Recent Posts
Business, News, Sports
Business, News
Connect with:
Tuesday / June 10.
  • No products in the cart.
SECTION
logo
mobile-logo
HomeStandard Blog Whole Post (Page 148)
Business, News, Opinion

For the week of Oct. 18, 2020:

On this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, the week on the campaign trail.

BC Liberals Zoom scandals sandwiched the TV debate, where Green leader Sonia Furstenau grilled NDP leader John Horgan for calling a snap election in the middle of the worsening coronavirus pandemic.

“You’re willing to break your word, you’re willing to break agreements and you’re willing to break legislation that you yourself passed in the Legislature,” Furstenau said.

Bryce Casavant (BryceCasavant.com)

Joining host Bob Mackin is guest Bryce Casavant, the former NDP candidate and former conservation service officer.

Casavant complained to B.C.’s chief elections officer about the use of emergency powers without input from the Legislature. Casavant said the election should have been held in October 2021 according to law. Instead, the Oct. 24 vote is “a cookbook for a modern coup d’etat, it is a recipe for a disaster.”

Listen to the interview to find out why. Plus commentary and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

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.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast: Horgan's snap election a "cookbook for a modern coup d'etat," says ex-NDP candidate
Loading
/
0 Comments

For the week of Oct. 18, 2020:

Business, News

Bob Mackin

By now, you should have received your official Elections BC voting card, telling you the addresses for the nearest polling stations in the snap election.

You may have also received an official-looking envelope branded “BC Votes Decision 2020.”

NDP direct mail letter sent to False Creek voters

You are forgiven if you mistook it for a letter from Elections BC, due to the font of the logo.

Look closely at the small print on the letter. It is from the NDP.

A reader in Vancouver-False Creek, where Brenda Bailey hopes to knock-off BC Liberal incumbent Sam Sullivan, forwarded the direct mail envelope and letter, which is signed by NDP field director Jordan Reid.

Reid is a former aide to the late Jack Layton and a B.C. NDP campaign worker since 2016.

According to Elections BC, there is nothing wrong with the envelope or letter.

“Voters with concerns about this letter should contact the BC NDP,” said spokeswoman Melanie Hull. “The letter does include an authorization statement as required by the Election Act. The Act does not regulate the content or branding of election advertising apart from requiring an authorization statement.”

Elections BC logo.

The letter is a get out the vote strategy indicating the NDP is confident of victory, if it can get out the vote. In 2017, Sullivan stayed in office by a narrow 415-vote margin over NDP challenger Morgane Oger. Oger was hampered by a smear campaign that drew the condemnation of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. 

Bailey is on leave from her job as executive director with DigiBC, the Interactive and Digital Media Industry Association of B.C.

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

 

0 Comments

Bob Mackin By now, you should have received

Business, News

Bob Mackin

The Surrey-Guildford BC Liberal candidate is denying allegations he committed fraud, extortion and forgery in a botched 2017 real estate deal.

Dave Hans (BC Liberals)

Dave Hans, aka Baldev Singh Hans, is one of two defendants in a B.C. Supreme Court lawsuit filed January 2019 by a businessman and a numbered company over a $12.75 million deal to buy seven lots from Apolla Development on Ravine Road near King George Highway and 132 Street.

Hans, a professional engineer appointed to Surrey’s board of variance, is running against NDP incumbent Garry Begg in the Oct. 24 election. Hans said he disclosed the lawsuit to party headquarters before his candidacy was green-lit.

“I’m a law-abiding citizen and I believe in the Canadian court system, Canadian law, I don’t think anybody can cheat with me,” Hans told theBreaker.news. “I sued [Aditya Sood] because he was trying to cheat with me.”

In December 2018, Hans filed a lawsuit and certificate of pending litigation in New Westminster Supreme Court against businessman Sood, alleging Sood violated a joint venture, assigned the land contract to a third party and kept the profit. A Supreme Court master agreed to remove the CPL and ordered $800,000 from the sale to be held in trust.

