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Bob Mackin

United States authorities revealed March 12 they issued warrants to arrest two Vancouver men on charges they enabled the import, export and distribution of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America.

But, as of the evening of March 14, one of the men claimed he only knew what had been reported in the media.

Jean-François Eap (Facebook)

Sky Global Inc. CEO Jean-François Eap claimed in a prepared statement that he is being vilified and that his company, which sells encrypted smartphones and network subscriptions, works “for the good of all.”

“I do not condone illegal activity in any way, shape or form, and nor does our company,” said Eap in a statement. “We stand for protection of privacy and freedom of speech in an era when these rights are under increasing attack. We do not condone illegal or unethical behaviour by our partners or customers. To brand anyone who values privacy and freedom of speech as a criminal is an outrage. In the coming days, my efforts will be focused on clearing my name of these allegations.”

Eap and alleged Sky Global distributor Thomas Herdman were charged in San Diego with racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. U.S. authorities say warrants have been issued for their arrest, alleging Sky Global products and services have been used in transnational organized crime by drug traffickers and money launderers.

If convicted, Eap and Herdman could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. On the morning of March 15, the SkyGlobal.com website was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

“There are at least 70,000 Sky Global devices in use worldwide, including the United States,” said the indictment. “For more than a decade, Sky Global has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profit by facilitating the criminal activity of transnational criminal organizations and protecting these organizations from law enforcement,” said the indictment.

U.S. authorities claim Vancouver-based Sky Global sells goods and services to transnational drug criminals. (Sky ECC)

“To stay outside the reach of law enforcement of the United States, Sky Global maintained its servers in Canada and France, and used proxy servers to further disguise the physical locations of its servers.”

Additionally, the U.S. alleges Sky Global front office staff have physical control of the enterprise’s network and can initiate new subscriptions, remove accounts, remotely delete (aka wipe) and reset devices.

The indictment said administrators, distributors, agents and clients remained anonymous to each other and did not request, track or record their clients’ real names and interacted only via username, email handles or nicknames. The indictment claims Eap used the alias 888888. The U.S. also claims Sky Global used digital currencies, including Bitcoin to facilitate transactions and created shell companies to hide proceeds from the sale of encryption services and devices.

Distributors and agents charged subscription fees of USD$1,000 to $2,000 per six months. The company allegedly operated under an “ask nothing/do nothing” approach to clients since shortly after the 2018 takedown of Phantom Secure, a Richmond company that sold encrypted mobile phones to organized criminals. Former RCMP national intelligence director Cameron Ortis was charged in 2019 with leaking sensitive information to Phantom Secure.

The indictment says this allowed Sky Global to have “plausible deniability from the activities of their clients that they knew or had reason to know participated in illegal activities, including international drug trafficking.”

Sky Global marketed encrypted iPhones.

The website for related company Sky ECC website advertises self-destructing messages, full-featured group chat, flash messages that disappear 30 seconds after reading and group broadcast messages. Users can also share images and notes and secure audio messages. Images, chats and notes could be protected in a “vault” and, in stealth mode, Sky ECC “becomes a fully functional calculator.”

In an August 2020 blog post, the company marketed its services to media companies.

Sky ECC can help journalists protect their sources and their work, especially when working on high-profile public interest stories. In addition to protecting sources, Sky ECC lets journalists stay in touch with editors and can be used to securely send notes, images, and audio back to the newsroom.”

On March 8, Sky Global denied reports that Belgian and/or Dutch authorities cracked or hacked its encrypted software.

“With the global rise of corporate espionage, cybercrime and malicious data breaches, privacy and protection of information is the foundation of the effective functioning for many industries including legal, public health, vaccine supply chains, manufacturers, celebrities and many more.” Eap said in a statement on March 8.

Eap is also a principal in mobile phone retail and wholesale, through Richmond-based Rogers-authorized reseller Inspire Wireless and Fido-authorized reseller Pepper Wireless. Neither of those companies is named in the U.S. indictment.

“We are aware of the allegations and are in the process of gathering information,” Zac Carreiro, a media relations and public affairs specialist at Rogers, told theBreaker.news.

Thomas Herdman

Eap’s $5.575 million-assessed mansion in West Vancouver was under renovation when theBreaker.news visited March 15. Workers and neighbours said they have rarely seen Eap.

Co-accused Herdman bills himself as a Japanese-fluent consultant and advisor on new technology and energy projects.

