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Bob Mackin

The first police force in British Columbia that could be disbanded in the pandemic era is the one at the Parliament Buildings.

The $13,000 review of security at the British Columbia Legislative Assembly that bothered the opposition BC Liberals last summer recommends saving $1 million by transforming the Legislative Assembly Protective Services (LAPS) into a security department.

Alan Mullen, special advisor to Speaker Darryl Plecas, with the damning report on the suspended officials (Mackin)

Alan Mullen, chief of staff to Speaker Darryl Plecas, took a fact-finding road trip to nine other legislatures in North America and came back to write a 55-page report to the Legislative Assembly Management Committee (LAMC) called “Review of the Sergeant-at-Arms Department and Proposals for Reform.”

Mullen submitted the report in January — 51 weeks after Plecas’s bombshell report about corruption in the offices of the clerk and sergeant-at-arms. It was presented to LAMC at a closed-door meeting, but has yet to be made public. The all-party committee most-recently met on June 16.

Mullen’s report was ahead of its time. Protests against police brutality that erupted last month after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis have led to a campaign to defund police forces. In B.C., solicitor general and NDP house leader Mike Farnworth has pledged to review and reform the 45-year-old Police Act.

theBreaker.news has seen a copy of Mullen’s review and it recommends the position of sergeant-at-arms be downgraded to a ceremonial role, with security and facilities maintenance overseen by others. Mullen also recommends the LAPS become a security department.

“Legislative Assembly Protective Services officers are generally overqualified for the vast majority of the work they do,” Mullen wrote. “That department has grown according to a ‘police force’ model, which is not necessary when compared to operational requirements.”

LAPS has 38 uniformed special constables, who are armed with pistols, 26 sessional officers and seven unarmed civilian screeners. The force with jurisdiction over just 5.9 hectares near Victoria’s Inner Harbour cost $5 million of the $5.7 million sergeant-at-arms budget in 2018-2019. Last year, the Sergeant-at-Arms office cost $6.13 million.

Legislative Assembly Protective Services badges (Leg.BC.ca)

By comparison, Oak Bay taxpayers spent $4.7 million for 23 officers to police the community of 19,228 in 2018. Central Saanich had a slightly smaller population, but its 23-member force cost just over $5 million that year.

LAPS officers work rotating 12-hour shifts, on a four days on, four days off regime, but collectively pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime wages annually. Since 2014, total LAPS overtime costs have exceeded $1.8 million. In 2018-19, total salaries and benefits cost $4.66 million.

“In addition to the financial consequences of high staff overtime, there is of course a human consequence: regular overtime by definition represents a greater burden on employees than their role is designed to entail,” Mullen wrote. “Where that becomes the norm, it may lead to higher risk of burnout or other adverse consequences for the individual. Particularly in security roles, it is important to ensure staff are having adequate time off.”

The report said not all staff need to be armed, or even need to be special provincial constables. Policing could be handled by external partner agencies, while security handled in-house. Overtime pay could be reduced by staffing according to need, “as appropriate for when the House is or is not in session, as well as for day and night shifts.”

The result, the report said, would save British Columbia taxpayers $1 million a year without compromising security.

Mullen also recommended that an external consultant should be hired to help the transition to an optimal, as opposed to constant, staffing model.

Police enter the Parliament Buildings on March 5 (Mackin)

The vast majority of incidents requiring LAPS to respond did not require specialized training. In 2018, the report said, there were 72 Criminal Code incidents, but 2,140 general occurrence incidents, including protests and demonstrations (135), consumption of drugs or liquor (129) and urinating in public (9).

A majority of LAPS members are 55 or older and 31 of 38 members are male. The civilian staff work closely with LAPS, but are not part of the special provincial constables group.

LAPS already has a memorandum of understanding with the Victoria Police department, that makes the local municipal force responsible for criminal investigations and it pays $50,000-a-year to the VicPD. LAPS has agreements with the RCMP, Policing and Security Branch of the Solicitor General and Independent Investigations Office.

LAPS called-in VicPD officers during Shut Down Canada anti-pipeline protests in February and March. On March 5, VicPD arrested five protesters when they reneged on a promise to leave after meeting inside the Parliament Buildings with NDP indigenous relations minister Scott Fraser and Green interim leader Adam Olsen. The Indigenous Youth for Wet’suwet’en protest camp, in defiance of a court injunction, packed up the next day.