Then, the following month, Sood and 1139314 B.C. Ltd. filed a claim in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver against real estate agent Karamvir “Kam” Pawar and Hans.

Ravine Road lands (Cushman Wakefield)

Sood’s trial brief, filed last April, said he and the numbered company ultimately proceeded to buy the property after text messages and oral communications with the defendants about a partnership or joint venture never resulted in a binding agreement.

“[Hans and Pawar] never put up any of their own funds toward the purchase of the investment property and never participated in developing it, but when they learned that the plaintiffs had sold it for a profit, they developed and executed a plan to have Mr. Hans file a suit and CPL against it only days before the closing of the transaction, for the intended purpose of causing the plaintiffs to fear losing the sale and therefore hastily pay him a large and unjust sum in settlement,” reads the trial brief.

“As part of their plan, the defendants forged the signatures of the plaintiffs on an assignment agreement, dating back to the original purchase of the investment property, which purported to assign the purchase for $1.”

None of the allegations has been proven in court. 

Dave Hans and Andrew Wilkinson (Twitter)

In his response filed in February 2019, Hans denied allegations that he made threats and denied he created a draft assignment with forged signatures.

“As far as the details are concerned,” Hans said in an interview, “the matter is in front of the court and I’m looking forward to the court proceeding and determinations.”

Pawar denied Hans filed the December 2018 lawsuit “to extort or otherwise unlawfully pressure the plaintiffs into making concessions based on false allegations or forged documents and, in any event, the defendant Pawar did not participate in any such conduct.”

Pawar also claimed that Sood abruptly terminated communications with Hans as a result of a personal dispute with Hans.

Sood’s case against Hans includes a report from a handwriting expert. He has also filed a complaint with the Surrey RCMP. Sood appeared Oct. 7 on KPPI Sher E Punjab Radio, which prompted a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer acting on Hans’s behalf.

What became of the land?

The Bowra Group was appointed receiver last July for Conian Developments’ partially completed, six-storey La Voda condominium project on Ravine Road. A numbered company incorporated by Quadra Homes successfully bid $27 million to real estate firm Cushman Wakefield, pending court approval. 

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

 

0 Comments

Bob Mackin The Surrey-Guildford BC Liberal candidate is

Business, News

Bob Mackin

Familiar Wall

The BC Liberals released their platform Oct. 13 at Wall Centre Hotel, site of millions of dollars worth of party fundraisers, conventions and the party’s most-spectacular victory parties in 2001 and 2013. Leader Andrew Wilkinson’s set appeared to be a socially distanced version of Jeopardy, with three podiums equipped with blue screens.

Overshadowed

The platform reveal was also Wilkinson’s first public appearance since the Saturday night surprise, the clip of Jane Thornthwaite’s gossip at the Ralph Sultan virtual roast. Wilkinson condemned Thornthwaite and offered to apologize directly to NDP MLA Bowinn Ma. Wilkinson justified his non-action on the Sept. 17 fundraising Zoom event by saying that it’s “hard to stop the train at a social event.”

Promises, promises

The BC Liberals platorm included: A one-year Provincial Sales Tax holiday, ending the ICBC monopoly, the George Massey bridge and $10-a-day daycare were already exposed planks. One new surprise: “Launch and ensure a truly independent review of the response to COVID-19 in our seniors’ long-term care and assisted living homes.” John Horgan has resisted calls for an investigation into the more than 100 deaths. 

Bad timing

Wilkinson has kept up the pressure on Horgan, after calling an election when one wasn’t needed. The BC Liberals gave the province fixed election dates and promise to restore them. “Prepare legislation to strengthen BC’s fixed election date legislation, and limit the Premier’s ability to manipulate election dates for partisan benefit, by banning early elections during provincial emergencies.”

Weird timing

While the BC Liberals were criticized for releasing their platform about eight hours before the televised leaders debate on Oct. 13, the BC Greens waited until the morning after. Leader Sonia Furstenau went to New Westminster to issue the “green print.”

Green platform for the 2020 snap election.

Where’s Sonia?

