall sessions that showcased NDP MLAs who defeated BC Liberals in 2017.

The party advertised on its website to find local campaign contractors with an August deadline for job applicants.

Meanwhile, Horgan’s deputy minister Don Wright was in touch with Elections BC head Anton Boegman to explore election dates in October and pandemic protocol voting logistics.

The MLAs’ advertising and promotional spending may also have been a function of incumbent politicians worried that their name recognition had declined. The pandemic summer went by without the usual personal appearances with crowds at community parades and picnics. 

But the spending also happened after Finance Minister Carole James revealed the shocking, record $12.5 billion deficit in July.

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Bob Mackin NDP MLAs went on a pre-election

Bob Mackin

If the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic worsens, B.C. Children’s Hospital may be treating adults like Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.

“We, in the last couple phases, have been working on the provincial and Lower Mainland plans,” said Dr. Neil McLean, Fraser Health Authority’s critical care medical director. “Those discussions you’re hearing around pediatrics and stuff, we’re having multiple discussions with B.C. Children’s about whether they have a capacity to help us.”

Dr. Neil McLean (Fraser Health)

McLean was speaking on a town hall-style web conference with physicians April 12.

B.C. is experiencing an escalation of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations similar to late 2020, as variants spread across the province. For now, McLean said, hospital space and equipment are not issues, but the size of the workforce and morale are concerns.

McLean said some post-anaesthesia care unit nurses are being redeployed to work in intensive care units. In some locations, where space permits, two COVID-19 patients are being treated by the same nurse in single rooms. Fraser Health cut back, as of April 12, on five surgical slates — or the standard 7.5-hour operating room shifts — across its busiest hospitals: two at Royal Columbian,  two at Abbotsford and one at Surrey Memorial. B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix revealed that elective surgeries are being delayed for the first time since last spring, but he said there will not be across-the-board cancellations like last year.

Said McLean: “Our staff are tired, they’ve been doing this full out for over 12 months, so we’re working on trying to support that strength in getting to this last few months that we need to hopefully before we can get that herd immunity going. We are faring OK, but we are starting to be stretched.”

McLean said the median age for coronavirus patients in Fraser Health ICUs remains 64, but “anecdotally, I’ll tell you I feel like we’re seeing some young people, so that median may drop in the next little bit.”

Meanwhile, he warned that patients receiving their first dose of vaccine must remain vigilant.

“I can tell you 100% that people are not fully covered up until 14 days, because I have seen COVID-positive patients in the ICU who are less that 14 days after their vaccine,” McLean said. “So, I haven’t seen it beyond 14 days, but definitely there is that dangerous window of people who have been vaccinated but are not immune. We do have those patients in our ICU, for sure.”

Fraser Health CEO Dr. Victoria Lee (BC Gov)

Fraser Health has the capacity to jab 10,000 people a day, but could do 20,000 if it had enough supplies from Pfizer and Moderna.

Fraser Health CEO Dr. Victoria Lee said more work is being done to vaccinate healthcare workers after a slow start.

“Some of the sites we’ve seen a significant improvement from the initial uptake of 45%-55%, to now much more in the herd immunity arena of 75%, to some at 95%,” Lee said on the conference call. “There has been quite a significant effort to increase immunization rates amongst our staff and leaders, our medical staff that work in clinical settings or that visit clinical settings regularly.”

Lee referred to “some pockets” (but only specified the long term care sector) that “do not have the immunization uptake that we would like to see.”

“We’re working through physician leadership, medical, clinical leaders as well as supervisors, managers and individual followup and communication,” Lee said.

Coronavirus outbreaks at three Fraser Health seniors care homes were announced April 1 at Chartwell Langley Gardens, April 8 at Sunset Manor and April 9 at Dufferin Care Centre.

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Bob Mackin If the third wave of the

Bob Mackin

Lawyers for a Vancouver company accused of fraud in the United States failed to overturn search warrants on constitutional grounds.

PacNet founder Rosanne Day

PacNet Services Ltd. and related company DeepCove Laboratories, were blacklisted Sept. 22, 2016 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. U.S. investigators targeted the companies for allegedly running mass-mailing schemes for years.

Canadian authorities, at the request of the U.S., obtained warrants and searched the two companies in late summer 2016. During four days of arguments in B.C. Supreme Court in November and January, PacNet and Deep Cove alleged their constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure was breached

But, in her April 9 verdict, Justice Janet Winteringham disagreed.

Winteringham found there were reasonable and probable grounds to believe that foreign offences were committed and that the evidence would be found at PacNet and Deep Cove offices.

Though the investigations spanned many years and numerous documents were sought, I have found that the scope of the searches was justified, that there was a sufficient nexus between the foreign offences and the records to be seized and the descriptions contained in the search warrants and underlying affidavits were sufficient in the circumstances,” Winteringham ruled. “I have also determined that the explanation provided about the form of authorization sought, search warrants and not evidence-gathering orders, was justified in the circumstances.”

Canada’s Minister of Justice approved the request from the U.S. on Aug. 30, 2016 to search payment processor PacNet and software provider DeepCove under the mutual legal assistance on criminal matters treaty. DeepCove and PacNet shared offices. PacNet president Rosanne Day was also a director of DeepCove.