“The Legislative Assembly already accesses intelligence, specialized assistance and advice that allow it to save the high costs of developing and maintaining those functions internally. For a precinct that is located within a major city, that makes a great deal of sense financially and functionally, and it would be a relatively small step to further strengthen those relationships and functionalities to allow for a realignment of LAPS back to a Government Security Service as opposed to being modelled along the lines of a police force.”

Washington State Capitol in Olympia (State of Washington)

Mullen visited capitols in seven U.S. states (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin), Parliament Hill in Ottawa and the Saskatchewan legislature in Regina.

The sergeant-at-arms roles in the U.S. were found to be largely ceremonial. For instance, Washington has a director of security who, while the state house is in session, takes on the role of sergeant-at-arms including ceremonial duties. The role in Washington does not include facilities maintenance. The position is hired, as opposed to elected or appointed.

Greg Nelson is the second acting sergeant-at-arms since Gary Lenz was suspended in November 2018 along with Clerk Craig James. James and Lenz both retired in disgrace last year and are under investigation by the RCMP.

B.C.’s sergeant-at-arms was paid $226,467 in 2018-19, the highest-known in Canada (excluding Quebec, P.E.I. and Yukon, which do not publish public sector salaries). By comparison, the chief of police in Victoria, with 245 officers, was paid $218,000 in 2017 and the chief in Oak Bay $170,596 in 2018.

Retired-in-disgrace Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz (BC Leg)

“There is no reason for the ceremonial, security, and facilities responsibilities at the Legislative Assembly to be assigned to the same person,” Mullen wrote. “British Columbia should follow the lead of Quebec and some of the American jurisdictions surveyed, and divide the roles to allow better specialization and expertise within each.”

Mullen’s report was reviewed by the government’s chief security officer Paul Stanley and Doug LePard, the former deputy chief of the Vancouver Police who wrote the damning Police Act investigation that sparked Lenz’s resignation last fall.

Except for recent protests, the Legislature grounds have seen few major crime incidents. The Canada Day 2013 pressure cooker bomb plot was actually an RCMP sting operation in which the two suspects, John Nuttall and Amanda Korody, were entrapped and their addictions and mental health exploited by police. Their convictions were overturned and B.C. Court of Appeal called it a “travesty of justice.”

Victoria Police officers famously hauled away bankers boxes of documents from the Parliament Buildings in late December 2003 as part of a police raid in the early days of the investigation of the BC Rail bribery scandal.

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Bob Mackin The first police force in

Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

Training for municipal police officers in British Columbia is inadequate, according to a pair of reports obtained by theBreaker.news that were submitted to the provincial government.

Cover of the 2018 German/Rolls report.

The Needs Assessment report to the Municipal Chiefs of Police Association (MCPA) in 2017 deemed the province’s police academy at the New Westminster-headquartered Justice Institute of B.C. “not adequately financed for today’s policing environment, considering the challenges of mental health, other social issues, and the current drug crisis.”

At the time, JIBC was chaired by a B.C. Lottery Corporation executive who was fired in 2019 after the NDP government green-lit the Cullen Commission into money laundering.

“In no way are we preparing our recruits adequately,” said the Needs Assessment report co-written by Peter German, the former head of the RCMP in Western Canada, and Bob Rolls, the former Vancouver Police deputy chief and founding member of the Surrey Police board.

The report recommended a followup to examine governance, funding and best practices. In 2018, Rolls and German co-wrote We Must Do Better after reviewing eight police academies including Washington State, Toronto and the RCMP Academy, Canada’s largest.

Justice Institute of B.C.’s New Westminster headquarters campus (JIBC)

They found “each of the academies visited is better able to provide the training required for police recruits than is currently available at the BCPA” and they found governance for municipal police training in B.C. to be “convoluted and ineffective.”

“Policing is an increasingly complex profession, with officers on the front line dealing with the current overdose epidemic, mental illness, homelessness and other difficult societal issues,” they wrote. “Police officers are expected to respond with sensitivity and restraint. There is an expectation that they will have the knowledge, skills and tools available to provide the very best possible outcome, while minimizing the risk to the public. There is no tolerance for excessive force.”

The report cited the 2014 shooting deaths of three RCMP officers in Moncton, N.B. and the finding that the RCMP violated the labour code for failing to adequately outfit and train officers.

“British Columbia must never allow its police or its citizens to be unsafe due to inadequate police training,” said the We Must Do Better report.

Anti-money laundering expert Peter German.

The reports did achieve some action, as the NDP government granted the police academy a one-time infusion of $500,000 from the Solicitor General’s ministry and $300,000 from the Ministry of Advanced Education for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. A working group was struck to explore a new long-term funding model.