For a 2018 Vancouver panel discussion on the tax implications for cryptocurrency, Herdman was identified as “the international distributor for Sky Global Communications’ military-grade encrypted messaging.” At the time, he was adding a “secure crypto vault and payment remittance system” to Sky messaging. 

Eap launched a new hand-roll sushi restaurant on Robson Street called Hello Nori earlier this year. Sky Global’s other product is a digital wallet app for gift cards called Moola.

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Bob Mackin United States authorities revealed March 12

Bob Mackin

Did the Canadian government miss a timely chance to warn all Canadians in China — including the Two Michaels — about a threat to their safety?

That question is sparked by a key line in an RCMP officer’s notes found among the thousands of pages filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court extradition case of Meng Wanzhou.

Louis Huang protested outside Meng Wanzhou’s March 6 court date (Mackin)

The Huawei chief financial officer, who is wanted on fraud charges in New York, was arrested Dec. 1, 2018 at Vancouver International Airport. Meng’s detention did not become public until Dec. 5, 2018.

A day later, on Dec. 6, 2018, Const. Christine Larsen, of the RCMP’s E Division Foreign and Domestic Liaison Unit, wrote that she spoke to the Department of Justice, after it wanted more information about a Vancouver Police Department file.

“Complainant reported online threats that if Meng was not released, two Canadians would die,” Larsen wrote.

Larsen’s notes do not mention the source of the threat or the platform where it was made. She forwarded a summary to S. Sgt. Ben Chang of the Federal Serious Organized Crime Group.

Chinese authorities arrested ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor Dec. 10, 2018. The next day, a judge decided Meng would not go home to China, but instead live in one of her Vancouver houses under nightly curfew and electronic monitoring on $10 million bail.

On Jan. 3, 2019, a U.S. State Department travel advisory said “Exercise increased caution in China due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws as well as special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals.”

It took another 11 days, until Jan. 14, 2019, for Canada to do the same.

What, if anything, did Canadian authorities do about the online threats?

They refuse to say.

“Department of Justice Canada counsel obtained and provided these materials to Ms. Meng as part of their disclosure obligations,” said spokesman Ian McLeod. “The Department of Justice Canada is not responsible for criminal investigations or prosecutions. Any questions concerning a Vancouver Police Department or RCMP investigation should be made directly to the VPD or RCMP.”

VPD referred theBreaker.news to RCMP E Division.

“As your questions pertain to a document that is part of the disclosure related to an ongoing court matter, we respectfully decline to provide further comment at this time,” said Sgt. Kris Clark of the RCMP’s Federal Serious and Organized Crime agency.

Likewise, Christelle Chartrand of Global Affairs Canada said the Government of Canada “will not be commenting on issues before the court.”

Human rights activist: “more to it than just some online prank”

A Swedish human rights activist who was held in a secret Chinese jail five years ago said the Canadian government’s silence speaks volumes.

“There’s a lot of threats all the time, from Chinese netizens, from the-so called Wumao army [state-paid social media commenters], etcetera, so the fact that some type of death threat would be made, that in itself is not that special,” Peter Dahlin of Safeguard Defenders told theBreaker.news.

Swedish human rights activist Peter Dahlin in a 2016 forced, false confession (CCTV)

“The fact they are not denying it or saying that they ruled it out, that, of course, makes it a lot more interesting for sure.”

Dahlin ran China Action, a non-governmental organization that advocated for lawyers and journalists, when he was arrested in early 2016 on trumped-up charges of endangering national security. His release came after 23 days when he was forced to make a false confession on state TV.

“Obviously one cannot know for sure, but the refusal to deny [the threats] indicates there is something more to it than just some online prank. Because, if they had dismissed it, they would most likely just say so out loud.”

Dahlin was intrigued by the threat specifying two Canadians.

Not only were the Two Michaels, Kovrig and Spavor, kidnapped and subject to torture, but two other Canadians were sentenced to death for drug trafficking crimes in the wake of Meng’s arrest.

Robert Schellenberg’s 15-year sentence in November 2018 was upgraded to death in mid-January 2019 and Fan Wei was sentenced to death in April 2019.

Former federal deputy minister Margaret McCuaig-Johnston was in China in early December 2018 on a business trip. The retaliatory arrests of Kovrig and Spavor reminded her of a 2014 tit-for-tat case. After B.C.-based spy Su Bin’s arrest for stealing U.S. military secrets, Chinese authorities nabbed Kevin and Julia Garratt at their restaurant near the North Korea border and accused them of spying. They were deported two years later.

