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Bob Mackin

A professional motorcycle racer was sent to perform a stunt for a Hollywood North blockbuster without a helmet and means to disable the bike she rode, according to a report from the British Columbia coroners service.

Sequana Joi Cooke Harris, a professional motorcycle racer better known as Joi Harris, died Aug. 14, 2017 when she was ejected from a Ducati Hyperstrada 939 motorcycle and collided with a window at Shaw Tower during a scene for the Ryan Reynolds sequel.

The Deadpool 2 fatal crash scene on Aug. 14 , 2017 (reader photo)

The B.C. Coroners Service finally released the investigation report about the 40-year-old New Yorker’s death on June 10, declaring she died by accident from a blunt force traumatic head injury.

Coroner Kimberly Isbister found no alcohol, illicit drugs or prescribed medication in Harris’s system and WorkSafeBC found the motorcycle free of defects and no type of mechanical malfunction was found. But Harris was not wearing a kill switch lanyard and supervising staff failed to ensure she had it.

“She did not have experience working with a motorcycle on a closed set with obstacles and/or stairs, working as a stunt person or stunt double,” Isbister’s report said.

WorkSafeBC fined TCF Vancouver Productions Ltd. $289,562.63 in early May for lack of appropriate risk management, lack of new worker orientation, inadequate workplace setup and planning, lack of helmet and failure to ensure health and safety of workers. TCF is a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, now Disney-owned. 

The coroner’s report said Harris rehearsed approximately seven times, beginning at 8 a.m., progressing from quarter-speed to half-speed to full-speed of 20 km-h to 25 km-h.

At 8:14 a.m., Harris exited the Vancouver Convention Centre doors and turned left to approach a set of stairs covered with sheets of wood. Video footage and witness accounts indicate Harris lost control as she transitioned onto the first ramp and accelerated, rather than coming to a controlled, planned stop.

“The motorcycle continued over a second transition ramp, at which time the motorcycle became airborne. Ms. Cooke Harris continued to hold onto the handle bars; however, her feet were completely off the foot pegs,” the report said. “The motorcycle continued in a forward direction, entered onto the roadway of Canada Place and struck the raised cement median. Ms. Cooke Harris was ejected from the motorcycle, and she struck a window at the base of Shaw Tower. When the incident happened, Ms. Cooke Harris was not wearing safety headgear.”

Vancouver Police officers on routine set duty called Emergency Health Services, but paramedics were unable to revive Harris and she was declared dead at 8:25 a.m.

Joi Harris

WorkSafeBC found that Harris met two days earlier, on Aug. 12, 2017, with a stunt coordinator at Mammoth Studios to assess her motorcycle riding abilities. Harris was experienced at racing certain motorcycles on open race tracks at a high rate of speed and performing high-speed braking. But she was a movie stunt rookie and told a picture car technician that she had never ridden a Ducati.

She trained on-site at the convention centre Aug. 13, 2017 with a stunt coordinator and two different stunt persons. The session focused on practicing on the escalator and by riding a dirt bike down the stairs to the exterior transition ramp. The stunt coordinator determined after observing Harris on the dirt bike that she was able to perform.

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Bob Mackin A professional motorcycle racer was sent

Business, News

Bob Mackin (Updated June 9), with files from Ina Mitchell and Amy Wang translation

A Conservative MP ignored public health officials during a photo op in Richmond on the same day the Prime Minister was criticized for attending a Black Lives Matter protest on Parliament Hill.

Alice Wong (Richmond Centre) visited the offices of the Quanzhou Friendship Society of Canada and North America Chinese Alliance of Commerce Association on June 5. The pro-Beijing groups donated 50,000 masks to the VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation, according to Phoenix TV.

Conservative MP Alice Wong, standing behind mini flags, at the Quanzhou Friendship Society in Richmond on June 5. (Phoenix TV)

The TV crew captured images of Wong and an executive from the foundation with a group in a boardroom. While some shots show masks were worn, other shots show attendees standing shoulder to shoulder without masks.

WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW.

Wong, the opposition critic for seniors, did not respond for comment. Her office manager, Sacha Peter, claimed Wong wore a mask for the majority of the event. The Phoenix TV report shows that Wong did wear a mask during an interview, but did not when she presented a certificate.

“At the last part of the meeting, upon media request, participants removed their masks for the photo opportunity,” Peter wrote by email.