The police academy is a core program at the JIBC, which ran a $52.68 million budget in 2018-2019, including $21.58 million from B.C. taxpayers and $13.85 million from tuition fees. The provincial government, municipalities and recruits contribute to training costs at the academy.

JIBC also took in $1.77 million in international tuition and contracts, such as the hosting of 280 students from nine People’s Republic of China police colleges over two terms at the Chilliwack campus. 

Ex-Justice Institute of B.C. chair Robert Kroeker, 2nd from left, flanked by BC Liberal MLAs. (JIBC)

The province’s contribution included $2.27 million from the police services budget. 

There were 146 full time equivalent police academy students of the 3,507 enrolled during the year. 

In October 2018, Kroeker resigned as chair. Kroeker was vice-president of security at B.C. Lottery Corporation after holding a similar position at River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, the epicentre of the province’s money laundering scandal.

Langley lawyer Sukhminder Singh Virk took over as chair. Kroeker was fired by BCLC in July 2019 and was granted participant status in the Cullen Commission on money laundering to allow his lawyer to cross-examine witnesses.

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Bob Mackin Training for municipal police officers in

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

While U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a lengthy dinner in Buenos Aires at the G-20 summit in 2018, Canadian authorities in Vancouver arrested Meng Wanzhou, writes former national security adviser John Bolton.

In his book, “The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir” [Simon and Schuster], Bolton recounts that he had heard the day before that Meng might be arrested when she landed in Vancouver.

“Because this arrest was based on our case of financial fraud against Huawei for, among other things, concealing massive violations of our Iran sanctions, it struck me as straightforward. Things were busy in Buenos Aires, to say the least, and I had learned enough watching Trump with [Turkey’s] Erdogan to understand I needed to have all the facts in hand before I briefed Trump.”

According to Bolton, Trump raised Meng’s arrest at the Dec. 7 White House Christmas dinner and mentioned the pressure now on China.

Trump, always fond of nicknames, even had one for Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder and former People’s Liberation Army engineer Ren Zhengfei.

“He said to me across the table that we had just arrested ‘the Ivanka Trump of China.’ I came within an inch of saying, ‘I never knew Ivanka was a spy and a fraudster,’ but my automatic tongue-biting mechanism kicked in just in time. What Wall Street financier had given Trump that line? Or was it Kushner, who had been engaged in a mutual courtship on China matters with Henry Kissinger since the transition?” Bolton wrote.

Bolton also mentioned the hostage-taking of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor by China in retaliation for the Meng arrest and Canada’s weak response.

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

“We had to admit we were all late to realize the full extent of Huawei’s strategy, but that was not an excuse to compound our earlier mistakes. Even as we discussed these issues, China was showing its teeth, unlawfully detaining Canadian citizens in China, just to show they could. Canada was under great domestic pressure, which [Justin] Trudeau was having difficulty resisting. Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, never a friend of the U.S., was arguing that Canada should simply not abide by our extradition treaty. Pence, Pompeo, and I all urged Canada to stand firm, stressing we would support them every way we could, including directly raising with China the mistreatment of Canadian citizens. As we pointed out, this was the way China behaved even as some people continued to praise its ‘peaceful rise’ as a ‘responsible stakeholder.’ How would China act as it became dominant, if we let it? This is a national-security debate that will go on well into the future. Tying it to trade degrades our position both in trade and in national security.”

Bolton further wrote that he disagreed with Trump about Huawei. While Trump called it China’s biggest telecom, Bolton considered it arm of Chinese intelligence services. He complained that Trump was appeasing China and wondered what it would take to get him back on a more aggressive approach.

John Bolton, beside Donald Trump. (The Room Where It Happened/Simon & Schuster)

“Trump made matters worse on several occasions by implying that Huawei also could be simply another U.S. bargaining chip in the trade negotiations, ignoring both the significance of the criminal case and also the far larger threat Huawei posed to the security of fifth-generation (or 5G) telecom systems worldwide. This is what the black-hole-of-trade phenomenon did in twisting all other issues around Trump’s fascination with a big trade deal. Huawei posed enormous national-security issues, many of which we could only allude to in public statements.”

Bolton alluded to friction inside the administration, with economic policy advisers considering Huawei a competitor, not a security threat. He said he also warned Trump of the debt trap of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aimed to hook Third World Nations with attractive credit for major infrastructure projects.

Other world leaders, such as Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, took a hawkish view of China, Bolton wrote.

“Abe encouraged Trump to maintain U.S. -Japan unity against China, and much more. This was how to conduct a strategic dialogue with a close ally. Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison was also clear-eyed, seeing Huawei pretty much the way I did, and New Zealand also took a surprisingly but gratifyingly hard line.”

