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Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

An official from the Chinese consulate in Vancouver panicked when he saw reporters surrounding the doorway of the Mackenzie Room at the Fairmont Waterfront Centre Hotel on Sept. 25.

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West’s protest at the doorway of the Chinese government reception at UBCM (Mackin)

He ordered a security guard to hurry and take the two boxes of Tim Hortons donuts, with the images of Canadian political prisoners, away from the Chinese government’s cocktail party at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention. He would not stop and give a reporter his name. 

A small group of local government politicians, led by outspoken Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, had brought the symbolic gifts downstairs for diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, the two Canadians jailed in China last December in retaliation for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest in Vancouver on a U.S. warrant.

West had earlier headlined a protest organized by Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters and the local Uighur Muslim community. West pointed to the jailing of a million Muslims in Xinjiang province for so-called “re-education” and the crackdown on Hong Kong protesters as attacks “on people who want nothing more than to live their life like the way we do in this country.”

“It’s shameful that those topics aren’t going to be discussed in that room,” West said, pointing at the hotel behind him.

Some 65% of delegates voted against allowing a foreign government to sponsor the convention and hold a cocktail party, like China has for eight years.

“I feel confident in telling you that this is the last time that this immoral, embarrassing event is going to take place,” West said to applause.

Notably absent were the mayors of Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey and Delta. At least 43 elected and appointed officials attended the event, including Mayor David Screech of View Royal, Mayor Ken Williams of Highlands, Mayor Fred Haynes of Saanich, Mayor Manfred Bauer of Keremeos, Mayor Walt Cobb of Williams Lake, former UBCM president Al Richmond, and Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology Bruce Ralston. (More names at bottom).

Backdrop for the Chinese government reception at UBCM. (Mackin)

Consul General Tong Xiaoling and her Deputy Kong Weiwei both refused to answer questions from theBreaker.news. They handed out a one-paragraph statement later in the event that said the reason for it was to foster mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation between Canada and China. They gave away gift bags containing a lapel pin and T-shirt showing a flag-waving panda and beaver shaking hands to signify Canadian-Chinese co-operation.

Tong’s speech was a lecture on China facts and statistics. Afterward, a flashy government propaganda film that included scenes of youth hockey. Beijing is hosting the next Winter Olympics in 2022.

Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie conceded that China’s human rights record, “ from everything I’ve been told, leaves a lot to be desired. And I think that there are real challenges, so the question is how do you get past those challenges, do you get past those challenges by boycotting a reception? I don’t think so.”

Brodie said his attendance was not to “endorse anybody or anything.“

“There are tensions between Canada and China and if I can do just a little fraction to assist with the communications, then I’ll do it. I don’t think we should be putting up walls or putting up barriers between people. I think we should communicate.”

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and Consul-General Tong Xiaoling (Mackin)

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps took issue with theBreaker.news photographing politicians, including herself, while Tong spoke. Helps waved her arms and even lunged at the camera. She approached theBreaker.news after the speech to explain her beef.

Helps cited Victoria’s sister city relationship with Suzhou, China and said she has a good relationship with the consulate.

As for human rights in China question, Helps said “that’s not my role as mayor to deal with those issues. That’s far beyond my pay grade, my job is to advocate on behalf of my citizens and work for sustainable jobs and sustainable community in Victoria, I can’t solve those problems.”

“I don’t think that one, lowly Canadian mayor has an impact on international relations, but I do believe in goodwill and the role of cities as diplomats in the world,” Helps said.  

Vancouver Coun. Pete Fry said the economic ties between China and B.C. municipalities, especially those in the resource-rich north, are too important to jeopardize. New Westminster councillor Chuck Puchmayr said the Royal City’s sister city relationship with Lijiang, China includes exchanges. 

“It is a relationship that we needed to continue even in the wake of what is happening nationally and internationally,” Puchmayr said. “We think that the community to community relationship is something that is important. I have no problem attending this event, if it was any other consul of any other country I would feel the same way.

“We have a  lot of human rights issues in Canada now with the indigenous communities that are not being addressed, I feel like I’d like to champion that more strongly and look at how we can do better as a country.”

A reporter reminded Puchmayr that Canada has a tradition of making official apologies and reconciliation programs with oppressed groups and it has held public inquiries into human rights abuses. For one thing, the Chinese government has not owned up to the Tiananmen Square massacre from 30 years ago.

“I don’t think boycotting any kind of relationship with another country is a way of getting there,I think our senior levels of government need to push those issues and push for freedoms in those countries, but I’m not comfortable with this tact,” Puchmayr said.

Who else was there?