“The BC Greens’ Plan for a More Equitable and Sustainable BC” may be the first party platform in the history of party platforms without the name and face of the leader.

Information rights

The Greens are the only Big Three party to mention anything in the platform about the right to know. Under a made-in-B.C. environmental charter, the Greens promise “Information rights that ensure we all have the access to all the information relevant to decisions that affect the environment.”

And the winner is…

Furstenau had the least to lose and most to gain in the Chan Centre-hosted debate on Oct. 13. She was clearly the most-relaxed and delivered barbs to Wilkinson on her right and Horgan on her left.

Jitters

First blooper: Horgan forgot the election date that he chose. He said Oct. 26, then quickly corrected himself to Oct. 24. Horgan also mixed up the GST with the PST. Wilkinson mentioned multiple times his past as a doctor and lawyer, though he is licensed to practice neither profession. Horgan inexplicably missed a chance to remind British Columbians that Wilkinson was a doctor first and then lawyer who defended Big Tobacco against governments seeking damages for cancer patients.

Surprises

Wilkinson said “of course” he would commit to continuing the Cullen Commission into money laundering. Under Furstenau grilling about Site C, Horgan pivoted to blaming the BC Liberals, despite shuffling the board and green lighting the project in late 2017. Horgan hinted that the Peter Milburn report on the troubled project’s budget and scheduling could lead to a reconsideration of the project.

John Horgan (B.C.
Broadcast Consortium)

Quote of the night

In an exchange with Horgan, Furstenau said: “Astonishing to hear you say that you needed to put politics behind us by putting us into politics front and centre in a campaign election when we didn’t need it, and what we had in the legislature, what British Columbians were counting on and so grateful for, was we actually put a scientist out in front, we put politics behind us. All three parties indicated and acted on ensuring that we were putting people first, we were putting the needs people had to have met in a global pandemic first, that’s what we should be doing right now. That’s what we’re not doing. We’re here on a stage debating things when we should be in the legislature making sure people are getting what they need.”

Moderator

Furstenau was the only one that properly pronounced moderator Shachi Kurl’s first name. It’s more like the Happy Days character (“Chachi”) than the U.K. ad agency (“Saatchi and Saatchi”). Angus Reid Institute’s Kurl said questions were developed by the “province’s top political journalists and observers,” but she did not name them.

There was a glaring lack of questions about B.C.’s spot in the world, so heavily reliant on U.S. and China trade. Former is an ally in turmoil. Latter a totalitarian adversary, interfering in B.C. governance.

At the end of the night, Kurl thanked the leaders for their respectful decorum and said “y’all get a cookie.” That may become B.C.’s newest. election catchphrase.

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin Familiar Wall The BC Liberals released their

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

A key policy change aimed at preventing the spread of coronavirus is being watered-down on Vancouver Island.

An April order from Dr. Bonnie Henry limited long-term care workers to one facility, after outbreaks at two dozen facilities around Southwestern B.C. represented half the province’s cases at the time. The single-site order was estimated to cost taxpayers an extra $10 million a month, but it appears to be single-site in name only.

Sharon Torgerson (VIHA)

Dr. Richard Stanwick (VIHA)

A Sept. 22 Vancouver Island Health Authority memo from chief medical officer Richard Stanwick and human resources vice-president Sharon Torgerson aims to recruit hospital workers for shifts at long term care and assisted living facilities.

“The single site order put in place to protect those most vulnerable to COVID-19 is severely challenging staffing levels in our long-term care and assisted living sector at Island Health owned and operated facilities, affiliate and private sites across the region,” said the memo, to part-time workers with no restricted single-site affiliation.

“We are asking if you would pick up work in a long-term care or assisted living facility.

“There are many opportunities across the sector, and every shift that you can help with will make a tremendous difference to the residents who need care during our COVID-19 pandemic response.”

How many workers are moving from site to site, even with a single-site order? Neither VIHA nor the Ministry of Health responded Oct. 14 to theBreaker.news. On Oct. 16, the Ministry of Health responded with a prepared statement about the policy only. 