When Xi and Trump spoke by phone on June 18, 2019, Bolton wrote that “Xi pressed hard on Huawei.”

“Trump repeated his point that Huawei could be part of the trade deal, along with all of the other factors being discussed. Xi warned that, if not handled properly, Huawei would harm the overall bilateral relationship. In an amazing display of chutzpah, Xi described Huawei as an outstanding private Chinese company, having important relations with Qualcomm and Intel. Xi wanted the ban on Huawei lifted, and said he wanted to work jointly with Trump personally on the issue, and Trump seemed amenable. He tweeted his delight at the call shortly after the two leaders hung up.”

Bolton wrote that he briefed Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin later and that Mnuchin said the president needed to be protected “on the Huawei stuff.”

Trump’s post-call Tweet.

“People thought he was trading national security for trade on ZTE, and if we allow him to do it again on Huawei, we’ll get the same kind of backlash, or worse.’ That was true then and remains true today.”

Bolton was Trump’s national security advisor for almost a year-and-a-half until last September. On June 20, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth rejected the White House bid to stop publication of Bolton’s book on national security grounds. The Trump administration argued it contains classified information.

Meng lost her first bid to thwart U.S. extradition proceedings on May 27, when a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled that the U.S. fraud charges are compatible with Canadian law, also known as double-criminality. A case management conference on June 23 in Vancouver is expected to set the schedule for the next phase of the extradition process.

Bolton’s book could become part of the proceedings, because Meng’s lawyers claim she is the victim of political interference by the White House.

Meng lives under a court-ordered curfew with round-the-clock security guards at a $13 million mansion on the same block as the U.S. Consul mansion.

 

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Bob Mackin While U.S. President Donald Trump

Miscellany, News, Opinion

For the week of June 21, 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed even bigger problems with Canada’s broken access to information system.

Canada’s Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard (OGGO)

Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard told the House of Commons committee on government operations that most offices responsible for processing freedom of information requests are closed. Public servants are working from home without access to secure networks, scanners and photocopiers.

“Let’s not forget, that access delayed is access denied,” Maynard told the all-party committee on a June 19 web conference.

Journalism professor Sean Holman (OGGO)

Listen to her presentation on this week’s edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, along with Sean Holman, a former B.C. investigative reporter who is now a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Holman is part of the ad hoc Canadian COVID-19 Accountability Group. It wants reforms to whistleblower protection and FOI laws within the context of the pandemic.

“During an emergency, the need for information accelerates,” Holman said.

The group wants the government to release government contracts and health and scientific reports unredacted within 15 days of creation. It also wants protection for those who report wrongdoing.

“We need to stop treating this as a partisan issue,” Holman said. “We need to treat this as an issue of democracy that should unify us all so that we can better serve the public and make better decisions as a country about some of the most pressing problems of our time.”

Plus commentary and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.

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The coronavirus pandemic has forced the folks at the Pacific National Exhibition to get innovative. 

The ban on mass-gatherings means the annual Fair won’t happen in August. But that hasn’t stopped the PNE from hosting physically distanced events under the Taste of the PNE banner. 

In May, a drive-thru mini donuts promotion. 

Now, on Father’s Day weekend, drive into Hastings Park for a full rack of ribs, poutine and/or macaroni and cheese to go.

Worth the price of admission, however, is a spin around the floor of the Pacific Coliseum for a show and shine like you’ve never seen before.

Drive where two Stanley Cups were contested, Winter Olympics medals were won in 2010 and Rock and Roll Hall of Famers have wowed audiences.

For more information and tickets, click here.

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Bob Mackin

A judge in Vancouver says a family law case can proceed in British Columbia Supreme Court between a rich landowner from China and his estranged wife, who is a former senior official in the Chinese Communist Party.

Justice Margot Fleming ruled on May 26 that she was not concerned that Bin Bin Tang was “forum shopping” in her dispute with Wei Chang. Tang had made an urgent application for a court hearing during the coronavirus pandemic, claiming urgent need for spousal support. Cheng wanted the case stayed.

Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)

“I do not regard proceeding in this forum as contrary to the fair and efficient working of the Canadian legal system as a whole,” Fleming ruled

“Having failed to demonstrate China provides an alternative forum, it is simply not possible for Mr. Cheng to establish that China is in a better position to dispose of the litigation fairly and more efficiently.”

Fleming’s decision said the parties were married in December 1991 in China and separated in October 2015. They have one son born in June 1994.