The foundation raises money for two hospitals in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, which recommends avoiding crowded, non-essential gatherings and keeping at least two metres apart from others. Authorities have also recommended the use of non-medical masks when physical distancing is not feasible.

Foundation vice-president Candice Tsang did not respond. Elizabeth Moffat, associate director of marketing and communications, said Tsang was not available for an interview. Moffat said masks were removed upon request by a photographer. She did not explain why the foundation agreed to the event in an office boardroom instead of a spacious venue outdoors.

“There was a brief, regrettable lapse in judgement, and we are sending all staff members reminders to follow the latest social distancing guidelines from the Province in order to keep themselves and others safe,” Moffat said by email. 

Justin Trudeau at a Parliament Hill protest on June 5. (CTV/CNN)

On June 8, Conservative opposition leader Andrew Scheer criticized Trudeau for ignoring health officials.

“I can understand why people are upset and confused after months of being told that they need to stay home, after months of being told that they need to listen to the advice of public health officials,” Scheer told reporters in Ottawa. “After all the hardship that people have gone through, to see the prime minister completely ignore those types of health guidelines.”

Trudeau made world news during last fall’s federal election after photos emerged of him in blackface during his career as a schoolteacher. He justified his cameo at the June 5 anti-racism protest by his wearing of a mask and trying to follow social distancing measures while surrounded by RCMP bodyguards. Thousands protested despite Ontario health officials urging citizens to restrict gatherings to five people or less.

Scheer’s office did not respond to theBreaker.news.

Those who joined Wong at the photo op included BC Liberal MLA John Yap and Sing Yim Leo, co-founder of Royal Pacific Realty and a donor of masks to St. Paul’s Hospital in April.

Two real estate agents from Royal Pacific formed a society last month that is aimed at suing Global News and reporter Sam Cooper for an April 30 story about efforts by pro-Beijing business and cultural groups to export bulk PPE to China earlier this year, leaving Canadian hospitals low on supplies.

theBreaker.news revealed on June 1 that a supporter of the Maple Leafs Anti-Racism Actions Association promoted the lawsuit fundraising on the WeChat group of Joyce Murray, the Minister of Digital Government.

A new report on the Chinese government’s foreign meddling campaign by an Australian think tank mentioned the bulk medical supply export and import efforts by groups in seven countries affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. UFWD is a Soviet-inspired strategy that President Xi Jinping described in 2015 as his “important magic weapon for strengthening the party’s ruling position.”

Real estate agent Sing Yim Leo, third from right, among those flouting public health warnings on June 5. (Phoenix TV)

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has also highlighted overseas United Front networks. In Australia, Canada, the U.K., the U.S., Argentina, Japan and the Czech Republic, groups mobilized to gather increasingly scarce medical supplies from around the world and send them to China,” wrote Alex Joske of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “Those efforts appear linked to directives from the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, a united front agency. The party’s Central Committee has described the federation as ‘a bridge and a bond for the party and government to connect with overseas Chinese compatriots’. After the virus spread globally, United Front groups began working with the CCP to donate supplies to the rest of the world and promote the party’s narratives about the pandemic.”

Joske’s report is called The Party Speaks For You: Foreign Interference and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front System and describes United Front as a network of party and state agencies responsible for influencing groups outside the party.

“The United Front system’s reach beyond the borders of the People’s Republic of China—such as into foreign political parties, diaspora communities and multinational corporations—is an exportation of the CCP’s political system,” the report said.  “This undermines social cohesion, exacerbates racial tension, influences politics, harms media integrity, facilitates espionage, and increases unsupervised technology transfer.”

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Bob Mackin (Updated June 9), with files

Miscellany, News, Opinion

For the week of June 7, 2020.

A special edition paying tribute to the late Dermod Travis.

The face and voice of IntegrityBC died June 1, two days shy of his 60th birthday.

Hear Travis in his own words, through highlights of his four appearances on theBreaker.news Podcast since November 2017.

Dermod Travis (Voice of B.C./Shaw)

Also, hear from the founder of IntegrityBC and a former member of B.C.’s Legislative press gallery.

“Dermod focused upon the environment, human rights, integrity in government. His lasting legacy in British Columbia is the electoral finance reform,” said Wayne Crookes, founder of IntegrityBC.