“The [Provincial Health Officer’s] order allows staff working in acute care, home and community care and other work areas to be assigned to a facility covered under the single site order; people can work at a dentist’s office and a long-term care facility – but they cannot work at multiple long term care facilities,” said the statement.

The Ministry later clarified for theBreaker.news that a hospital worker can also take shifts at one long-term care centre, but that hospital worker cannot take shifts at more than one long-term care centre.

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin A key policy change aimed at

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

B.C.’s NDP government was so unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic that Premier John Horgan’s deputy minister urgently ordered staff to search under desks to find N95 masks for frontline doctors and nurses.

3M N95 mask

Internal email, obtained under freedom of information by theBreaker.news, shows Don Wright issued a bulletin to all deputy ministers on March 27, ordering the collection of N95 masks from office earthquake kits “as soon as possible for redistribution to health authorities.”

The government failed to replenish B.C.’s disappearing post-SARS stockpiles before 2020. The pandemic caused unprecedented global demand for personal protective equipment.

“Where practical, I would appreciate this being done today,” Wright wrote.

“For those of you located in Victoria, please bring any N95 masks to my office. We will collect them here and work with Health and [Emergency Management B.C.] to have them delivered to health authorities. I expect the Premier will be very interested in seeing how many masks are collected, which is why I would ask that they come here.”

Earlier that day, some top officials told Wright that earthquake preparedness kits under workers’ desks contained sealed N95 masks.

Wright’s plea for help came just two days after Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said March 25 that supplies were “on a tenuous level.” Henry had previously denied any supply issues.

Don Wright, Premier John Horgan’s deputy minister (BC Gov)

Sunny Dhaliwal, an assistant deputy minister of the real property division, coordinated the search mission.

“Focus on those buildings which will yield us the maximum inventory and then continue to collect the masks from all other locations,” Dhaliwal wrote.

The precise number of N95s collected was not released, but masks were found in offices at the Ministries of Transportation, Health, Education, Citizens Services, Environment and Finance. A Ministry of Health facilities manager said 1,265 masks and five boxes of latex gloves were found at its offices. 

Assistant deputy minister Philip Twyford sent an April 7 memo to ministry staff about the “cross-government effort which provided thousands of masks to front-line health workers.”

The earthquake kits, he wrote, would be replenished “when a supply is available for this purpose.”

In July, theBreaker.news reported that B.C.’s pandemic stockpiles had lost two-thirds of their value since 2013. Medical supplies buyers in the Provincial Health Services Authority [PHSA] finally took action in February, less than a month before the World Health Organization declared the pandemic. They were particularly alarmed about the Interior, which reported $0 value, and the North, which had less than $16,000 of goods on hand.

“Health authorities’ pandemic supply levels have dwindled or been eliminated on many items across the province,” said a Feb. 13 briefing note. “Should a widespread pandemic occur in B.C., the current level of pandemic supplies will likely not meet B.C.’s requirements which may lead to public safety risk.”

In the wake of theBreaker.news story on the PHSA documents, Dix said the B.C. health system had spent more than $114 million on PPE during the first six months of 2020, including $29.55 million on N95 or equivalent respirators.

Dr. Bonnie Henry (left), Premier John Horgan and Health Minister Adrian Dix (Mackin)

During a campaign stop Oct. 10 in Richmond, theBreaker.news asked Dix why the NDP government was not better prepared. He pointed to 2020’s dramatic increase in domestic PPE use and global market demand. “I think we’ve done well,” Dix said.

Dix refused, however, to answer questions about why the NDP failed to properly manage the stockpiles during its first two-and-a-half years in office.

The government has been similarly evasive about how much it spent in 2019. In May, theBreaker.news applied for the total dollar amount spent on PPE in 2019, including N95 masks, versus 2020 to-date.

Disclosure was delayed to Sept. 15 and then to Oct. 28, which is four days after the snap election. The government’s central FOI office claims the delay is because it is “working to balance vital priorities.”