Mayors David Screech (View Royal); Rob Fraser (Taylor); Ken Williams (Highlands); and Councillors/Directors Ron Paull (Quesnel); Janice Morrison (Nelson); John Tidbury (Port Hardy); Ron Obirek (Okanagan-Similkameen Regional District); Pete Fry (Vancouver); Tek Manhas (North Cowichan); Claire Moglove (Campbell River; also director of Island Health); Ryan Mitchell (Port McNeill); Matt Sahlstrom (Langford); Travis Fehr (Merritt); Al Beddows (Sooke);  Mary Sjostrom (Cariboo Regional District); Al Anderson (Tofino); Alison Lauzon (Chase); Lilia Hansen (Fort St. John); George Doubt (Powell River); Rick Fairbairn (Northern Okanagan Regional District); Maureen Pinkney (100 Mile House); Travis Hall (Heltsiuk Nation).

Others: Tom Shypitka (BC Liberal MLA, Kootenay East); Michael Goehring (CEO, Mining Association of B.C.); Richard Prokopanko (lobbyist/ResourceWorks director); Yvonne Koerner (Kitimat-Stikine Regional District CFO; North West Regional Hospital District executive director); Theresa Fresco (Sea-to-Sky Region, Fraser Basin Council); Joel Palmer (Ministry of Education capital management executive director); Christopher Graham (Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch investigator).

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Bob Mackin An official from the Chinese consulate

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

Detectives from Vancouver’s police and fire departments are investigating an early morning fire at the Shaughnessy mansion that hosted a controversial Liberal Party of Canada cash-for-access fundraiser with Justin Trudeau in 2016.

Miaofei Pan outside the fire-destroyed garage (Ina Mitchell)

Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services crews were called to 6261 Churchill Street at 2:12 a.m. on Sept. 21. Police were called 10 minutes later. The garage was destroyed and a window on the front of the house is showing signs of damage from a projectile, possibly from a pellet or bullet.

“The file is still under investigation as of this morning,” said VFRS spokesman Capt. Jonathan Gormick on Sept. 25. “The cause and nature are still part of the investigation.”

Police spokesman Sgt. Aaron Roed said he was unable to provide any information regarding the file.

The owner of the $7.7 million-assessed property, real estate developer Miaofei Pan, was seen by a photographer outside the garage on Sept. 24 while investigators continued to scour the scene, which was behind a temporary fence.

Pan hosted Trudeau for an 80-person, $1,500-a-head fundraiser in November 2016 at the Churchill Street property. Trudeau was in Vancouver earlier in the day to announce new measures for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to allow for more oil tanker traffic in Vancouver and on the South Coast.

The cash-for-access fundraiser was not publicized and came to light after a website for the government in Pan’s native Wenzhou province published photographs and a description of the event. The Liberal Party buckled to pressure and announced reforms and Elections Canada began an online registry of major fundraising events involving party leaders and cabinet ministers.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shaking hands with Miaofei Pan at a 2016 Liberal fundraiser (Wenzhou government)

A year after Pan hosted the fundraiser, another mansion that he owns in northern Shaughnessy suffered a massive fire. The roof and interior of the historic 1911-built Rounsefell House at 3737 Angus Drive were severely damaged.

Police ruled it an arson, but there was insufficient evidence to lay charges.

Pan is a former chair of the Chinese Communist Party-linked Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations and a major donor to the Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society’s clubhouse near Richmond’s Aberdeen mall.

Pan and wife Wen Huan Yang bought the Rounsefell mansion in 2012. In August 2018, Vancouver city hall accused Pan of failing to repair and maintain a heritage structure. WorkSafeBC issued a stop work order that found the fire damage was so extreme that it was a danger to life and health, fearing that one of the 50-foot-tall brick chimneys could fall.

Pan is appealing last year’s $1 award from a B.C. Supreme Court defamation lawsuit against a journalist, Bing Chen Gao. Justice Neena Sharma did not find Pan to be a credible or reliable witness because he relied on the deemed falsity of the defamatory statements and did not back-up his testimony with documents.

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Bob Mackin Detectives from Vancouver's police and fire

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

With three years left in her term, Auditor General Carol Bellringer has tendered her resignation, five days after releasing a panned report into expense policies and practices at the Legislative Assembly.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer

theBreaker.news has learned from an Office of the Auditor General source that Bellringer, B.C.’s auditor general since September 2014, will work until the end of the calendar year. After the Legislature opens for its fall sitting on Oct. 8, members will strike a committee to find a replacement.

Bellringer’s analysis of spending by the offices of the clerk, sergeant-at-arms and speaker was slammed as insufficient by Speaker Darryl Plecas in an exclusive interview with theBreaker.news. Plecas had originally proposed that an auditor from outside B.C. conduct a forensic audit into his office and the offices of Clerk Craig James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz, who were suspended with pay last November because of an RCMP corruption investigation. The all-party Legislative Assembly Management Committee did an about-face and assigned Bellringer the task. 

When she released her first report on Sept. 19, Bellringer admitted she did not conduct a forensic audit and that she found no evidence of fraud.

“A forensic audit would put a file together that could be handed over to the RCMP, that just wasn’t the nature of the work that we did. We were looking first in this particular audit and in this report to let the Legislature know where they had policy gaps. It’s an important framework piece,” Bellringer said on Sept. 19. “When the word forensic audit is used in conversation I’m not always sure what people are meaning by it, because it is a specific term used when you’re putting those sorts of files together. You have to have something to look into before you do so.”

