The Dec. 1 Vancouver International Airport arrest of Meng Wanzhou, dubbed the “Huawei Princess” on Chinese social media, sparked a war of words.
Beijing has warned Canada and the United States, which ultimately wants to try her for fraud, of retaliation for jailing the telecom giant’s chief financial officer. Meng is also the daughter of the multinational company’s multibillionaire founder.
A Dec. 7 bail hearing that captured global attention included evidence of Meng’s past as a permanent resident of Canada. Her husband Liu Xiaozong is named on property records for two mansions in Vancouver’s richest neighbourhoods.
Meanwhile, the scandal at the B.C. Legislature unfolds, as Speaker Darryl Plecas emphatically defended calling-in the RCMP to investigate Clerk Craig James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz, who were suspended with pay on Nov. 20.
In a Dec. 6 Legislative Assembly Management Committee meeting, Plecas said he had a duty to taxpayers to do due diligence and the RCMP, aided by two special prosecutors, must not be subject to interference from the opposition BC Liberals.
Shortly after he was appointed speaker in September 2017, Plecas said he received information that he needed to act upon.
“I felt a great duty to safeguard the integrity of this institution and be very mindful about why we’re all here. That’s to make sure that public dollars are spent appropriately.”
Plecas has proposed a separate forensic audit of James and Lenz’s offices and he vowed to resign if the public does not share his disgust. Lawyers for James and Lenz have not responded for comment.
Hear highlights of the Legislative Assembly Management Committee.
A candidate in the last two Vancouver civic elections says nobody from his party has been invited to a meeting to discuss the lack of racial diversity on municipal councils.
Municipal Candidates for Racial Inclusion’s Cities of Colour is Dec. 8 at the Simon Fraser University Wosk Centre for Dialogue.
“The election results show a troubling absence of elected representatives from racially diverse groups despite large numbers of Black, Indigenous or Person of Color (BIPOC) people living in Metro Vancouver,” said the invitation. “This conspicuous demographic gap triggered social media commentary with the hashtag #CouncilSoWhite.”
Vancouver 1st 2018 election candidates
Jesse Johl, executive director of Vancouver 1st and a two-time unsuccessful city council candidate, said nobody in his party has heard of this group.
“We had the most-ethnically diverse slate,” Johl told theBreaker. “We had the only black, Jewish mayoral candidate running [Fred Harding]. We’ve got no invite.”
Johl said the conservative-leaning Vancouver 1st boasted the only slate that “reflected the faces of Vancouver.”
He said racism was not a factor in the outcome. Instead, the well-funded NPA and Vancouver District Labour Council-backed candidates prevented smaller parties and independents from a breakthrough.
Vancouver 1st’s Jesse Johl
Johl called the post-election #CouncilSoWhite hashtag “unacceptable” and was also critical of the group’s invitation. Municipal Candidates for Racial Inclusion suggests a $10 donation to attend, but states that any white or “non-BIPOC” candidates are not welcome on Dec. 8, because the group wants to “have a discussion amongst ourselves first.”
“If that was ‘council so yellow’ or ‘council so brown,’ would that be acceptable? How is something so blatantly racist so acceptable?” Johl asked.
“Martin Luther King said it best: judge a person by the content of their character, not by the colour of their skin. But we’ve gotten to this virtue-signalling, identity politics to the point where people can’t look past monickers, names and symbols. It’s crazy. People voted the way they voted, at the end of the day, big money, big union money, was the difference.”
The invitation did not include the name of the organizer or a contact phone number. Nobody responded by email for comment. Neither did the workshop facilitator, Natasha Aruliah.
NPA’s Ken Sim fell 957 votes shy of labour-backed independent Kennedy Stewart in the Vancouver mayoral race. Had Sim won, he would have been the city’s first mayor of Chinese heritage. Eight of the 10 city councillors elected are female, five of whom ran on the NPA ticket.
The Alouette Correctional Centre for Women is a long way from Mexico, where Meng Wanzhou was headed on Dec. 1.
Canadian police, acting on a request from American counterparts, arrested the 46-year-old after she arrived at Vancouver International Airport from Hong Kong.
The chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom giant that grossed $92 billion last year, finds herself in the provincial jail in Maple Ridge for another weekend while her lawyer fights for her bail to await an extradition hearing.