Tang claimed they accumulated assets worth $100 million while married, but Cheng estimated it to be in the range of $40 million to $48 million. Almost all of the assets are in China, except accounts in Hong Kong and Canada and a house worth nearly $4 million on the Andover Place cul-de-sac in West Vancouver’s posh British Properties.

In her affidavit, Tang said she worked in a senior position in China’s Ministry of Supervision, in the Communist Party’s powerful Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which is intended to stop graft inside the party.

In his sworn statement, Cheng described Tang’s position as Deputy Chief of the Chinese Communist Party.

In 2007, Tang and their son immigrated to Canada where he completed high school. Tang became a Canadian citizen.

CCP organization chart. (China.org)

The estranged couple could not agree where Tang lived from 2012 to 2014. Cheng claimed Tang returned to China in 2012 after her son went to study in New York. But Tang maintained that since 2014, she had been living at the house on Andover Place after overseeing its construction.

Cheng claimed that he shared a residence with Tang in Nantong City, China when they separated. Since then, she had been living in the same complex with her family.

According to Cheng, based on information from their son, Tang had only visited Vancouver for one or two months a year since their separation.

Tang’s most recent affidavit claimed she has lived regularly in West Vancouver since 2012, but is stranded in China for the time being and does not have the resources to live in West Vancouver unless she can obtain financial relief from Cheng.

The parties battled in court in China since 2016. Tang’s first of two divorce filings was dismissed because of the prospect of reconciliation. She claimed she discovered Cheng having an affair with another woman, with whom he fathered two children, and used family assets to provide them a luxurious lifestyle.

The parties went to trial in China over four days in 2017 and 2019. In November last year, Tang filed the family claim lawsuit in B.C. and was granted a restraining order. The Chinese court rendered its judgment on Dec. 25, 2019, but Tang claimed it would cost too much to translate all 33 pages.

Ambleside in West Vancouver (Mackin)

The divorce was granted and Tang awarded 70% of the disclosed real estate properties and bank accounts, “based on a finding Mr. Cheng had fraudulently transferred away or dissipated at least $15.5 million and committed adultery,” Fleming wrote.

“Mr. Cheng also deposes that the Chinese court reapportioned the Chinese family property largely in favour of Ms. Tang. He states she received approximately $42 million whereas he received less than $1 million, estimating her share at approximately 97% of the remaining net assets,” said Fleming’s judgment.

Tang was hospitalized and underwent back surgery in April and claims to suffer several conditions that cause daily pain. The 52-year-old also claimed to be too old to work in China, which mandates retirement for women from some jobs beginning at age 50.

Tang also claimed to have been out of the workforce for three decades, despite giving evidence that she had worked until 2007.

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For the week of June 14, 2020.

The expert testimony phase of the Cullen Commission inquiry into money laundering in British Columbia continued last week. Hear from two top criminology professors who weighed-in on a key anti-money laundering measure.

Transparency International has campaigned for a beneficial ownership registry in a bid to stop criminals from hiding who owns what. The B.C. NDP government is going to roll-out a beneficial ownership registry of real estate, through the Land Title and Survey Authority. But it wants to charge a $5 fee per search.

Professors Michael Levi (left) and Peter Reuter at the Cullen Commission.

“If we’re charging people for it, it’s sort of counterproductive,” said Prof. Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland.

Said Prof. Michael Levi of Cardiff University: “A public registry that is online and available to the public shouldn’t have any automatically any extra costs attached to it, in which case the argument for charging is weak. There is not much point in having a public register if it’s so expensive that people can’t use it.”

Hear the head of the RCMP’s criminal intelligence service, who told the inquiry that there are 1,850 known organized crime groups in Canada, 680 of which operate in B.C.

Chief Supt. Robert Gilchrist told the inquiry that B.C. and Ontario have high level networks of professional money launderers using underground banks, trade based money laundering, casinos and real estate to launder hundreds of millions of dollars gained through proceeds of crime.

RCMP’s Robert Gilchrist (Cullen Commission)

Meanwhile, a special committee pondering improvements to B.C.’s private sector access and privacy law, the Public Information Protection Act, heard from the head of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association that the law is more than a decade out of date and “a tweak isn’t going to fix this.”

Hear from Jason Woywada, who said citizens expect increased privacy protection and businesses are at risk without adequate laws.

Plus commentary and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.

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For the week of June 14, 2020.

Business, News, Sports

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

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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.

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

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theBreaker.news Podcast: Tribute to IntegrityBC's Dermod Travis
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For the week of June 7, 2020. A

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