Plecas said in a Sept. 20 interview  that he had meetings with Bellringer and her staff, to call attention to matters that he alleged were criminal. He originally proposed an audit dating back to 2012, but Bellringer only examined 2016 to 2018.

“I think the auditor general was quoted as saying she found nothing unusual and nothing which would indicate any kind of criminal wrongdoing and any kind of fraud. I just have to say that boggles me,” Plecas said. “I’ve seen what I describe as full-blown fraud, with my own two eyes, discussed it with other people and ultimately turned it over to police. I’m just astounded there was no wrongdoing found there.”

Bellringer, also on Sept. 19, admitted that she had not heard of the uncontested allegation in Plecas’s scathing January report to LAMC that James and Lenz did not declare purchases of goods while traveling to Canada customs or pay customs duties. 

Darryl Plecas, Sept. 20 (Mackin)

During the conference call, theBreaker.news asked Bellringer: “Why should taxpayers have faith that you’re actually looking out for taxpayers’ interests?”

She replied: “I’m not going to answer that question.”

Bellringer was paid $303,665 to oversee a staff of 129 with a budget of almost $18 million last year.

She came to B.C. from Manitoba, where she was that province’s auditor general for 12 years and Winnipeg’s city auditor for six months. She previously worked in management at KPMG offices in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg.

Bellringer took over from interim auditor general Russ Jones, who spent 16 months in the position after the May 2013 departure of John Doyle. Doyle returned to Australia after a BC Liberal dominated committee chose not to reappoint him to another six-year term; the committee relented and offered him two more years. Bellringer was the first auditor general appointed to a non-renewable, eight-year term.

Last November, James claimed he did no wrong, but retired in disgrace in May after he was found in misconduct for misusing taxpayer funds. Lenz remains suspended with pay, but his fate could be decided in an upcoming report about alleged Police Act violations by Doug LePard, former deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department.

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Bob Mackin With three years left in her

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Bob Mackin

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was hands-on with the West Point Grey Academy yearbook.

Justin Trudeau as James Bond (West Point Grey Academy)

Literally.

The future Prime Minister of Canada is infamous for painting his face, neck, arms and hands black and wearing a turban at an Arabian Nights-themed fundraiser in 2001, as revealed by Time Magazine 18 years later.

Trudeau could not have easily forgotten the incident, for which he apologized, because he features so prominently in editions of the yearbook during his three years at the school. He even trained students to produce the hardcover annual at the co-ed Vancouver private school.

“A yearbook elective was taught by Mr. Trudeau to Grade 10 and 11 students,” said the entry in the 1999-2000 edition of The View. “These students began the process of turning The View into a completely student-created book – our ultimate goal. Ms. Oliver oversaw the editing and completion of the book. Teachers, staff and students contributed writing, art and photography.”

Justin Trudeau in blackface, getting cozy with Mariam Matossian in 2001 at West Point Grey Academy’s Arabian Nights.

Trudeau’s painted right hand and forearm in the 2001 yearbook rests around the shoulder of fellow teacher Mariam Matossian in the infamous Arabian Nights photograph, which has no cutline attached. Matossian, who also served as a staff liaison to student council, is now an Armenian folk singer based in Greenville, S.C. and married to a real estate agency owner who doubles as her music manager. Matossian did not respond for comment. The 2001 yearbook was a milestone for the private school, because it was West Point Grey Academy’s first Grade 12 graduating class, with just 31 members.

The year before Arabian Nights, in 2000, the fundraiser was 007 night. Self-proclaimed feminist Trudeau portrayed the movie franchise’s womanizing main character.

A photograph shows Trudeau surrounded by six women at the gala, brandishing a weapon with his right hand and wearing a tuxedo. Two women appear to grasp his legs.

Justin Trudeau in the West Point Grey Academy yearbooks.

“The theme was James Bond and who better to fit the role, none other than Mr. Trudeau, who came equipped with a tux, martini glass (shaken not stirred), and plastic squirt gun. His archrival for the evening was the evil Blowfeld, who was played by [headmaster] Mr. Austin,” reads the caption.

There are two photos of Trudeau wearing a kilt: one in a French class for kindergarten children, the other on the ultimate frisbee field, where players on the school’s team painted their faces a la Braveheart and other characters. Trudeau wore sunglasses, but no face paint.

In the 1998-1999 edition, the drama and math teacher revealed his idol was fighter and poet Cyrano de Bergerac, his favourite movies are Star Wars and Leonard Cohen his favourite singer.

“His worst fear is betrayal of trust,” it said.

Two decades later, several opinion polls have suggested many Canadians feel Trudeau betrayed their trust.

Since leading the Liberals to the 2015 election win, Trudeau backed-off from promised electoral reform, bought the Trans Mountain pipeline, approved an LNG plant for Howe Sound, broke a promise to run a transparent, “disclosure by default” government, committed conflict of interest over the SNC-Lavalin scandal and a trip to the Aga Khan’s private island, and was caught hiding three, racist blackface incidents from Canadians.