Charged in Las Vegas in 2019 for mail and wire fraud and money laundering were: Day, part-owner and Ireland office head Robert Paul Davis, director of marketing Genevieve Renee Frappier and chief compliance and anti-money laundering officer Miles Kelly. They could face 20 years in jail if convicted.

U.S. authorities allege that PacNet and DeepCove processed fraudulently-induced payments in violation of U.S. laws and as such acted in a way to perpetrate the offences, most particularly, the mass-mailing of fraudulent solicitations,” said the judgment.

“Canadian authorities executed the search warrants at the PacNet and DeepCove premises over four days. Following the search, they learned that some of the items sought were held at a storage facility. To permit the search and seizure of documents located at the storage facility, the court issued an evidence gathering order (to seize the documents from the storage facility and move the documents into the hands of the authorities) and subsequent search warrant.”

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Bob Mackin Lawyers for a Vancouver company accused

Bob Mackin

Spying and meddling by foreign countries, mainly China and Russia, are the biggest threats to Canada, says the 2020 report to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.

The report was finished before last Christmas, but a redacted version was published April 12. It says the effects of espionage and foreign interference are not as obvious as terrorism, but “they are the most significant long-term threats to Canada’s sovereignty and prosperity.”

Justin Trudeau and Xi Jinping (PMO)

“The pandemic, meanwhile, has provided a new impetus for foreign states to conduct espionage activities against the Canadian health sector and Canadian organizations working in science and technology,” says the report.

China and Russia have targeted government networks, public institutions and private corporations for cyber espionage, it said. They have also targeted critical infrastructure, conducted online influence campaigns and monitored dissidents abroad.

“The pandemic put these threats into stark relief, in particular the threats posed to Canada’s health sector.”

Foreign states, it said, have “conducted opportunistic attacks to interfere with our politics and steal hard-won research and proprietary data; and organized crime groups exploited legislative and enforcement weaknesses to launder money and traffic increasingly lethal drugs.”

The primary physical threat faced by Canada continues to be low-sophistication attacks on unsecured public spaces and the pandemic may be feeding radicalization.

“The RCMP assesses that the restrictions, including Iockdown measures, put in place during the pandemic could result in people looking for advice or information over the Internet and accessing extremist echo chambers. This risk is magnified by the challenges of social isolation and financial hardship during restrictions. These same restrictions also make it difficult for others to identify individuals who may be on a path to radicalization.”

Meng Wanzhou at Russia Calling 2014 with President Vladimir Putin (RT)

Meanwhile, organized crime remains a threat. Due to the pandemic, organized crime groups have increased their web presence to enable trafficking of personal protective equipment, masks and medical equipment. CBSA says groups have adjusted their smuggling methods, but the pandemic “is unlikely to result in significant drops in global trafficking of drugs to Canada over the next year.” Instead, according to CBSA, smaller groups will likely be absorbed into larger ones “better able to adapt quickly to the shifting restrictions of the pandemic.”

The proceeds of crime mean billions of dollars of lost revenue for governments.

“Beyond these costs are the financial and societal ramifications of organized crime: it undermines the rule of law, threatens public safety, and erodes our financial, legal, political and social institutions.”

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Bob Mackin Spying and meddling by foreign countries,

For the week of April 11, 2021:

In British Columbia, 200,000 people are prioritized for the coronavirus vaccine because they have had an organ transplant, cancer, severe breathing condition, diabetes, heart disease or weakened immune system.

Neurologist Prof. Bas Bloem (Radboud University)

But the 13,000 people living with Parkinson’s Disease are not on the clinically extremely vulnerable list, at a time when B.C.’s vaccine rollout lags and COVID-19 variants are spreading rapidly.

One of the world’s top neurologists says they need to be added to the list.

“If you have COVID over and above [Parkinson’s], then you’re at risk of severe complications,” Prof. Bastiaan Bloem of Radboud University Medical Centre in Nijmegen, Netherlands, told theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin.

“Symptoms may worsen, respiratory complaints are larger, the risk of mortality is increased. I would like to see people with Parkinson’s prioritized.”

Click below and listen to the full interview with Prof. Bloem, who is also the co-editor of the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease.

Also, hear from Dr. Jim Bovard, the team doctor for the Vancouver Canucks, from his April 9 update on how the coronavirus spread through the dressing room and put the club’s National Hockey League season in doubt.

Plus commentary and Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim headlines.

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

Now on 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.

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For the week of April 11, 2021:

Bob Mackin

Her face is on the cover. Her name gets top billing. The title is the slogan she repeats at the government press conferences that she is paid to give.

But Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry claimed in internal email that her March 9-published book about her job is separate from her job.

Dr. Bonnie Henry (Russell Books/Instagram)

How is that?

The book, Be Calm, Be Kind, Be Safe: Four Weeks That Shaped a Pandemic [with sister Lynn Henry] was announced in late 2020. Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix were immediately met with questions. Dix said he had “no issues” with her writing the book. Henry pledged to donate an undisclosed amount of the advance payment from her publisher, Allen Lane, to the charity First Book Canada.