A scathing Oct. 6 report for the Canadian Federation of Nurses called “Time of Fear: How Canada Failed Our Health Care Workers and Mismanaged COVID-19,” said Canada was woefully unprepared and largely ignored the lessons of SARS.

“We will never know how many of the more than 21,000 Canadian health care workers infected with COVID‐19 might have been kept safe had there been sufficient stockpiles at a precautionary level,” the report said. “What we do know, as outlined earlier in this report, is that jurisdictions like China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, that took a precautionary approach to worker safety, have significantly lower levels of health worker infections.”

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin B.C.’s NDP government was so unprepared

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

It is make it or break it time for Andrew Wilkinson.

His fate as BC Liberal leader could be decided in the Oct. 13 leaders debate, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on major B.C. TV, radio and web outlets. It comes the same day Wilkinson releases the BC Liberal platform and makes his first appearance since a Saturday night surprise.

From the Sept. 17 roast for retiring Ralph Sultan; title photoshopped by theBreaker.news  (BC Liberals/Zoom)

The NDP has defined Wilkinson as an elitist and targeted candidates in Chilliwack-Hope and Langley East with allegations of homophobia and North Vancouver-Seymour for sexism.

The latter is Jane Thornthwaite, whose description of North Vancouver-Lonsdale NDP incumbent Bowinn Ma on a Zoom roast for retiring Ralph Sultan threw the BC Liberal campaign upside down on Oct. 10 when former party insider Mo Amir revealed a damaging clip on his Twitter account.

Ma answered media questions on a multi-party signed street corner on Oct. 12, three blocks south of where the North Vancouver-Lonsdale, North Vancouver-Seymour and West Vancouver-Capilano riding boundaries intersect.

Thornthwaite made an awkward, two-step Twitter apology Oct. 11. Her call to Ma went to voice mail. Ma said she had yet to listen to the message.

The NDP is targeting Thornthwaite with a ferocity that did not exist in 2010, when Thornthwaite was caught in a drunk driving roadblock after returning from a night of partying at the Winter Olympics. She pleaded guilty in 2011 to the lesser offence of driving without due care and attention.

Thornthwaite’s allegation that Ma was flirting with Sultan revealed her longstanding friction with Ma, who pointed out what many insiders know: Sultan is hard of hearing and she needed to sit close in order to be audible.

A source told theBreaker.news that early in her rookie term, Ma had sought advice about dealing with Thornthwaite, after learning of unkind comments made about her by Thornthwaite behind the scenes.

In the Legislature, Thornthwaite did not miss opportunities to be critical of her neighbour from across the aisle.

Thornthwaite made a point of privilege after Ma “had some incorrect statements with regard to MLAs visiting Sutherland secondary in the past” on Oct. 17, 2017. On Nov. 23, 2017, Thornthwaite also made a point of privilege against Ma after she said she was the only MLA who attended a Squamish nation training centre.

Thornthwaite is aiming for a fourth term in what is considered a safe BC Liberal seat. In 2017, she defeated her NDP challenger by nearly 3,400 votes. The NDP appointed veteran nurse Susie Chant before the Oct. 2 nomination deadline.

The infamous Ralph Roast on Zoom not only included Wilkinson, but also two other candidates, Abbotsford West’s Mike de Jong and Karin Kirkpatrick, the West Vancouver-Capilano successor to Sultan.

Unlike Sultan, Kirkpatrick was appointed without nomination race. She is a former CEO of the Provincial Career Training Institutions Agency Crown corporation who was caught in a conflict of interest scandal after her husband’s law firm was retained without a tendering process.

Northern scandal on the horizon

The Zoom scandal also upended NDP campaign plans.

A 9:13 p.m., Oct. 10 advisory was headlined: “Nathan Cullen and Jen Rice to raise questions about Wilkinson’s past.”

The NDP was promoting a press conference by Zoom to demand Wilkinson be held to account for decisions he made that have affected communities in Northern B.C. It was scheduled for 10:45 a.m. Oct. 11. A notice of postponement “to a later date” was sent at 9:21 a.m., as the NDP focused on the unfolding saga of the Ralph Sultan roast gone wrong.