“Dermod meant accountability for British Columbia,” said Sean Holman, professor of journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary. “On a lot of issues he was the primary person speaking out, especially when it came to issues of democratic accountability and corruption and wrongdoing within the public sector. He was often times the sole person that could be counted on to raise those issues.”

Also on this edition, hear from the zoologist who heads the Greater Vancouver Zoo. theBreaker.news toured the Aldergrove attraction when it reopened June 1 and heard Serge Lussier’s vision for a $20 million, five-year overhaul. Listen to Lussier explain the “zoo of the future.”

Plus commentary and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.

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

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

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For the week of June 7, 2020. A

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

The British Columbia immigration scheme aimed at attracting skilled workers and entrepreneurs is at risk of fraud and corruption.

The Office of the Auditor General said in a June 2-released report that there are gaps in safeguards against misrepresentation and fraud in the provincial nominee program, which is popular among immigrants from the People’s Republic of China. The program admitted 32,000 workers, spouses and dependents from 2015 to 2018.

Istuary’s Ethan Sun (right) and Justin Trudeau.

The report said the Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness ministry has not done a comprehensive risk assessment to proactively identify and assess risks, lacks a clear fraud reporting mechanism for the public and does not flag high-risk applications.

“The ministry did not adequately assess and mitigate the risks of fraud and corruption to protect the integrity of the PNP,” the report said. “The ministry had safeguards against fraud, but it needs to ensure that it has the right safeguards and implements them as intended.”

The report did not name names of companies or fraudsters, but said staff identified cases of misrepresentation and fraud. Applicants were found to have fudged their qualifications or income to match job requirements or get a higher score in the registration system and providing false documents. Employers had lied about advertising a job to Canadians first before recruiting internationally. Immigration agents had paid an employer to create a fake job.

“In one case we reviewed, the employer stated that the applicant was working as an administrative assistant,” the report said. “PNP staff reviewed all documentation and thought it appeared to be bona fide. However, when staff followed up with the workplace, they found that the applicant was not working as an administrative assistant. In the applicant’s actual role, they wouldn’t have qualified for nomination. The ministry sent the employer a letter stating that no further applications would be accepted from the company for two years. The applicant was also refused on the grounds of misrepresentation and informed that the program would not accept another application from them for two years.”

The report said the ministry does not have regular and timely access to compliance investigations by federal immigration authorities, the Law Society or the Employment Standards Branch.

“Such information would allow the ministry to better understand fraud trends and disciplinary actions. It could also help identify high-risk applications to support staff in choosing the appropriate level and type of due diligence.”

Trophy given to BC Liberal $5,000 donor Ethan Sun in 2016 (Mackin)

Internally, there were gaps found in monitoring staff activity in the case management system and staff were unaware of how they could blow the whistle on wrongdoing. The new Public Interest Disclosure Act, effective last December, is aimed at protecting whistleblowers in government.

From the start of 2007 to the end of the first quarter of 2015, 527 of the 937 entrepreneur immigration applications approved at work permit stage were from Chinese citizens. South Korea (78) and Iran (72) were the next most-popular source countries.

In 2016-2017, 106 of 152 registrants were from China. Sixty-eight of the 152 invested between $1 million and $8 million.

One of the most-notorious companies in B.C. to have been involved in the program was Istuary Innovation Group, the collapsed tech startup from China. Yi An “Ethan” Sun was lured by HQ Vancouver (whose head was future Trudeau-appointed senator Yuen Pau Woo) and given tax credits through the controversial Advantage BC scheme. A lawsuit alleges that Sun fled to China, Istuary investors lost $18 million and that the company was really a front for immigration fraud. 

In November 2016, then-Premier Christy Clark recognized Istuary with a trophy at a fundraising dinner in the River Rock Casino Resort’s show theatre.

The Elections BC database shows a $5,000 Sun donation to the BC Liberals, dated Nov. 30, 2016. He also donated $1,756 in 2015 and 2017.

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Bob Mackin The British Columbia immigration scheme aimed

Business, News

Bob Mackin

Provincial government operations in British Columbia may not be back to normal until December.

A May 21 memo in the Health Ministry, seen by theBreaker.news, mentioned that the B.C. Public Service has started to consider ways to transition back to day-to-day business and has asked each division to make return-to-office plans.

B.C. Health ADM Ian Rongve

Assistant Deputy Health Minister Ian Rongve ordered all executive directors to have updated telework agreements signed-off by May 29 with a review date of Nov. 30.