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston (Mackin)

McCuaig-Johnston was a member of the Canada-China Joint Committee on Science and Technology for seven years and is now senior fellow with the University of Ottawa and University of Alberta. She hopes answers come in court about Larsen’s report.

“I think it’s interesting that there were threats, we’d want to know where they came from in the first instance and who they were made to,” McCuaig-Johnston said. “Was it somebody who the person thought might be in a position to change the status of her arrest?”

While two Canadians did not die by China’s hand, McCuaig-Johnston did acknowledge that Kovrig and Spavor’s lives “have been taken away from them for more than two years.”

Kovrig and Spavor were charged in June 2020 for alleged spying. Chinese state media reported last week they would be tried “soon.”

“I was a friend of China for 40 years. I will never be a friend of China again,” she said. “I am just outraged this would happen to two innocent Canadians.”

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Bob Mackin Did the Canadian government miss a

For the week of March 14, 2021:

Last week, host Bob Mackin and one of the world’s top sports economists looked back at the last year, since the pandemic forced the biggest time out in sports history. 

This week, Prof. Victor Matheson, of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., is back, to look ahead.

Sports economist Victor Matheson in Vancouver, June 28, 2018 (Mackin)

When enough vaccines are in peoples’ arms and herd immunity is reached, will fans return to packed stadiums and arenas? What will that mean to the industry and to local economies?

Fans came back in droves after strikes and lockouts spoiled seasons. But this time is different because of a major demographic shift. Learn more on this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast.  

Plus the sounds from one year ago, when top officials in British Columbia shut down the province due to the pandemic. 

Also, headlines from the Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest.

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

Now on Spotify!

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 March 14, 2021:

Bob Mackin

The new sewage plant under construction on the old BC Rail station site in North Vancouver will cost at least double the original estimate and take an extra three years to complete.

What the $700 million, er, $777.9 million North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant is supposed to look like when finished (Acciona)

Metro Vancouver finally revealed March 12 that the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant would cost $1.058 billion and be finished in 2024.

When the design-build-finance contractor Acciona was hired in April 2017, it was supposed to cost $525 million. The price tag was announced as $700 million when the sod was turned in 2018 and late 2020 set for completion. It escalated to $778 million before early 2019 when District of North Vancouver slapped a stop work order on the site for more than three months while Acciona bickered with engineering subcontractor Tetra Tech.

Another $29 million was added to the tab in mid-July 2019 when politicians used the slowdown to switch gears and upgrade to tertiary treatment.

Metro Vancouver chair Sav Dhaliwal told theBreaker.news that the schedule was “very optimistic” and blamed ground conditions, scope changes and the pandemic for delays. Consultants were hired, including Dana Hayden, the former chair of PartnershipsBC, to get a handle on the problems. 

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

There are no immediate plans to hit taxpayers with increases, Dhaliwal said. Staff are looking for savings elsewhere in capital and operations budgets and he hopes to make another proposal to the federal and B.C. governments. They already put up a combined $400 million. 

“They’ve got other priorities,” Dhaliwal told theBreaker.news. “There is no hope of us getting any more money, we have tried to engage them without any success.”

Metro Vancouver politicians got the bad news behind closed doors Feb. 26, but waited to release the update on March 12. 

Sara Bond lives near the construction site with her husband Steve. They have “front row seats” to dirt piles, digging, drilling, pile driving and trucks coming and going.

“We’ve been asking for this detailed plan for a year now. All we do know is that the District of North Vancouver has granted permission for construction [24 hours a day, six days a week] for the next year. I’m not sure how we’ll deal with this for another year, let alone another three,” Bond said.  

“The lack of transparency has really exasperated the issue for us. We’ve spoken to people at all levels of government and no one has had answers to give. It’s been troubling as a resident dealing with noise, but it’s also alarming as a taxpayer.”

Is the Spanish company that Metro Vancouver hired too busy?

North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant is in the preload stage (Acciona)

Acciona and South Korea’s Samsung are in the Peace River Hydro Partners team with the main civil works contract on the Site C dam, which has nearly doubled in price to $16 billion. The B.C. NDP government gave Acciona highway maintenance contracts in Okanagan-Shuswap and South Okanagan.

In 2019, Acciona and Aecon were hired to build the new $1.4 billion Pattullo Bridge. Last year, Acciona was chosen to build the $2.83 billion Broadway Subway, along with tunnelling partner Ghella.