Wilkinson was once a doctor up north, in Dease Lake. He also practiced in Campbell River and Lillooet. But a source told theBreaker.news that the Cullen and Rice announcement was more likely about Wilkinson’s eyebrow-raising client after he left government the first time.

Wilkinson had been the deputy minister of small business and economic development from 2003 to 2006 under BC Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell. He was the Campbell government’s point man in dealings with Sun Wave Forest Products, a Chinese government-backed company that bought the Skeena Cellulose pulp mill on Watson Island in 2001 with plans to restart operations.

Wilkinson eventually left the government to become a lawyer at McCarthy Tetrault where he represented Sun Wave from 2010 to 2012 in a lawsuit against the City of Prince Rupert.

City hall had seized the property after Sun Wave principal Ni Ritao failed to pay taxes on the property.

Ni was jailed in China during Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption power struggle from 2012 to 2015. Ni associate Liu Tienan, the National Energy Administration director from 2011 to 2013, was sentenced to life in jail for bribery in 2014.

Elections BC’s database shows the BC Liberals took $3,397 in donations from Sun Wave in 2006-2007 and $11,299 from related company CGR Investments from 2005-2006.

The Northern View newspaper reported in 2018, when Wilkinson became party leader, that the city spent $250,000 in legal fees a year and the cost of reclaiming Watson Island was $90,000-a-month.

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin It is make it or break

Business, News

Bob Mackin

Nine Chinese students in Ottawa tested positive for coronavirus after a birthday party at a karaoke bar and their government is publicly chastising them, without naming names.

According to the Chinese Embassy, a dozen Chinese students “relaxed their vigilance” and partied at the end of September without masks or social distance. They caused a “mass infection” of the virus that originated in Wuhan, China last year.

WHO’s Dr. Tedros and Xi Jinping

“Nine of them were diagnosed and one was admitted to the intensive care unit (now discharged),” reads the embassy’s Oct. 10 statement, which theBreaker.news translated from Chinese. “This not only brings serious risks to ourselves and public health and safety, but also makes domestic relatives and friends worried and distressing. It also sounds a wake-up call to all my overseas students and Chinese citizens in Canada.”

The statement did not indicate the ages of the students, the names of the institutions where they are studying or why they were in Canada. The Chinese government arranged flights for many students to return to China last spring and into the summer. The Canadian government announced early this month that it would conditionally allow foreign students to return to Canada beginning Oct. 20.

On Oct. 9, Ottawa’s public health department reported 5,373 confirmed cases, 297 deaths, 847 active, 39 hospitalized and nine patients in intensive care. Ottawa’s deputy chief medical officer said in a prepared statement that the capital is “experiencing a resurgence of COVID-19 infection unlike what we saw in the spring.”

“Both individuals testing positive and hospitalizations have doubled since the week of Sept. 13 and this is contributing to a crisis where, locally, we are also seeing more outbreaks and more deaths,” said Dr. Brent Moloughney.

Ottawa Public Health has not immediately responded for comment.

On Oct. 9, Ontario Premier Doug Ford imposed a 28-day shutdown of dining in restaurants and bars and closed movie theatres, casinos and gyms in Ottawa, Toronto and Peel Region. On the same day, federal officials announced a single-day, nationwide record of 2,554 new cases.

“All trends are going in the wrong direction,” Ford told reporters. 

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin Nine Chinese students in Ottawa tested

Business, News, Opinion

For the week of Oct. 11, 2020.

Beyond the midway mark in British Columbia’s Coronavirus Pandemic State of Emergency Snap Election 2020 and it still looks like it is NDP leader John Horgan’s to lose.

Research Co. pollster Mario Canseco (Mackin)

ResearchCo pollster Mario Canseco’s latest poll shows Horgan enjoys a comfortable lead over BC Liberal Andrew Wilkinson, across demographics and issues. Wilkinson’s political future could be decided in the Oct. 13 televised leaders’ debate.