“This will not only ensure that all staff have the necessary coverage through WorkSafeBC, but also allow us to plan for what in-office staffing may look like over the next six months,” said Rongve’s memo. “To be clear, if you are wishing to continue working from home on a full-time or part-time basis, your request will be accommodated.”

Meanwhile, the day after provincial coronavirus testing capacity increased to nearly 7,800 samples a day, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry gave a prepared statement that warned about the risks of false positives and false negatives.

“It’s very important to understand that testing, however, right now can be unreliable particularly for people who don’t have symptoms or have very mild symptoms that they may not recognize,” Henry said during her June 2 news conference in Victoria. “Someone who is negative one day who has an exposure may actually be positive the next. The tests are not that great at picking this up early on. That’s why testing alone does not insulate a business from needing to have a plan.”

Dr. Bonnie Henry (left) and Health Minister Adrian Dix (Mackin)

Henry did not go into detail about testing statistics.

theBreaker.news has confirmed that while capacity has increased by 1,200-a-day since May 19, B.C.-wide testing activity has actually declined. There were 1,436 tests conducted May 31 and 1,197 on June 1. 

B.C. initially restricted tests to healthcare workers, seniors care home residents and patients at hospital emergency wards, which prompted Royal Columbian Hospital’s Dr. Sean Wormsbecker to blow the whistle.

On March 28, Wormsbecker accused B.C. of under-testing the population and low-balling the numbers. 

Health Minister Adrian Dix errantly told Question Period on March 23 that there were 3,500 tests a day on March 21 and 22. The actual numbers were 1,963 and 2,036, respectively. 

B.C. finally opened up testing to anyone with a doctor’s referral just before Easter weekend. Since the policy change, testing peaked at 2,783 on May 6.

A total 147,757 tests for coronavirus had been conducted through June 1. Henry’s June 2 report said 2,601 people had tested positive, with 207 cases still active. 

Testing sites with the most daily capacity are at St. Paul’s Hospital (2,228), B.C. Centre for Disease Control (2,000), Fraser Health (1,480), LifeLabs (600) and Island Health (460). There is also capacity for 396-a-day in Interior Health, 300 at Vancouver General Hospital and 264 at B.C. Children’s Hospital.

The province’s medical supplies procurement department in the Provincial Health Services Agency has bought a COVID Analyzer for $2 million from Roche Diagnostics of Laval, Que.

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Bob Mackin Provincial government operations in British Columbia

Business, Miscellany, News, Opinion

Bob Mackin

Dermod Travis was the most-vital voice in British Columbia in the post-Olympic era.

Dermod Travis (Voice of B.C./Shaw)

When the International Olympic Committee and the BC Liberal Party brought the Games of the Great Recession to town in 2010, B.C. changed for the worse. It became a province where the government put casino construction ahead of hospital construction. Politicians were for sale. Money laundering ran rampant. Homelessness increased. Transparency and accountability came under attack. 

Dermod was the face and voice of the 2011-founded IntegrityBC, laser-focused on ending corruption in B.C. and putting citizens first. His legacy is the 2017 ban on corporate and union political donations, but he was not resting on any laurels. He still had more to do and he lived and breathed the credo “Take Back B.C.” 

British Columbia lost Dermod on June 1 due to liver and heart problems. 

I will have more to say on the next edition of theBreaker.news Podcast.

Until then, read Tom Hawthorn’s obituary in The Tyee. Download Dermod’s 2017 book, May I Take Your Order Please? 

And enjoy some of the wit and wisdom of Dermod Travis. Such as…

“I’m a little puzzled by this sense in the report that [Paul Fraser has] been a stellar conflict of interest commissioner. He’s been a very well-paid commissioner.”

— Analysis: “Conflicted commissioner” re-upped, FOI reforms missing — is this what Better B.C. looks like?, theBreaker.news, May 30, 2018 

“Severance is intended to tide you over, it’s not intended to act as a super-inflated bonus package, which seems to have been the practice with the change in government in 2017. When you have a situation where the severance policies for staffers are more generous than the severance policies for MLAs, the transition allowance, you have a serious problem.”

Dermod Travis’s 2017 book

— Choosing not to resign in the wake of scandal meant a $74K windfall from taxpayers for ex-BC Liberal staffer, theBreaker.news, Feb. 20, 2019

“Government business squeezed in-between party business, not party business squeezed in-between government business.”