“I agree there comes a time when any company, if it spreads too thin, it could be a risk,” Dhaliwal said. “But until there’s a clear sign of that, there’s not a whole lot I can comment.”

Acciona has replaced the corruption-plagued SNC-Lavalin as the major infrastructure contractor to the B.C. government. One of Acciona’s key consultants was Jim Burke, a former executive vice-president of SNC-Lavalin who died of cancer in 2020. 

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Bob Mackin The new sewage plant under construction

Bob Mackin

Back in March 2012, NDP Health Minister Adrian Dix was the biggest fan of Telus.

That was when he was NDP leader and BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark had just cancelled a $20 million contract for Telus to sponsor the renovated B.C. Place Stadium.

NDP Health Minister Adrian Dix and Telus CEO Darren Entwistle in 2012 (Mackin)

On March 9, Dix was pointing his finger angrily at the telecom, after one of the most-embarrassing days under Premier John Horgan’s administration.

Only 369 senior citizens in Vancouver Coastal Health were able to book coronavirus vaccination appointments on the first day phone lines were open. VCH did not have online booking, like Fraser Health does, so it was solely reliant on the Telus call centre.

VCH also happens to be the regional board chaired by Penny Ballem, the NDP appointee who doubles as B.C.’s coronavirus vaccine czar.

“Based on the contract they had signed with us and the promises they repeatedly made about being prepared, that contractor, the provider, Telus, failed us yesterday,” Dix said in Question Period on March 9. “For that failure, a lot of people wasted time and I think lost some confidence in the system that we’ll have to work hard to rebuild.”

Telus CEO Darren Entwistle issued a written statement, to say he was “incredibly sorry.”

We can and will do better, and we are working diligently to make this right,” Entwistle said. “Our team has been working around the clock to scale capacity and respond to the unprecedented demand.”

Entwistle said the company promised 156 operators at all times and would have a total 550 working on March 9.

“With 20,000 team members and retirees living and working in British Columbia, no organization is more committed to this province than Telus, and we will ensure that all eligible British Columbians can book their vaccine in the timeframe set out by the province,“ Entwistle said.

Former Vancouver city councillor Jonathan Baker (Zoom/Mackin)

Telus, meanwhile, suffered two major brand blows at a crucial time. The company’s 10-year omnibus contract with the government, Crown corporations and health authorities expires this year. While its competitors Rogers and Bell invested heavily in sports and media, Telus opted to focus on healthcare.

Sunshine Coast resident Jonathan Baker, a lawyer and Vancouver city councillor from 1986 to 1990, said he spent the first two days of the hotline rollout dialling every five minutes or so. At 83, he was eligible to call because of an exception VCH made for people aged 80 and up on the Sunshine Coast.

“You can’t get on. I’m not sure what they thought was going to happen,” Baker said in the morning on March 9.

“You begin to lose confidence that the thing is under control. People are issuing press releases that everything’s going to get better, but I don’t know anybody who’s had shots yet.”

Finally, a relieved Baker got through at 5:30 p.m. and booked a reservation for March 17.

“They were very nice and efficient when I got the lady, they ask your health number and tell you where you’re going to go,” Baker said.

“It really is potentially a matter of life and death, so you worry about it. There was an awful lot of people who were concerned.”

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Bob Mackin Back in March 2012, NDP

Bob Mackin

One of two men charged with assaulting a teenager outside a Kitsilano pizzeria said he regrets what happened.

(CTV News Vancouver)

A man was caught on video inside Pizza Pizza on Feb. 20 wearing a mask under his chin, in defiance of the province’s mask mandate, and yelling about the coronavirus pandemic being a “joke.”

The man also claimed he was worth $50 million and a Pizza Pizza employee worth nothing.

Later in the video, two men were seen pushing and shoving a teenage male on the sidewalk of the strip mall.

James Henry Davidson and Brenton Thomas Woyat were arrested by Vancouver Police and charged with assault. Davidson appeared March 1 at Vancouver Provincial Court and his next date is April 9. Woyat’s first appearance is set for March 17.

Reached by phone March 9, Davidson told theBreaker.news that his lawyer advised him not to discuss the incident.

Canaccord Genuity’s Brent Woyat (LinkedIn)

“All I can say we deeply regret the trouble that was caused. That’s all I can say,” Davidson said.

Pressed for more details, he said: “it’s drunk and disorderly; basically there’s no mask connotations, we have no feelings about that. That’s all it’s about.”