In December, theBreaker.news filed under the freedom of information law for a draft of the book, Henry’s contract with the publisher and correspondence with the relevant senior government officials who would have given her the green light.

Government staff were quick to claim the records sought were beyond the scope of the freedom of information law.

When they did not elaborate, theBreaker.news filed another request.

(BC Gov/FOI)

That yielded copies of Henry’s correspondence with the freedom of information coordinator she manages in the PHO.

On Dec. 22, Michelle Sullivan wrote to Henry: “Please see most recent requests in yellow. Can you confirm whether they relate [to] your duties as an employee or as a private citizen?”

Two minutes later, Henry replied: “Private citizen. It was done entirely on my time off.”

Just over an hour later. “Sorry Bonnie, another one!,” Sullivan wrote.

“As your book was written as a private citizen, this would not be applicable and be outside of the scope of FOIPPA? Please advise.”

“Yes, that is correct,” Henry said.

Henry is officially considered a senior public office holder, at the level of a deputy minister. She is not a private citizen.

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

The code of conduct for B.C.’s 30,000 provincial public servants prohibits the use of confidential information received through employment to gain personally or further any private interest. The same code of conduct states that a conflict of interest arises when an employee uses a position, office, or government affiliation to pursue personal interests or is reasonably perceived by the public to have benefited from information acquired solely from employment in the public service.

In the book, Henry acknowledged the help she received from Dix, her assistant Laurel Thompson, communications contractor Nicola Lambrechts, Ministry of Health strategic communications director Jean-Marc Prevost and staff in the health ministry, government communications office and health emergency management.

The book includes Prevost’s photo of the Henry sisters walking in he halls of the Legislature.

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Bob Mackin Her face is on the cover.

Bob Mackin

Staff at the B.C. Ministry of Health head office in Victoria were annoyed when a senior bureaucrat sent a coronavirus infection memo to only those on the second floor last November.

Philip Twyford (LinkedIn)

theBreaker.news was first to report on Assistant Deputy Minister Philip Twyford’s Nov. 20, 2020 memo and his followup four days later. Twyford heads the finance department, which is based on the second floor of the former B.C. Electric Building on 1515 Blanshard St. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry’s office is in the fourth floor.

Email obtained by theBreaker.news under the freedom of information law shows that within minutes of Twyford’s original memo, workers from around the building sought more information that Twyford was unwilling to provide due to privacy.

Some of them outright complained.

“Is it possible to find out when this employee was last on-site?” wrote one of several whose name was censored by the Ministry. “I was only working on the second floor yesterday morning, so the timing makes a  big difference if they were last on-site Wednesday…”

“Do they know which day the exposures occurred? It would eliminate worries for some fo us who only come in twice a week.”

“There are staff who do not work on the second floor however like myself (censored) do attend that floor to drop them off and talk to staff. Thinking maybe a message should have been sent to the building rather than just the floor. There would be no way of knowing who has been there and not.”

(BC Gov/FOI)

“In the middle of a pandemic when cases are they highest they’ve ever been , after someone in the building tested positive, in addition to the PHO (just yesterday!) announcing that businesses should postpone staff returning to in-office work…. calling the workplace safe is pretty bold. Borderline offensive, if I’m honest.”

Patti Laanstra, the Ministry’s facilities director and security officer, was one of the few names disclosed.

“The rumour mill is spinning wildly about this case,” Laanstra wrote to Twyford on Nov. 23. “One piece that came out of the rumours is that the individual was on multiple floors (2,3,7). It was only communicated to me about the 2nd floor and the common spaces/elevators, etc. Do we know if that individual DID go to 3 and 7?”

Twyford was clearly on his heels.

He thanked one staffer for “being candid with me” and told another that the infected staff member denied being in multiple parts of the building. He also said that the memo was based on a standard template, following discussion with Dr. William Lakey, the B.C. Public Service’s medical director for workplace health and safety.

Twyford finally confided in another assistant deputy minister, workforce planning and strategic initiatives head Susan Wood, on Nov. 24, at 12:48 p.m.

“I have been overwhelmed by staff responding that they felt betrayed by a lack of communication and that we were hiding something and broke trust,” Twyford admitted.

Less than two hours later, he sent a staff memo aimed at mending fences.

B.C. Ministry of Health headquarters in Victoria (HistoricPlaces.ca)

“The reporting of a positive case in our workplace was a new experience for us,” Twyford wrote. “There are clear protocols in place from public health and also the public service as an employer, with a need to balance transparency while protecting the identify of the individual. Since this occurrence, we have heard from staff about the impact of notifying only staff located on the second floor.

“This has been a huge learning for us. We appreciate your feedback and we will be taking a broader communication approach should this happen again.”

On April 8, when she announced a single-day record 1,293 new infections, Henry said WorkSafeBC inspectors would be empowered beginning April 12 to shut down businesses for 10 days or longer when three ore more people at a workplace test positive. The order does not apply to schools.

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Bob Mackin Staff at the B.C. Ministry of