— Trudeau and co. spent $54,000 to fly west for a Liberal campaign ad shoot last August, theBreaker.news, Feb. 19, 2020

“The message that it’s sending is that of expressway tickets to six-figure salaries in private industries. To work in a minister’s office and do good service to a minister for a couple of weeks, months or years and then hit the jackpot.”

— Education Minister’s Top Aide Made Lucrative Jump to Lobbyist During Teachers’ Strike, The Tyee, June 29, 2016 

“Christy Clark is coming to be an expensive proposition for the people of B.C.”

— Taxpayers Dinged $1.25 Million for Post-Election Severance Pay, The Tyee, Aug. 24, 2013

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Bob Mackin Dermod Travis was the most-vital

Miscellany, News, Opinion

For the week of May 31, 2020.

The Cullen Commission on money laundering in British Columbia is back in session, with a twist.

Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, Commissioner Austin Cullen is hearing expert testimony in webinar form until mid-June.

Simon Lord (lower right) appeared on the Cullen Commission on May 28. (Cullen Commission)

One of the first witnesses was Simon Lord of the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency. Lord discussed his research on underground banking, gambling, surrogate shopping [aka “daigou”] and the abuse of Chinese student bank accounts via the state-censored WeChat social media platform.

“Those WeChat groups are infiltrated by representatives of the money launderer in the U.K. and the Chinese students are offered the opportunity to make a little bit of extra money,” Lord said. “What they say is you’re doing money remittance on behalf of Chinese citizens in the U.K. who are un-banked and want to send their money back to China.”

Peter Humphrey survived two years of torture in a Shanghai jail.

Hear clips of Lord’s testimony to the Cullen Commission on this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast. 

Also, the World Health Organization is reviewing the 2016 appointment of a Chinese propaganda agency’s anchor as a goodwill ambassador. Peter Humphrey, a former journalist who was jailed more than two years in China, says James Chau should never have been given the honour.

Chau packaged and presented a deceptive report on Humphrey’s forced, false confession that was broadcast on the English language service of state broadcaster CCTV to viewers in Canada, U.S. and U.K. It sparked Humphrey and Safeguard Defenders’ complaint to broadcast regulators, seeking cancellation of CCTV [China Central TV] and its English service CGTN [China Global TV Network]

James Chau with WHO’s Dr. Tedros (Twitter)

Chau is not the only controversial appointment by the arm of the United Nations. Peng Liyuan, the wife of Chinese president Xi Jinping, has held a similar honorary position with the WHO since 2011.

In an interview with host Bob Mackin, Humphrey said: “The wife of the sitting dictator of China to be in that position is an outrage and is a further illustration, a stark illustration, of China’s influence and control over the WHO.”

Plus commentary and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.

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

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

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For the week of May 31, 2020.

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

By the time Meng Wanzhou arrived with her bodyguards at the Law Courts in downtown Vancouver, the Huawei chief financial officer knew she would not be returning to China anytime soon.

Her lawyers had received the written decision of Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes after 9 a.m. and were free to share it with her after 10 a.m. Meng strutted out of her $13.6 million Shaughnessy mansion under blue skies after 10:30 a.m.

Meng Wanzhou leaves her Vancouver mansion on May 27. (@InaMitchellFilm)

The public learned the B.C. Supreme Court ruling that the U.S. extradition cleared its first hurdle at 11 a.m., when reporters were free to turn on their mobile phones. They had been in an hour-long embargo session inside the same courtroom where lawyers for both sides argued their cases before Holmes over four days in late January, just before the Lunar New Year weekend.

Meng, who is wanted by the U.S. for defrauding HSBC in 2013, wore a facemask while she sat next to lawyers Richard Peck and David Martin in courtroom 55. The 32-minute hearing included an unscheduled seven-minute intermission to resolve embarrassing technical problems.

Closed circuit video was shown in courtrooms 53 and 54, where reporters and others were at least three chairs apart. Same with courtroom 20, where most of the accredited media remained. TV crews and protesters waited outside on street level, by the same steps where Meng mysteriously appeared for a celebratory Saturday night photo shoot believed to be in anticipation of a court victory that did not come. Someone had tipped off a CBC reporter and photographer to be there for the moment of audacity.

Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the B.C. Supreme Court.