Davidson declined to say whether he would plead guilty, but admitted he was apologetic. “Of course, that’ll come out later.”

Woyat was suspended from his job as an investment advisor at Canaccord Genuity in Vancouver. He has shut down his business website and LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.

“We are incredibly disappointed to learn of a shameful incident of inexcusable behaviour involving one of our employees,” said a statement from the company to CTV News Vancouver reporter Allison Hurst. 

“We take these matters very seriously. Immediately upon becoming aware of the incident, the employee was suspended without pay while we launch a thorough investigation of this matter. Canaccord Genuity rejects the disgraceful behaviours, opinions and actions of the individuals involved. They are in no way representative of our firm’s values.” 

Woyat did not respond to theBreaker.news request for comment.

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Bob Mackin One of two men charged

Bob Mackin

On March 8, the Vancouver Park Board is scheduled to debate chair Camil Dumont’s motion to give one of Stanley Park Drive’s vehicle lanes to cyclists and reduce car and truck parking in Vancouver’s jewel until the end of October.

Stanley Park entrance on West Georgia (Mackin)

Expect irate park-based businesses, seniors and people with disabilities to vehemently oppose. They endured the two-month pandemic-inspired ban on motorists last spring, followed by another three months of single-lane vehicle traffic.

No doubt, they will be met by a peloton of proponents, spurred into action by a social media-savvy registered charity that depends on government funding and boasts sponsors in the construction and real estate industries.

Changes to the province’s lobbying laws mean Vancouver’s “bike lobby” is not some nebulous concept anymore.

Hub Cycling and the B.C. Cycling Coalition, of which Hub is a member, have registered provincially.

In its registration, Hub reported receiving $142,149 from an unnamed municipal government in the last 12 months, $6,000 from the Real Estate Foundation of B.C., $4,000 from University of British Columbia and $495,000 from Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure through January 2022.

“We did register for the B.C. Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists  — we are not, however, required to record municipal lobbying activities there as per your request about the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Park Board,” executive director Erin O’Melinn said by email. “In any case, our municipal advocacy is done by volunteers on our board and local committees.”

Hub Cycling’s executive director Erin O’Melinn (Twitter)

Documents obtained under freedom of information by theBreaker.news [see below] show Hub billed Vancouver taxpayers $328,064.75 from 2017 to 2019 to organize elementary school training programs, Bike to Work Week repair and refreshment stations and the Bike the Night rally.

The payments also included $4,000 from city hall for matching funds for Hub’s research on how real estate design encourages cycling. The project also included cash support from the Real Estate Foundation of B.C., engineering firm Bunt and Associates, developer Boffo, architect Dialog and Urban Racks bike parking company. Urban Development Institute and Vancity Impact Real Estate were named as in-kind supporters.

Invoices for the 2019 Bike the Night rally show Hub’s events manager, Tracy Wilkins, charged $9,744 for subcontractor fees and O’Melinn $5,468.40. Wilkins joined city hall last month as a planning analyst.

In 2019-2020, Hub Cycling ran on a budget of almost $1.3 million. Of that, it reported $805,000 in staffing costs and $153,000 for subcontractors. The biggest source of funding, $715,000 was from governments, followed by $434,000 in private funding and donations. Only $52,500 from membership fees and $38,000 from courses and fees for service.

Hub’s lobbying at 12th and Cambie sparked bike lane construction on Hornby Street ($3.2 million), Point Grey Road ($6.5 million) and the Granville Bridge ($12.5 million). 

Hub is among the non-profits listed in the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy database, but O’Melinn did not say how much payroll help Hub received or how many jobs the subsidy supported. 

Hub engages in what Canada Revenue Agency calls “public policy dialogue and development activities,” which is legal, as long as it does not favour a specific party or politician.

Hub describes its policy and development work as “calls to political action (encouraging the public to contact their local councillors, park board commissioners, MLAs or MPs) to ask them to make cycling safer and more accessible.

Stanley Park Drive in late June 2020.

“Through its action campaigns, Hub Cycling led online petitions and participated in meetings in order to encourage the building of safer and more connected cycling facilities for all ages and abilities and better policy and education,” said the organization’s disclosure. “These activities relate to Hub Cycling’s charitable purpose of conserving the environment and improving the health of people in Metro Vancouver by encouraging cycling as a mode of transportation.”

Before the 2018 municipal elections, Hub sent a call to action to its members to repeat their 2014 effort, in-person and on social media, to elect cycling friendly politicians across Metro Vancouver.