“Many residents still don’t know who Andrew Wilkinson is,” Canseco told theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin. “The type of campaign that we’re running, where you can’t have all of those live events and you really can’t have the candidate shaking hands, is making it even more difficult for those who don’t know him to try to figure out who he is.” 

Housing/poverty/homelessness remains the number one issue, but voters are thinking more about the economy. Canseco said he is surprised that very few respondents are saying the coronavirus pandemic is their number one issue and that the environment is a low priority, registering only in single-digits.

Of course, the only poll that counts is the one that closes Oct. 24 at 8 p.m.

Hear the full interview with Canseco on this week’s edition. Plus commentary and headlines from the Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest in the Thanksgiving edition.

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.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast: NDP lead solid and BC Liberals not moving the needle, according to new election poll
Loading
/
0 Comments

For the week of Oct. 11, 2020.

Business, News, Sports

Bob Mackin

A security company that the NDP government licenced in July, despite its links to an accused money launderer, is allowed to operate while under a code of conduct review ordered in August.

Blackcore Security and Investigations is headquartered in the same Richmond gym that the government wants to seize in a civil forfeiture court action because it claims the true landlord is Paul King Jin. One of the three directors of May-incorporated Blackcore is Jin’s son, Jesse Jia.

Blackcore Security licence (PSSG)

“The review is ongoing and a decision will be made once it is complete. It is not possible at this stage to provide a timeline for completion,” reads a statement from the ministry provided to theBreaker.news. “The business has maintained its licence to operate a security business, pending outcome of the review.”

NDP Port Coquitlam incumbent Mike Farnworth, the most-recent Solicitor General, declined to directly comment on the Aug. 7 case against Jin and the subsequent review of Blackcore’s licence. The government alleges Jin used proceeds of crime to buy the property at the south end of No. 5 Road in 2016. It was assessed at $7.7 million last year.

“The [Blackcore] application, what happened, is under review,” Farnworth told theBreaker.news on Oct. 8. “You need to wait until that review is done. The procedures and policies have been in there are quite comprehensive. This is the first time I’ve heard of an issue and that’s why it’s being reviewed, to see what happened.”

Jia’s fellow directors are Battlefield Fight League COO Trevor Carroll and Jamie Flynn, a former British Special Forces paratrooper who is now a Squamish BASE jumper and mixed martial arts athlete.

Documents obtained by theBreaker.news, under the freedom of information law, show Flynn began the application to the security programs division of Farnworth’s ministry on May 26. Bureaucrats initially deemed the application incomplete and demanded more paperwork. Flynn later provided a copy of Jia’s passport and his signed consent to conduct a criminal record check. The file released to theBreaker.news is heavily censored.

Internal email indicated a fourth person, with a private investigator and security guard licence, was involved as an employee of Blackcore. The person’s name was withheld by the government.

Paul King Jin (second from right) and Tourism Minister Lisa Beare (second from left) in 2019 at World Champion Club in Richmond (Mackin)

The company was already attracting attention before it got the licence. On June 29, registrar Heather Stewart emailed a co-worker, mentioning there was a media request for information. “Is there an application in the queue right now? Status?” Stewart wrote.

The next day, Stewart wrote in another message: “We are reviewing some principles (sic) of Blackcore Security in relation to their security business licence.”

The licence was granted July 3 in the categories of private investigator, security consultant and security guard service. The official letter to Blackcore said an inspector would contact the company within 60 days to discuss future inspections and review requirements under the Security Services Act. Conditions of licence included abiding by the code of conduct in section 14 of the Security Services Regulation, the section under which the review was called.

theBreaker.news called Blackcore’s phone number listed on its website during business hours, but there was no answer or voice mail. Flynn wrote in an email: “Blackcore is under review by the B.C. Security Programs, so no one from Blackcore will be making a comment until the investigation is over.”

Carroll also works with Kaban Protective Services Inc., according to proprietor Ozzie Kaban, who became Vancouver’s go-to security guy in the 1970s for visiting world leaders, Hollywood stars and aristocrats.