Meng Wanzhou at Russia Calling 2014 (RT)
Unbeknownst to Meng, daughter of multibillionaire Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, a judge in New York issued a warrant for her arrest on Aug. 22. She is wanted in the U.S. for fraud, after allegedly using an unofficial subsidiary, called Skycom, from 2009 to 2014 to act as a decoy so Huawei could do business in Iran, contrary to U.S. and European Union sanctions.
Meng’s lawyer, David J. Martin, told B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke in a Dec. 7 hearing that she will contest the U.S. allegation. In the meantime, he denied that she is a flight risk and he described how she leads a lifestyle that falls within what Vancouverites have come to know as an “astronaut family.”
“Her loyalty to her father, to Huawei and to China is such that she would never embarrass those entities, which has been said over and over again that Huawei is a national champion of China,” Martin told the court. “She would not flee, she would be an outcast in China if she did, she tells me her father would not recognize her, her colleagues would hold her in contempt, she would be a pariah.”
Martin said Meng — also known as Sabrina Meng and Cathy Meng — came to Vancouver 15 years ago and has a 10-year-old daughter with her husband, Xiaozong Liu. They bought houses in 2009 and 2016, in Dunbar and Shaughnessy, respectively. Only Liu’s name, however, is on the land title for the $16.3 million Matthews Avenue mansion (upper photo) and $5.6 million West 28th Avenue mansion (lower photo). Liu’s profession is identified on one deed as an “investor” and a “marketing developer” on the other. Both mansions are mortgaged by HSBC, the same bank Meng is accused of deceiving. Liu ignored a reporter who asked him for comment during the court’s lunch break.
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou’s husband, Liu Xiaozong, is the only person listed on the registrations for Vancouver mansions on Matthews (upper) and West 28th (lower). (Mackin)
The land registry says Liu bought the Matthews mansion in May 2016. It is on the same side of the street as the former William Shelly mansion, the official residence of United States Consul General since 1946. Google Maps measures the distance between the two properties at just 47 metres. The Liu house is under renovation by Trasolini Construction.
Strategically located, Chinese-owned real estate became a national security issue recently in New York City.
In August, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States forced the HNA Group Ltd. to sell a Manhattan building four blocks from Trump Tower. One of the HNA tenants was a New York Police Department office involved in protecting President Donald Trump. HNA bought 90% interest in 850 Third after Trump declared his candidacy in 2015, but before Trump won the election in 2016.
Gate of the United States Consul’s Vancouver residence, near the Liu Xiaozong-registered mansion (Mackin)
As for the other Liu-registered house, it is on the corner of West 28th and Crown. Vancouver Police attended the residence on Dec. 9 after a 9-1-1 call about a break-in at 5:30 a.m. Suspects fled the area after being challenged by someone in the house, Const. Jason Doucette told theBreaker. No one was injured or arrested.
“Officers have collected evidence from the scene and will make attempts to identify those responsible for the break-in,” Doucette said.
Meng had Canadian permanent resident status
Meng, Liu and their daughter normally live in Shenzhen, the world headquarters of Huawei. She also has sons aged 14, 16 and 20 from a previous marriage. One of them lives with his father in Hong Kong, while another attends private school in the Boston area.
Court heard that Meng used to be a permanent resident of Canada, but that status expired in 2009. She also held BC ID, CareCard and social insurance number identification cards. She now tries to spend two-to-three weeks every summer in Vancouver. Among the evidence Martin introduced were family photos, including one from August of this year in a Vancouver park with Liu’s parents.
Xiaozong Liu, Meng Wanzhou’s husband, outside the Law Courts (Mackin)
Federal Crown prosecutor John Gibb-Carsley said Meng is a flight risk, because of her extreme wealth and her habit of avoiding travel to the U.S. since Huawei was subpoenaed by a grand jury in April 2017. No amount of bail can have pull, because Meng has the resources to flee, he said. China, which she calls home, has no extradition treaty with Canada or the U.S.
“The allegation is Skycom is Huawei,” he said. Meng allegedly lied to banks about the subsidiary, in order to move money from Huawei out of countries subject to U.S. and EU sanctions, like Iran, Syria and Sudan.
Gibb-Carsley pointed to a Reuters story in early 2013 that revealed Huawei’s control of Skycom, and how it attempted to import U.S. computer equipment into Iran. He told the court that several banks asked Huawei after that story whether the allegations about Skycom and Iran were true.
“Ms. Meng, herself, made misrepresentations to those financial institutions in a form of damage control to the Reuters article,” he said.
The victim banks were “induced into carrying out transactions that they otherwise would not have completed; this violated the bank’s internal policies, potentially violated U.S. sanction laws and exposed the banks to risk of fines and forfeitures.”