“These leaders were key to building more than 50 important bike-friendly projects across the region. Our 10 local committees are active, each communicates with councils across the region,” read the Hub email to members. “Hub’s #UnGapTheMap campaign has encouraged municipal councils to close gaps in our cycling network.”

Business supporters on Hub’s website run the gamut from David Suzuki Foundation to Vancity Credit Union. The list also includes major real estate and construction players, some of whom stand to benefit from bike lane construction, including developers Shape and Wesgroup, development consultancy Pottinger Bird, engineering firm Ausenco and the region’s dominant cement supplier for roads and bike lanes, Lafarge.

Last year’s Stanley Park closures, which extended to the West End, left a legacy with a new bike lane on Beach Avenue. When it was installed in December, city hall said the cost was $250,000. 

Ultimately, the new bike lane is part of a bigger strategy, connected to the West End Waterfront Master Planning process. The council-approved project is marketed as a rethink to parks, beaches and other public space. This happens during a wave of upscale condo tower development around the West End, transforming the dense forest of apartment buildings into a resort district appealing to foreign investors who want to buy close to Stanley Park.

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HUB 2020-513 by Bob Mackin

Bob Mackin On March 8, the Vancouver Park

For the week of March 7, 2021:

A look back at the biggest time out in sports history.

When the World Health Organization declared the pandemic emergency on March 11, 2020, it had wide-ranging impacts. Including on the world of sports.

Sports economist Victor Matheson in Vancouver, June 28, 2018 (Mackin)

The NBA got the ball rolling with a cavalcade of postponements and cancellations.

Slowly but surely, sports did return last summer and fall. But there may not be a normal season until 2022. Assuming herd immunity is achieved, will fans be comfortable in big crowds at stadiums and arenas again? Will they have the same spending power as before?

Prof. Victor Matheson of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. is one of the world’s top sports economists. He was Bob Mackin’s guest in March 2020 and is back to break down the dollars and sense of the winners and losers as the pandemic turns into a race to vaccinate.

Plus hear TransLink executives finally clear the air about the ransomware attack that brought the transit and roads agency’s offices to a grinding halt.

Also on this edition, a commentary and headlines from the Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest.

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

Now on Spotify!

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 March 7, 2021:

Bob Mackin

Staff at the Vancouver Convention Centre found an ominous Tweet and sent it to the organizer of the 2020 Pacific Dental Conference — British Columbia’s first-known coronavirus superspreader — the day before an infected person attended.

Pacific Dental Conference 2020 program: the event was B.C.’s first-known coronavirus superspreader.

“@VanConventions I was registered by our dentist to go to PDC but due to the coronavirus outbreaks, we cannot go. PLEASE POSTPONE THE CONVENTION FOR ANOTHER DATE!! DO NOT GO, I urge all of you not to go especially if you have little kids at home!!!” said the Tweet from an account with the handle @biggieshortye.

VCC client services manager Larry Scribner forwarded a screen grab to Shannon Brown, managing director of the March 5-7, 2020 conference, at 9:56 a.m. on opening day. Brown responded almost 20 hours later.

“Our current registration is at 14,735 and our sessions were running almost full yesterday so I’d say we didn’t really feel any drop in numbers on‐site,” Brown wrote.

Later on March 6, 2020, an infected person was on-site between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. — but the public was not told for almost a week.

At least 87 cases and one death, North Vancouver dentist Dr. Denis Vincent, stemmed from the conference, which is being held virtually this year. PDC plans to resume in-person March 10-12, 2022.

In June, Dr. Bonnie Henry called it a “sentinel event” and Health Minister Adrian Dix said in year-end interviews that he regrets not cancelling the conference.

Organizers claimed they had only 36 registrants from outside Canada and the U.S., but none from China, where the virus originated. The nationalities of the 36 were not disclosed in documents released under freedom of information to theBreaker.news.

Tweet that Vancouver Convention Centre staff forwarded to the Pacific Dental Conference organizer (BC PavCo/FOI)

The full extent of the superspreader is not publicly known.

theBreaker.news applied under the freedom of information law for a copy of the anonymized contact-tracing report, but Vancouver Coastal Health has refused to release it.

B.C. government officials have released more information about how the virus spread at a February 2021 pub trivia night in Port Moody than they have about the aftermath of a conference at a Crown corporation facility. Two dozen customers and four employees at St. James’s Well tested positive. The virus spread to a school, daycare and an RCMP detachment. 