Election day is Oct. 21.

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Bob Mackin Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was hands-on

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Bob Mackin

Is Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou a fan of a Disney character with Canadian roots?

Or was she silently and privately poking fun at Xi Jinping before her arrest last year?

Copies of evidence released by British Columbia Supreme Court on Sept. 23 include photographs of Meng’s devices that Canada Border Services Agency officers seized from her last Dec. 1 at Vancouver International Airport when they nabbed her on a United States warrant.

Two photos of Meng Wanzhou’s iPad, bearing a sticker of Winnie-the-Pooh, which is enlarged for the inset. (BC Courts)

One of them is an iPad Pro, sporting a Winnie-the-Pooh sticker in the upper left corner of the screen.

The world’s most-famous honey-loving bear originated in Canada, a country where Meng has two luxury houses and once held permanent resident status. An orphaned Ontario bear cub, that was named after Winnipeg, became an attraction at the London Zoo and the inspiration for A.A. Milne’s 1926-launched character.

In China, critics adopted Winnie-the-Pooh as a satirical symbol of China’s president after a 2013 photograph of Xi with U.S. president Barack Obama was likened to Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger. Another meme compared Xi to Pooh and Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam to Piglet. As such, censors have taken aim at the Disneyfied version of the Pooh Bear on Chinese social media.

Meng is the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, the founder of China’s controversial “national champion” technology giant, and supportive officials from the local People’s Republic of China consulate never miss her court appearances. During last December’s bail hearing, her lawyer, David Martin, called her a “social leader and role model in China” and that “she would not embarrass China itself.” So the former scenario is more likely than the latter.  

Whatever Meng’s motivation, she was not talking to reporters on Sept. 23, as her lawyers appeared before Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes to argue for more evidence disclosure. They are preparing for January hearings where they will make their case to block her extradition to face fraud charges.

Popular memes in China compare Xi Jinping with Winnie-the-Pooh.

Crown prosecutor John Gibb-Carsley says Meng’s lawyers are on a fishing expedition. But Meng’s lawyers say she was arrested under fishy circumstances.

Documents filed by Gibb-Carsley say Meng’s application is “based on speculation and wishful thinking.”

The bid by Meng’s lawyers, Gibb-Carsley submitted, “can only be characterized as a fishing expedition for materials she hopes will reveal the speculative conspiracy she alleges. Courts have repeatedly held that fishing expeditions are not permitted when an applicant seeks disclosure in extradition.”

Meng lawyer Richard Peck told the court that CBSA and RCMP “collaborated and arranged a plan to deal with Ms. Meng in a way that violated the [Nov. 30, 2018 provisional arrest warrant] order of Justice Fleming, that this plan delayed the implementation of Ms. Meng’s rights and afforded the CBSA an opportunity to interrogate her and that such information was arranged to be shared with the RCMP and the FBI.”

Peck said the CBSA compelled her to provide passwords for her electronic devices and it handed those passwords over to the RCMP. He also said the CBSA omitted details in documents, including statutory declarations.

“We refer to this as a covert criminal investigation under the pretext of an admissibility examination for immigration purposes,” Peck alleged.

Meng Wanzhou leaving the Law Courts on Sept. 23 (Mackin)

Peck said that the CBSA and RCMP’s original plan to detain Meng on the plane, Cathay Pacific flight 838 from Hong Kong, “went awry.” The flight arrived 20 minutes earlier than scheduled and officers detained her on the jetway instead before bringing her to the secondary inspection area at the airport. Meng waited in the secondary screening area of the customs department for several hours with her eight pieces of luggage. She was interrogated, arrest and transferred to the cells at the Richmond RCMP detachment. Officers seized her Macbook Air, iPad Pro, iPhone 7 Plus, Huawei Mate 20 RS (Porsche design), Scandisk Cruzer Glide, and two SIM cards.

It was the seventh time in 2018 that Meng had traveled to Vancouver. She was en route to Mexico for business meetings and had planned to visit her house in Dunbar during the layover. Both of her Vancouver properties are in the name of her second husband, investor Liu “Carlos” Xiaozong, who joined her in courtroom 55.

Meng was freed on $10 million bail with curfew and geographic conditions on Dec. 11. She lives in a Shaughnessy mansion with round-the-clock security guards ordered by a judge, but paid by her.

Meng arrived at the Law Courts on Sept. 23 wearing glittering high-heeled shoes and a purple dress under a rust-coloured jacket, with her hair tied back. She did nothing to hide the GPS monitor that she must wear on her ankle as part of her bail conditions. The device ensures she remains within City of Vancouver, the North Shore and parts of Richmond, away from the airport, and that she adheres to an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.

Meng’s Dec. 1 arrest sparked a diplomatic row between Canada and China, which retaliated by arresting diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor. The two Michaels are cut-off from their families and lawyers. They are only allowed a monthly visit from a Canadian embassy official, but can’t enjoy sunlight in daytime or turn off lights at night.