A consortium of major Canadian and international media outlets could not convince Holmes last fall to allow the case to be broadcast. But, when the coronavirus pandemic hit B.C. before spring, officials allowed reporters and lawyers to call-in and listen to court proceedings.

Easier said than done on this day, as Holmes’s patience was tested by a noisy connection on the speakerphone. More than one person on the B.C. government system (provided by local Huawei partner Telus) failed to heed instructions to mute the microphone. The system did not allow a remote operator to regulate.

Holmes read the conclusion of her verdict, but eventually gave up.

“That is not proving successful, because well you can hear voices,” Holmes said. “Can we do something about that Mr. Registrar, please? I’m going to find it distracting. So either we stop that or we will have to make different arrangements.”

The registrar asked all to mute. There was momentary silence.

“If it gets noisy again, we will move to plan B,” Holmes said, before invoking plan B.

The only solution was a nearly seven-minute recess.

Protest sign outside the Vancouver Law Courts on May 27.

When the court reconvened, Holmes scheduled a case management conference for June 3 at 9 a.m. and cancelled the June 15-19 and June 22-26 hearings.

The first phase took four months for a decision. Two more issues remain to be decided: whether border guards and police overstepped their authority and whether Donald Trump interfered. Holmes wants to get back on track after the pandemic threw the courts a scheduling curveball.

“I would prefer the overall schedule be a lot more condensed,” she said.

When it finally adjourned after noon, Meng, her lawyers, Huawei staff and executives, and officials from the People’s Republic of China consul poured out of the room. Nearly all wearing face masks.

Most of the two-dozen people headed for the elevators. Meng’s chauffeur-driven SUV awaited.

Xi Jinping’s top envoy on the west coast of Canada, Consul General Tong Xiaoling, left the Nelson Street doors to a waiting Mercedes Benz.

Only one reporter followed. Tong and her staff refused to answer any questions about the judge’s decision, the fate of Canadian hostages Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig and about the Uyghur Muslim protesters outside the court. 

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Bob Mackin By the time Meng Wanzhou arrived

Business, News

Bob Mackin

In March 2018, Kennedy Stewart was the local NDP Member of Parliament and Elizabeth May was the leader of the Green Party.

They stood together, arm-in-arm, outside the Kinder Morgan tank farm on Burnaby Mountain when Mounties arrested them for defying a court order against blocking the Trans Mountain Pipeline project.

Kennedy Stewart and Elizabeth May in March 2018 (Twitter)

Fast forward to November 2019, when May announced she would step-down from her party’s leadership after increasing the Green caucus in Ottawa from two to only three MPs in the federal election.

Stewart, who was elected Mayor of Vancouver in October 2018, charged taxpayers for a contractor to write a Twitter tribute to his former House of Commons colleague.

Stewart is under fire this week after the cash-strapped city’s sanitation budget was cut and $95,000 earmarked to hire another social media specialist for the 41-person city hall communications department. It is a story that Stewart called “weird” and a “red herring” when asked by reporters on May 28.

Stewart’s chief of staff, Neil Monckton, hired Gwen Hardy’s Elettra Communications on a nearly $32,000-a-year patronage contract for media relations and communications strategy in early January 2019. Hardy donated $1,200 to Stewart’s mayoralty campaign in late September 2018 and acted as his campaign communications director that fall.

On Nov. 4, 2019, Hardy sent two draft tweets to Alvin Singh, the Mayor’s Office’s communications director, late in the afternoon.

  • “Elizabeth May’s tireless advocacy for the environment helped make #climatechange a key election issue. I’m proud to have stood beside her on key issues that affect the future of our planet. I’m glad that she will continue to be a strong voice for the environment in Ottawa.”
  • “For the past 13 years, Elizabeth May has been our country’s top environmental advocate. I am proud to have stood beside her on issues that affect our city, country & planet. I wish you the best and know that you’ll remain a strong voice in Ottawa for the environment.”

“Let’s go with #1,” Singh wrote in reply.

On May 28, CTV News Vancouver reporter Jon Woodward asked Stewart about the status of the contract with Elettra Communications.

“They’re right here today, helping us while my staff person is off on a much-needed break. All of us have been working flat-out since the beginning of COVID-19,” Stewart said, referring to Singh.

“We have somebody, we have a company here to fill the gap while we’re trying to communicate and get the economy restarted.”