Could the Pacific Dental Conference superspreader actually have been a megaspreader of global proportions?

A biotech company’s management conference in Boston in the final week of February 2020 sickened 100 of the 175 attendees. Research published in the journal Science estimates a whopping 300,000 COVID-19 cases around the world stem from the Biogen meeting at the Marriott Long Wharf Hotel.

Plan at the Pan

Coincidentally, Premier John Horgan, Henry and Dix held a news conference about the province’s pandemic response plan in the early afternoon of March 6, 2020 at the Pan Pacific Hotel’s Oceanview Room elsewhere in the Canada Place complex. The government event was over before 2 p.m.

On that day, Ministry of Health said there were 21 confirmed cases in B.C., of which four patients had fully recovered. One person was in the Vancouver General Hospital intensive care unit. B.C. Centre for Disease Control tested 2,803 samples for 2,008 people. A year later, after the virus went out of control, 83,107 were infected and 1,380 killed in B.C.

Facebook post that sparked officials to notify the public about a coronavirus exposure (BC PavCo/FOI)

Documents obtained by theBreaker.news from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority show officials did not conduct a risk assessment prior to the conference. BCCDC was, however, concerned with ensuring that its Dr. David Patrick could add a 10-minute COVID-19 “recommendations and guidance” segment to his March 6 late-morning keynote speech.

It took another social media post to spur officials into action.

A message on the Vancouver Dental Professionals Facebook page read: “A friend just informed me: someone has coronavirus visited the Patterson booth at PDC. Our Patterson technician who was at the booth just phoned to reschedule our maintenance appointment cuz he’s asked to self quarantine.”

At 6:09 p.m. on March 11, Jocelyn Johnston, the B.C. Dental Association executive director, emailed Brown and VCH medical health officer Dr. John Harding about the Facebook post: “Yes, it is this bad… in the last 2 minutes I got a text and another 2 emails.”

Harding put together a news release, for publication at 10 a.m. the next morning. He asked B.C. Pavilion Corporation officials not to circulate until he did.

“I’m sharing with you in advance so that you have an opportunity to prepare your own messaging as appropriate,” Harding wrote at 7:36 p.m. on March 11.

Convention centre general manager Craig Lehto did not wait to inform staff.

Dr. Bonnie Henry (left), Premier John Horgan and Health Minister Adrian Dix on March 6, 2020 in Vancouver (Mackin)

His 7:12 a.m. internal memo on March 12 included a frequently asked questions sheet, but reassured them that the Public Health Agency of Canada and the BC Centre for Disease Control considered the risk of the virus low after a March 11 assessment.

“The affected attendee was onsite in the West building on March 6 from 2 pm and 4 pm, and spent a majority of their time at an exhibitor booth on the trade show floor,” Lehto wrote. “VCH has advised that the individual is recovering at home and there is no ongoing risk to the community, nor is there any further risk posed at the Vancouver Convention Centre. We have also confirmed with VCH that our enhanced cleaning and sanitations measures that have been used at the facility both during and following the conference are considered appropriate.”

Harding advised participants to monitor themselves for the next 14 days for fever, cough, headache or shortness of breath. As long as they remained healthy, there was no need to quarantine.

Four days later, on March 16, a memo from B.C. Dental Association president Dr. James Singer.

Singer referred to Henry’s order for participants to quarantine until March 22 and the College of Dental Surgeons’ recommendation to cancel all elective and non-emergency services.

Singer wrote that the BCDA consulted with the Provincial Health Services Authority about the conference on Feb. 24, and “at no time was the PDC asked by any public health representatives to halt the conference.”

The only evidence of any consultation on Feb. 24 released to theBreaker.news was an email from Tara Leigh Donovan, the director of the Provincial Infection Control Network of B.C. PICNET is a division of the PHSA.

Email received by the B.C. government health emergency headquarters about the Pacific Dental Conference (FOI)

“I’m sure this is one of many conference/meeting gatherings but we thought it was worth noting,” Donovan wrote. “Majority of attendees are coming from across Canada and the Pacific Coast of North America with other smaller numbers from Europe. This may be of interest to Bonnie [Henry] and others.”

Brian Sagar, the senior director of communicable disease in the Ministry of Health, responded with a link to the Vancouver Convention Centre schedule and a remark: “Lots of big group gatherings in Vancouver in the coming months!!!”

Donovan also sent her message to the operations of the Health Emergency Coordination Centre in the Ministry of Health. 