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Bob Mackin Is Huawei Technologies' chief financial officer

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Bob Mackin

The ex-clerk of the B.C. Legislature, Craig James, said last November when he was suspended that he did nothing wrong and he wanted his job back.

He suddenly changed his tune in May when he retired the night before he was going to be fired by lawmakers for misconduct. 

Darryl Plecas, Sept. 20 (Mackin)

Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz maintained his innocence after he was suspended on the same day as James, but he now faces an investigation under the Police Act by former Vancouver Police deputy chief Doug LePard. Legislature financial reports show that Lenz’s department saddled taxpayers with $1.7 million in overtime costs over five years.

RCMP detectives, overseen by two special prosecutors, have been investigating allegations of corruption for the last year. Some of the first charges being considered relate to the infamous wood splitter and purchases of liquor for personal use, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

So Speaker Darryl Plecas and his Chief of Staff Alan Mullen are puzzled why they are still the focus of critical media reports.

“I have no doubt where all of this is going to land because, as I’ve said before, I’m not able to say everything I know, but I do know where it’s going,” Plecas said in the second part of an exclusive interview with theBreaker.news, his first since the release of Auditor General Carol Bellringer’s Sept. 19 report. (Watch the video below.)

“There will be a day of accountability, the taxpayers can be assured of that. It’s a rough ride now, it’s a rough ride for my family, it’s the non-stop beating all of the time, it’s the pointing of the finger to the speaker, the ‘big, bad speaker.’ I guess I would ask, too, when all of that happens, can they identify one single thing that the speaker has done wrong? Is there something, did the auditor find I did something wrong? Has anybody else got reason to confirm that I’ve done something wrong? Let’s hear it, let’s get it out there. But that hasn’t happened. I’m hoping we can get past this set of circumstances we’ve had up until now.”

Suspended Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz (BC Leg)

For example, he points to an unsigned, July 19 Times Colonist editorial, that claimed Mullen’s fact-finding tour of legislatures in Canada and the U.S. was an effort to investigate Lenz.

“I’m wondering where they got that information from, because nothing could be further from the truth,” Plecas said. “What on earth would site visits enable you to learn anything to do with Mr. Lenz’s behaviour at the [Legislature]?”

Plecas called Auditor General Carol Bellringer’s Sept. 19-released audit “a disappointment.” He listed the reasons in part one.  There are other investigations to come, such as LePard’s about Lenz, a forensic expert’s analysis of forgery of Plecas’s signature and Plecas’s own report about the whistleblowers who suffered under James and Lenz’s management.

“I want them to know they can take it to the bank, I will not rest until their stories get out there and justice is done,” Plecas said.

Plecas said he would also demand an independent IT audit, after evidence went missing from Legislature computers.

He said the RCMP and special prosecutors are doing a careful, diligent job, but he hopes the process will not take as long as it did to lay charges after a theft from Chilliwack BC Liberal MLA John Martin’s office. Charges of fraud over $5,000 and breach of public trust were finally announced last week, two-and-a-half years after Martin aide Desmond Michael Devnich was fired.

“It’s disturbing, really, how the wheels of justice move so slowly,” Plecas said. “This is not helpful to taxpayers either.”

The wheels of legislative change can move quicker. The NDP government promised in last February’s throne speech to let the ombudsperson, merit commissioner and the information and privacy commissioner have jurisdiction at the Legislature. The latter is key, as the Legislature is an anomaly because it was excluded from the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

“Even on the matter of financial controls, a cleverly deceptive person can even find a way around policy, so it requires more than that, it requires an eagle eye. It requires people to be digging and my point would be that since I started this thing, at every point people said quit digging, quit digging, you’re wrong in the manner you did it, and it’s disheartening,” Plecas said.

“For taxpayers, boy are they getting cheated. They are hardly well-served. I wish it could be different, but lots has to happen. I think before I leave, and I know there are lots of people who had hoped that’s yesterday, and if I wasn’t so concerned about getting this fixed, I would agree with them. I do want to see it through to legislative change and I’m hoping that can happen in the next year.”

WATCH and SHARE Part 2 of theBreaker.news exclusive interview with Darryl Plecas below. 

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Bob Mackin The ex-clerk of the B.C. Legislature,

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Never before has a cocktail party at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention sparked so much controversy.

But this is not your ordinary cocktail party.

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West (Mackin)

The People’s Republic of China is celebrating 70 years of Communist Party rule. The local consulate paid $6,000 to be a sponsor so that it could host a reception on Sept. 25 at the Fairmont Waterfront Centre hotel for politicians and bureaucrats. 

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West is outspoken in opposition and is leading a boycott. Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart will not be there, but Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie will, if his schedule permits.

West said elected officials, first and foremost, owe a duty to their citizens to not be lobbied by foreign interests. That the only foreign government doing so at the UBCM convention is China is the tipping point. 