In January of this year, theBreaker.news sought copies of Elettra’s media monitoring and social media monitoring reports and copies of the copywriting and editing deliverables since October 1. But city hall said none of that existed.

Internal email from Singh to Stewart’s executive assistant, Lorraine Sebastian, said: “We do not retain copies of social media copy editing as they are posted directly to social media” and suggested the FOI applicant refer to Stewart’s published Tweets and Facebook posts.

“Media monitoring and social media monitoring reports are presented verbally and no records are maintained,” Singh wrote to Sebastian.

Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s wife, Jeanette Ashe, appears on the right in Stewart’s first anniversary video (City of Vancouver)

Correspondence between Hardy and the mayor’s office from last October and November shows evidence to the contrary.

Late in the evening of Nov. 3, 2019, Hardy gave Singh advice on the production of Stewart’s campaign-style, 54-second video about his first year in office. She suggested audio be cleaned up and Stewart’s voiceover be more urgent so that it sounded less-scripted. Hardy also suggested Premier John Horgan and Stewart’s wife, Jeanette Ashe, be included in the final cut.

“Wondering if we could add in more of the people who were filmed that day. Most of the people featured in this cut are still Caucasian,” Hardy wrote.

“Overall it’s really nice and there is a great mix of footage (I love the high five with the kid). Just want it to feel a bit more passionate, especially in the first 10 seconds.”

The next morning, Singh replied to say that Ashe and B.C. NDP Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen were being added.

“That will boost partnerships and add some more diversity,” Singh wrote. “Also looking at adding footage of my sister, so that should boost diversity a bit as well. Good call on music, they will see if they can boost energy off the top.”

On Dec. 12, 2019, theBreaker.news and CTV News Vancouver’s St. John Alexander reported that Stewart had no apologies for spending nearly $8,000 on the video.

Independent watchdog Dermod Travis of IntegrityBC said Stewart should have repaid taxpayers from his political fundraising account. 

“His office budget, city funds are not for his personal benefit, they are not to assist him in seeking re-election, they are there to provide services to citizens, not services to campaign organizers, campaign advisors and campaign strategists,” Travis said. “He has an obligation to take a look at that video, to take a look at how he has used that video and to return the money to the taxpayers of Vancouver.”

Kennedy Stewart’s poster on 4th Ave. (Mackin)

Meanwhile, other documents obtained by theBreaker.news show that a Nanaimo company called Van City Studios billed the Mayor’s Office $4,532.60 on May 21, 2019 for web design and web development services.

Van City is also behind Stewart’s campaign fundraising website and worked for Stewart’s federal campaign when he was running in the 2015 election.

Other documents show that Coquitlam’s Alex Chan billed the Mayor’s Office $11,062.50 between January and June 2019.

Chan’s original contract, worth $1,000 for writing, research, community outreach, event coordination, media analysis and translation, ran Nov. 30-Dec. 9, 2018.

Stewart’s communications performance has come under extra scrutiny for various bloopers during the coronavirus pandemic state of emergency.

He errantly claimed two weeks ago that the city suffered a $27 billion loss to the economy. The next day, Singh said the actual estimate was a 27% decrease and a $2 billion decline, but not before he released a new version of the presentation that said the loss was only $2.

Stewart also released a bad news survey on city hall finances on Easter Sunday and told Woodward that the closed door meeting where the Vancouver Police budget was cut 1% was not really held in secret. The media and public are excluded from in camera meetings.

Stewart earned a Ph.D from the London School of Economics and is on leave from Simon Fraser University’s school of public policy. 

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Bob Mackin In March 2018, Kennedy Stewart

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

A post on the Liberal Minister of Digital Government’s group on a China state-censored social media platform is promoting a lawsuit against an investigative journalist who cast a critical eye on China’s hoarding of medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic.

Minister of Digital Government Joyce Murray’s WeChat group carries a supporter’s fundraising solicitation for a lawsuit against a reporter (WeChat)

Sam Cooper of Global News reported April 30 under the headline “United Front groups in Canada helped Beijing stockpile coronavirus safety supplies,” about how allies of the Chinese Communist Party went on a six-week, worldwide buying spree and exported 2.5 billion pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) to China, from Canada, Australia and other countries. Cooper’s story quoted former Mexican diplomat Jorge Guajardo and Conservative leadership candidate Erin O’Toole, a harsh critic of the CCP.