Kaban said he is not involved with Blackcore, but “put it this way, if [Carroll] needs advice, we’ll give him advice.”

Blackcore director Jamie Flynn in the company’s YouTube ad (Blackcore.ca)

 

Policy improvements needed

An industry veteran said B.C.’s licensing regime needs beefing-up, because the government conducts minimal due diligence on applicants.

“Essentially, they do a criminal record check and that’s it,” said Leo Knight, former chief operating officer of Paladin Security.

“As a security company, I have access to virtually everything my client has, regardless of client size or whatever. I can access their databases, their building, their property, I know who their employees are. I have an incredible amount of private information, just by holding a security contract.”

It remains a mystery how the government overlooked Jin’s family ties to Blackcore.

In March 2019, it sued Jin in a bid to seize more than $5 million in cash and assets that it claims are the proceeds of money laundering and loan sharking.

In August 2019, theBreaker.news exclusively reported that Tourism Minister Lisa Beare attended Jin’s World Champion Club for a photo op to announce legalization of professional kickboxing. Jin was there and joined Beare for a group photo. Beare told theBreaker.news that she was unaware of his connection to the venue or that he was there. As for Jin, he told theBreaker.news that he is an innocent and hard-working man, but said his lawyer advised him not to discuss the case against him.

Mike Farnworth announces $2,000 fines on April 19 (BC Gov)

Beare said the event had been arranged by the province’s athletic commissioner. Nobody in Government Communications and Public Engagement ever answered theBreaker.news queries about whether it conducts a security or reputation assessment prior to holding cabinet minister events on private property.

The director of civil forfeiture’s Aug. 7 claim in B.C. Supreme Court says Jin is the true owner and directing mind of Warrior Fighting Dream Ltd., parent company of World Champion Club. The government accuses Jin of laundering $23.5 million at licensed casinos from 2012 to 2015, generating $32 million in profits at two illegal gambling houses in 2015 and laundering the proceeds through the Silver International underground bank.

On Sept. 18, Jin, 51, suffered facial cuts from bullet-shattered glass when a gunman killed Silver International kingpin Jian Jun Zhu, 44, at the Manzo Japanese restaurant in Richmond.

One of the vehicles at the crime scene was a black van that matched one in Blackcore’s YouTube ad. The ad features a Mandarin voice over and English subtitles that declare Blackcore “#1 Security Company in Canada.”

According to a 2016 transcript obtained by the Vancouver Sun, Jin admitted being a loan shark during an interview with police. Jin offered to help police and said he came to Canada in 1989 as a boxing coach and owns a mine in Mongolia and hotel in China. 

The documents obtained by theBreaker.news also show that a government security licensing employee named Gary Flynn handled the Blackcore application and dealt directly with Blackcore director Flynn.

Don Zadravec (LinkedIn)

Gary Flynn refused to respond to theBreaker.news’ query asking whether he is related to the applicant with the same last name. He referred phone and email messages to the communications department.

“We will not and cannot comment on the lives of public servants,” said Assistant Deputy Minister of Government Communications Don Zadravec, who said government workers are subject to a code of conduct and conflict of interest rules. 

Asked whether they are related, Jamie Flynn initially replied: “I have no idea who Gary Flynn is.”

In a later message, after being reminded that he communicated with Gary Flynn in June, Jamie Flynn wrote: “I am not related to him and do not know him personally.”

theBreaker.news asked Farnworth to clarify, but he said he was precluded from answering due to privacy laws and human resources policies.

“Without violating those, I can tell you, or I would tell you, that I do not have a concern in that area,” Farnworth said.

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin A security company that the NDP

m
About Us

theBreaker.news and theBreaker.news Podcast: your source for news, opinion and analysis about British Columbia issues, institutions and influencers.

Contact
theBreaker is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and published by Bob Mackin.
Email: bob@thebreaker.news
Send tips via secure Protonmail theBreakernews@protonmail.com
Support theBreaker.news
For as low as $2 a month, you can help support theBreaker.news on Patreon
Support theBreaker.news on Patreon
Find out how by clicking here!