Speaker Darryl Plecas (Mackin)

“We have an organization that is comprised of mayors and city councillors from across the province of British Columbia, and that organization takes a cheque from the government of China in exchange for providing the government of China access to B.C. mayors and city councillors, I think what we have there is a gross violation of what our responsibilities and duties are,” West said in an interview with theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin.

“China is engaged in a number of actions that are completely hostile to Canadian national interests, the interests of our citizens. And beyond that China is without rival the worst human rights abuser in the world.”

Listen to the full interview with West. Also an excerpt from theBreaker.news exclusive, in-depth interview with Darryl Plecas, the Speaker of the B.C. Legislature, in reaction to the first report by Auditor General Carol Bellringer into the scandal at the Legislature.

Plus, on this special 100th edition, highlights of the Nov. 5, 2017 debut and hear how the world media reacted last week to Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s shocking 2001 blackface incident.

Click below to listen or go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe. 

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

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theBreaker.news Podcast: Special 100th edition, featuring Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West and B.C. Speaker Darryl Plecas
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Never before has a cocktail party at

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Bob Mackin

In part one of his first interview since the auditor general’s Sept. 19 report on the B.C. Legislature scandal, Speaker Darryl Plecas said he was “astounded” that Carol Bellringer did not conduct a forensic review or find any evidence of fraud.

Speaker Darryl Plecas (Mackin)

“I was a bit surprised that she explicitly stated that the clerk and sergeant-at-arms were cleared of wrongdoing in the McLachlin investigation, they’d already been cleared. I thought, whoa, for an auditor general to say that is a bit surprising. The auditor general is taking a cue from someone who is not an auditor,” Plecas told theBreaker.news on Sept. 20 [watch the video below]. “ I’m not worried where it is going to land, at the end of the day. I come back to knowing absolutely there was fraud and it’s gone unnoticed, I don’t blame [retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley] McLachlin for that. It absolutely boggles me that the auditor general wouldn’t have picked that up. I guess we’ll have to wait now until the police do their thing.”

The interview was exactly 10 months after the day when Clerk Craig James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz were immediately suspended indefinitely with pay and ejected from the Legislature because of an RCMP investigation, with two special prosecutors, into corruption. The two men claimed they did no wrong and wanted their jobs back, but James retired in disgrace in May instead of facing certain firing after McLachlin found he committed misconduct in purchasing goods for personal use with taxpayer funds. Lenz remains on the public payroll, but is facing an investigation under the Police Act by former Transit Police chief and Vancouver Police deputy chief Doug LePard.

Bellringer found policies either did not exist or were not followed, and there was no violation reporting mechanism to the Legislative Assembly Management Committee, the all-party oversight committee. LAMC had originally endorsed Plecas’s proposal to find an auditor general from another province, but the committee did an about-face to let Bellringer handle the task.

Plecas said he was surprised by what ended up being Bellringer’s report, because he was under the impression right from the beginning that it would be a forensic audit. Plecas was also disappointed that Bellringer’s report looked only at 2016 to 2018, rather than going back to 2012 to pick-up where previous Auditor General John Doyle left-off; Doyle blasted the Legislative Assembly for secrecy and financial incompetence.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer

“I had meetings with the auditor and her staff where I called attention to matters which I thought were criminal, had specific discussions about that,” he said. “I had lots of reason, some of which is indicated in my first report, I had lots of reason to think there was untoward activity, unusual. I think the auditor general was quoted as saying she found nothing unusual and nothing which would indicate any kind of criminal wrongdoing and any kind of fraud. I just have to say that boggles me. I’ve seen what I describe as full-blown fraud, with my own two eyes, discussed it with other people and ultimately turned it over to police. I’m just astounded there was no wrongdoing found there.”

As theBreaker.news reported exclusively, Bellringer did not consider the allegation in Plecas’s January report that James did not declare the purchase of goods or pay duty and taxes on them when he traveled. The lack of receipts from Canada Border Services Agency tends to confirm that and James and Lenz were both silent on that allegation when they submitted rebuttals to Plecas’s report in February. James and Lenz’s lawyers also did not respond to queries on the issue from theBreaker.news. 

Plecas did, however, agree with Bellringer’s finding about lack of policies and procedures. He wondered why such a gap that existed over seven years under James was rapidly filled within months by his interim replacement, acting clerk Kate Ryan-Lloyd.

“I would say that finding is worse than any other finding we could’ve come up with. Anybody who understands corruption and corruption in organizations would say that is nothing short of a candy store for corruption,” Plecas said.

Speaker Darryl Plecas (Mackin)

“If you want to facilitate, enable, allow people to do things, engage in untoward behaviour, what better way to do it than have no policies at all, so that one can say, at the end of the day, there’s certainly no criminal behaviour here because there’s been no violation of policy.

“Remarkably the minute the leadership changes, the minute we have a new clerk literally with in a matter of a few months, we have a whole series of policies and I have to commend the acting clerk [Ryan-Lloyd] on the spectacular job she’s done in putting that all together so quickly. How is it possible to do that so fast literally in a  couple of months when you could go seven years and not have one, with all the oversight. Where were the people who should’ve been saying excuse me, you don’t have any policies, excuse me, you don’t have any safeguards?”