However, on March 16, Henry had a different story for reporters in Victoria.

“No, I was not aware of the dental conference, we were not consulted on that,” Henry said. “It was at a time when I was advising that medical conferences in particular should not be held. But I’m very disappointed in that fact.”

On March 8, the day after the conference ended, B.C. recorded its first death from the virus, a man in his 80s at the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver. The World Health Organization declared a pandemic emergency on March 11, leading to mass-cancellations of PavCo-hosted events. The following week, the B.C. NDP government invoked a provincial state of emergency that continues to at least March 16, 2021. 

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Bob Mackin Staff at the Vancouver Convention Centre

Bob Mackin

The Vancouver NPA city councillor who frequents events with People’s Republic of China government officials refuses to comment after the House of Commons declared the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide against Uighur Muslims.

Sarah Kirby-Yung and Jean Swanson at an event marking 70 years of Communist rule in China (Sun Wah Centre)

“No comment,” Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung said. “Foreign policy is not the jurisdiction of Vancouver city council. We have significant issues to focus on that are within our mandate, and they need our full attention.”

Kirby-Yung did not answer questions about why she is ducking the issue, after being involved in annual social media campaigns to commemorate one of the world’s worst genocides, the Holocaust. In July 2019, Kirby-Yung tabled a motion calling on city council to support the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance campaign to stop anti-semitism.

Kirby-Yung was the only member of Vancouver city council to attend a ceremony outside the Vancouver Art Gallery to mark 70 years of CCP rule on Sept. 28, 2019, where she posed for photographs with Consul-Gen. Tong Xiaoling. Kirby-Yung is married to Vancouver Police S. Sgt. Terry Yung, the chair of SUCCESS who is also involved in a Justice Institute of B.C. program that trains police from China.

Photo from Dawa News story on the Sept. 28, 2019 ceremony featuring Consul Gen. Tong Xiaoling and Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung

The House of Commons voted 266-0 on Feb. 22 to declare genocide and ask the International Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Olympics from Beijing if the atrocities continue. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal cabinet did not attend the vote. More than a million Uighurs are detained in concentration camps and recent reports indicate women have been raped and sterilized.

Unlike Kirby-Yung, her fellow NPA Coun. Colleen Hardwick said “good.”

“Clearly this is out of municipal jurisdiction but it’s encouraging that the federal government is standing up to the PRC, for once,” Hardwick said.

Other NPA councillors, Melissa De Genova and Lisa Dominato did not respond. Same for independent Rebecca Bligh and OneCity’s Christine Boyle.

Two of the three Green Party councillors agreed with Hardwick.

“I support the Government of Canada’s position,” said Coun. Adriane Carr. “Genocide must be strongly condemned and have consequences.”

“Yes! I support the decision at HOC,” said Coun. Pete Fry, whose mother, West End Liberal MP Hedy Fry, was among the 226.

Coun. Michael Wiebe said he had no comment, because “I want to ensure space on this critical topic.”

COPE Coun. Jean Swanson said she consulted former COPE Coun. Anne Roberts. “The treatment of the Uighurs is horrible. Whether it’s genocide is not clear, and there are other political factors that are complicating it,” Swanson said.

Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who discussed “sub-national co-operation” in a phone call with China’s ambassador to Canada last summer, did not respond.

Staff for Premier John Horgan ignored requests for comment. 

During last fall’s election campaign, theBreaker.news asked Horgan about British Columbians concerned with China’s human rights abuses.

China consul general Tong Xiaoling, left, and Premier John Horgan on Feb. 4, 2019 in Richmond (BC Gov)

“I’m focussed on getting us all safely through the pandemic,” Horgan said. “That’s not to say we turn a blind eye to abuses in any corner of the world. Largely a federal responsibility, as you know, but I believe leaders have a responsibility to speak up when these issues arise.”

By contrast, Horgan has recently spoken out against new farming laws in India that favour corporations. The controversy has sparked mass-protests in the world’s second most-populous country and noisy car rallies in Surrey, Vancouver and Victoria.

Other B.C. politicians known to be friends of China also did not respond, including NDP secretary of state for international trade George Chow, BC Liberal tourism critic Teresa Wat, Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie, Richmond Coun. Chak Au and Burnaby Coun. James Wang.

The most-outspoken critic of China in B.C. politics is Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, who appeared with Uighurs at a 2019 protest outside the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention while the Chinese government hosted a cocktail party.

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Bob Mackin The Vancouver NPA city councillor who