Maria Xu, a member of Vancouver-Quadra Liberal MP Joyce Murray’s WeChat group, posted a notice about the Maple Leafs Anti-Racism Actions Association and a QR code link to the website where it is soliciting donations. Xu was also a participant of a May 19 Zoom meeting hosted by Luxmore Realty CEO Jason Liu to explore a class action lawsuit against Cooper and Global.

Murray’s WeChat group is “managed and interpreted” by one of her aides as a platform for “the latest information about the federal government,” according to a disclaimer. However, it often contains partisan messages promoting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The MLARA website alleged that Cooper’s story “has likely already caused harm to the Asian-Canadian community and the First Nation community in light of the recent increase of physical attacks to members of the community.” (That is a reference is to the alleged assault of an indigenous woman on May 16 at Grays Park. Dakota Holmes claims the assailant used anti-Chinese slurs against her. Vancouver Police do not have a composite sketch or photograph of the suspect.) 

“In order to right a wrong, we are exploring the feasibility of mounting a class action lawsuit against Mr. Sam Cooper and Global News for the inaccurate and unbalanced reporting that targets a specific minority group. Our aim is to demand an apology from Mr. Sam Cooper and Global News to the Canadian-Chinese community as well as compensation for damages.”

theBreaker.news has learned that MLARA was provincially incorporated May 14 with three directors: real estate agents Morning Li Huimin and Jason Xie Sheng, and Ivan Ngai Pak. 

Li and Xie are both Royal Pacific Realty agents who unsuccessfully ran for Vancouver city council in 2018 with Wai Young’s Coalition Vancouver party. Pak was a candidate for Richmond school board in 2018 and a People’s Party of Canada candidate in Richmond Centre last year.

Real estate agents and 2018 Vancouver city council candidates Morning Li (left) and Jason Xie (Coalition Vancouver/Facebook)

Xie’s 2018 candidacy was endorsed by the United Front-allied Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society in a controversial WeChat campaign that offered a $20 voter “subsidy” for transportation to the polls. Richmond RCMP opened a vote-buying investigation but did not recommend charges.

Li’s address on the MLARA registration is the Kingsway office of Royal Pacific Realty. His advertisement was on the side of a Best Choice Moving and Storage van containing a load of PPE delivered to the Chinese consulate mansion in Shaughnessy in early April. Li is part-owner of Best Choice.

Li did not respond for comment.

Royal Pacific co-founder Sing Yim Leo and Allan Ge donated 61,000 masks to Vancouver hospitals in early April. It is not known how much, if any, of the masks were approved for use by frontline healthcare workers or put to use in a non-medical setting. 

Murray did not respond for comment on May 25. Her parliamentary assistant, Jonathan Chiu, said the WeChat group was created to engage with constituents, but Murray does not control what constituents say within the group.

“We do periodically post the disclaimer and rules of engagement,” Chiu said. “Neither the Minister, nor any member of our team played any role in the fundraising. The WeChat account is not operated on a government device, it is run on a staff member’s personal device.”

Doctors and nurses in Canada and elsewhere risked their health and struggled with PPE shortages as western governments scrambled to pay a premium to Chinese companies for tonnes of emergency shipments of masks, gloves, goggles and gowns. Some of the goods were too shoddy to be used by frontline healthcare workers.

Morning Li-sponsored moving van delivering PPE to the Chinese consulate in Vancouver. (YouTube)

theBreaker.news had previously reported on the United Front-allied Canadian Association of Chinese Associations and the Vancouver consulate organizing bulk PPE exports to China in January and February.

In late March, both the Chinese consulate and CACA switched gears and held photo ops to show they were importing PPE to B.C. for distribution to Chinese students and for donation to Metro Vancouver hospitals. The Provincial Health Services Authority has not disclosed how much of the donated supplies passed inspections and made it into the supplies for frontline workers.

A May 5 statement on the consulate’s website conflated Cooper’s story and incidents of anti-Asian racism in Vancouver. Chinese propaganda outlet Global Times carried the statement May 7, three days before the first Zoom meeting on May 10, which featured Richmond city councillor Chak Au.

The meetings were titled “Opposition against Global News discrimination against Chinese.”

The May 19 Zoom meeting included One Pacific News publisher Ng Weng Hoong and former Liberal candidate Wendy Yuan.

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Bob Mackin A post on the Liberal Minister

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