Plecas said his chief of staff, Alan Mullen, is working on a report after touring various provincial and state legislatures during the summer. The trip, budgeted for $10,000, went $3,000 over and that caused a media furore. Plecas said Mullen’s trip would have cost more by air, instead of rental car, or if it had been contracted to one of the Big Four accounting firms. Its value for money will be self-evident when it is released, he said.

Plecas wonders why there was not equal, if not greater, outrage among members of the press gallery over policing overtime waste at the Legislature.

Gary Lenz (left), ex-speaker Linda Reid and Craig James (Commonwealth Parliamentary Association)

“The concern was not about this overtime situation, which, by the way, will be told through Mr. Mullen’s report, is remarkably different than most places. How different is it? We spent $1.7 million [on overtime in the last five years]. Most other legislatures didn’t spend a dime.”

Meanwhile, Plecas said he will be asking for an audit of the Legislature’s IT system, which has hindered RCMP detectives gathering evidence against James and Lenz.

“One of the things I was wildly criticized for was wanting images of hard drives, well I did that because we had numerous instances where we couldn’t access information. We had information stolen from the legislature, I don’t get into the details of that, it’s been turned over to the police. Information stolen: We were not able to fully fill production order requests from the police. This is disturbing,” Plecas sad.

“On the last day of the [spring session of the] house [May 30], almost every member of the opposition stood up, one after another and said I was wrong. At some point we have to ask, what is the goal here? My goal is to say I want to make sure that the legislature, the administrative side of the legislature, runs as efficiently and effectively as possible. That’s one task. The other task is asking well, how on earth did it ever get to a place where it’s not? If you put it all together collectively and say gee, you have problems with your IT system, you have no policies, I think a person ought to be saying what is going on here?”

WATCH and SHARE Part 1 of theBreaker.news exclusive interview with Darryl Plecas below. 

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Bob Mackin In part one of his first

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

The British Columbia Auditor General’s first report on the Legislative Assembly spending scandal was not the forensic audit that Speaker Darryl Plecas asked for.

Carol Bellringer also did not consider a key allegation of fraud contained in Plecas’s bombshell January report on corruption in the offices of the clerk and sergeant-at-arms.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer

Instead, her office focused on policies and procedures when it examined 4,700 transactions worth $2.2 million. Bellringer concluded there were no “unusually or potentially fraudulent transactions that needed to be referred to police.”

“When the word forensic audit is used in conversation, I’m not always sure what people are meaning by it, because it is a specific term used when you’re putting those sorts of files together,” Bellringer told reporters in a conference call. “You have to have something to look into before you do so.”

But, as theBreaker.news pointed out, there really was something to look into.

In his report, Plecas wrote about a December 2017 conversation that he had with Clerk Craig James. James suddenly retired in May after former Supreme Court of Canada chief justice Beverley McLachlin found he had used taxpayers’ money to buy personal items.

“When we were preparing to fly home [from the United Kingdom], I commented that I had bought quite a bit of scotch and that it was likely to cost me a fair sum in duties,” Plecas wrote. “Mr. James replied along the lines of, ‘do as I do — don’t declare anything’. I didn’t take that advice, and I was struck by the brazenness of that comment.”

In their February reply, both James and Sgt.-at-Arms Gary Lenz were silent on the issue of their lack of declaration of imported goods and payment of related duties and taxes. In March, Canada Border Services Agency would neither confirm nor deny it is investigating the duo.

Clerk Craig James (right) and Speaker Darryl Plecas (left) meeting in London with Akbar Khan of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in 2017 (BC Leg/Twitter)

Asked about the omission from her performance audit, Bellringer replied: “Is that in the original speaker’s report?”

“Anything that was included in the Speaker’s report we left into the context of whatever they were choosing to do with the investigation by Beverley McLachlin and her team, so that was the first reason we didn’t,” Bellringer said. “We have not gone back to the Speaker’s report to see if there are additional items when we were doing this work. It doesn’t mean we would not consider doing it, but there is also a police investigation underway, the RCMP looking at certain matters as well as the Police Act [investigation of Lenz]. I’m not privy to, I know some things about that, but I do not know what they’re looking at or until those reports come out I don’t know if the matters you’re referring to have been covered or not.”

Bellringer admitted that Ken Ryan-Lloyd, husband of acting clerk Kate Ryan-Lloyd, still works in the Office of the Auditor General, where he is manager of compliance, controls and research. Bellringer said she took efforts to avoid a conflict of interest.

“It is so broad and so open-ended the we needed to start somewhere and figure out what we needed to understand as to what was going on at the assembly. This is the first in a series of reports, we didn’t decide to do this and stop.”

The all-party Legislative Assembly Management Committee, Bellringer said, dropped the ball in overseeing the speaker, clerk and sergeant-at-arms. Policies that were in place were not always followed, documentation was unclear, and spending often happened without appropriate approval or a clear business purpose. She said her next reports on the Legislature will focus on purchasing cards, fixed assets, compensation and benefits and governance. 

Bellringer successfully lobbied LAMC for the assignment, after the committee had originally planned to seek an out-of-province forensic audit.

In a prepared statement, Plecas expressed surprise that Bellringer did not conduct a forensic audit. While satisfied that she found “failure of leadership and trust by senior non-elected leadership of the Legislative Assembly,” Plecas was unhappy that she did not examine spending all the way back to 2011, the year when the BC Liberals appointed James. Nonetheless, he said, the Legislative Assembly accepted all nine recommendations.

Suspended Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz (BC Leg)

“On my instructions, new policies on employee travel, uniforms and gifts and honoraria have been explicitly extended to my office,” Plecas wrote. “The full implementation of all audit report recommendations will be completed in the months ahead.

“More work is needed to address the remaining issues in my January 21 report, but we are on the right track as we work toward a new governance framework, more effective oversight of Assembly administration and further reforms to administrative policies.”

Lenz remains suspended-with-pay pending the results of a Police Act investigation by former Vancouver Police deputy chief Doug LePard.

On Nov. 20, 2018, James and Lenz were suddenly and unanimously suspended with pay by lawmakers and escorted out of the building. The public quickly learned that the RCMP and two special prosecutors were investigating evidence gathered by Plecas. James and Lenz claimed they did no wrong.

A source familiar with the RCMP investigation, but not authorized to comment publicly, exclusively told theBreaker.news that reports have been forwarded to special prosecutor David Butcher for potential charge approval regarding James’s purchase of a wood splitter that he took home and various liquor transactions.

Meanwhile, a former constituency office aide to Chilliwack BC Liberal MLA John Martin was charged Sept. 19 with two counts of fraud over $5,000 and two counts of breach of public trust.

Desmond Michael Devnich is scheduled to appear Oct. 8 in Chilliwack Provincial Court, accused of offences between June 25, 2013 and Feb. 27, 2017. Special prosecutor Robin McFee has been on the case for two-and-a-half years.

In March 2017, Martin said that an employee had admitted to theft of tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money and was fired. 

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Bob Mackin The British Columbia Auditor General’s first

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin 

The day after the anniversary of Justin Trudeau’s attempt to convince then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to quash a corruption prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, the Liberal leader was facing crisis on the campaign trail.

Justin Trudeau’s yearbook embarrassments (Brebeuf/West Point Grey)

Yearbook photographs had emerged earlier on Sept. 18 of Trudeau in blackface at a Montreal high school talent show and in brownface under a turban as a high school drama teacher in Vancouver.

“I was extremely disappointed, it’s awful,” Wilson-Raybould told reporters after a campaign rally at the Hellenic auditorium in her Vancouver-Granville riding. “When I first saw it I didn’t think it was real. But I would say that I am incredibly proud to be an indigenous person in this country, one that has experienced racism and discrimination and it’s completely unacceptable for anybody in a position of authority or power to do something like that.”

The brownface photograph from 2001 was the year after filmmaker Spike Lee’s feature Bamboozled sparked a debate over blackface and the portrayal of people of colour in pop culture. 

In 2000, the year before Trudeau’s Vancouver yearbook photograph, a debate raged in the U.S. and Canada over blackface in the history of popular entertainment after filmmaker Spike Lee explored the topic in his feature Bamboozled.

Wilson-Raybould was joined at the rally by another independent, her former Liberal caucus-mate Jane Philpott. Philpott, who is running in Markham-Stouffville, called the image of Trudeau “highly disturbing.”

“The act of racism as well as the fact it’s been hidden all these years, those were concerning things. the position of prime minister is a position of high esteem and we expect the versify best of our leaders,” Philpott said. 

Ex-Liberal Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould (waving) joined fellow independent candidate Jane Philpott and Green Party leader Elizabeth May at a Sept. 18 Vancouver rally (Mackin)

Green Party leader Elizabeth May was a surprise guest at Wilson-Raybould’s rally, billed a Night of Independents. May said if the photographs had portrayed a candidate other than the party leader, the Liberals would have ejected the candidate.

“The distraction value of this worries me in a democracy, we should be talking about the issues,” May said. “It’s a different matter when it is the prime minister who is in a photo that is clearly racist and offensive at every level. I hope that he can demonstrate, not just contrition, but explain how anyone already a high school teacher could fail to see that was racist.”

Asked if Trudeau is a racist, May replied: “He, at that point in his life, I think you’d have to say he was unconsciously racist. I would not say today the man I know is a racist, but I could not have imagined that photo either.”

On the Liberal campaign charter jet, Trudeau told reporters that he should not have painted his face and should have known better. “I’m really sorry,” he said.

For May, that was not enough. 

“He’s apologized now for a photo taken a stone’s throw from here at West Point Grey Academy. He’s not apologized for pressuring the attorney general and committing an ethical breach that is a significant and serious offence this year,” May said. “I’d like to hear an apology for that.”

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Bob Mackin  The day after the anniversary of

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