If extradicted and tried in the U.S., Meng could face up to 30 years in jail.
Martin, however, said Meng has had no reason to travel to the U.S. AT&T reneged on an agreement to carry Huawei consumer products. Amid a trade war with China, the U.S. government banned bidders from using Huawei products.
“An entity would have to be tone deaf to not understand the the U.S. had become a hostile place for Huawei to do business and, in essence, the company had abandoned the U.S. market,” Martin said. “Not only Ms. Meng, but the other executives that the U.S. government points to that no longer travel to the U.S. have little reason to travel there.”
Martin proposed Meng would put her Vancouver real estate and cash forward as a surety, to ensure she doesn’t flee Canada while awaiting an extradition hearing. She would surrender her Hong Kong and China passports and welcome RCMP for random check-up visits while living in the Dunbar house under a round-the-clock surveillance regimen.
A publication ban was cancelled early in the hearing in the heavily secured courtroom built for the Air India bombing trial in 2002. Nearly all the 150 seats were filled, mainly by media from around the world.
Two men from the Chinese consulate sat in the front row, on the other side of an aisle from where Liu sat with Huawei executives, behind the prisoner’s dock. Liu and Meng gestured at each other when she entered, in relatively good spirits. Meng, dressed in a drab, dark green prison sweatshirt and pants, took sips from a paper cup while scribbling notes on a pad during the legal arguments.
Outside the Law Courts Dec. 7 during the Meng Wanzhou bail hearing (Mackin)
The hallway was filled with dozens of other curious onlookers who followed the proceedings on large TV screens. Court sheriffs kept busy warning exuberant Mandarin speakers to stop using their mobile phones to snap phtographs in the courthouse. Tech-savvy and fashionably dressed Chinese women in their 20s and 30s crowded the area around the doorway to get a glimpse of Meng, a rare female executive in a country where the inner circle of President Xi Jinping’s Communist administration is all male and few women occupy C-suites at the largest companies.
Court heard that Meng worked her way up from being a secretary at Huawei in 1993 to the deputy chair that she is today.
Unlike the U.S., where Huawei is feared to be part of China’s vast spying infrastructure, Canadian telecoms have embraced the aggressive marketer. Huawei is a research and development partner of Telus and funds a 5G development lab at the University of B.C.
Huawei is even a major advertiser on one of the nation’s dearest cultural institutions, Hockey Night in Canada.
He is Napoleon Gomez Urrutia and his name has been conspicuously absent from the debate over the electoral reform referendum in British Columbia, which ends at 4:30 p.m. Dec. 7.
Napoleon Gomez Urrutia: Out of Canadian exile and into the Mexican senate, thanks to proportional representation.
Gomez is a B.C. NDP donor who spent more than a decade in Metro Vancouver, as the leader-in-exile of Los Mineros, the biggest Mexican miners’ union. That is, until he returned to Mexico in Augustto assume a seat in the senate.
He was not elected, but appointed under that country’s mixed member proportional representation system after the July election of new president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the left-wing National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
Gomez became a Canadian citizen in 2014 and enjoyed the support of NDP-allied unions, such as USW and Unifor. Early this year, the Morena party leader added him to a list of potential senate appointees, depending on the popular vote.
For many years, Mexican authorities had sought Gomez’s extradition because they were pursuing him for allegedly embezzling US$55 million from a union trust. They gave up when the court refused their application. Efforts to recover the money continue in civil court.
Gomez has claimed he did no wrong. As a senator, anti-corruption is one of his main causes and he enjoys immunity.
Back to B.C., where the No Proportional Representation B.C. Society has tried to convince voters in the mail-in referendum that ending first past the post elections and adopting proportional representation would empower extreme right-wing parties, like those in Germany and Sweden. Never mind both countries are grappling with mass-migration from Africa and the Middle East and social unrest due to youth unemployment. Issues that wouldn’t easily be solved under first past the post.
Mexico has been largely ignored, even though it is the closest proportional representation jurisdiction to B.C.
A search of Tieleman and Anton’s Tweets finds no reference to the Gomez case.
Why would Tieleman, who is fond of wintertime siestas in Mexico, say anything bad about a man who was a darling of the Left Coast labour scene?
Why would Anton say anything bad about anyone in the mining industry? After all, Vancouver mining companies (including some with Mexican investments) shovelled millions of dollars to the BC Liberals before the NDP reformed campaign financing last year.
Gomez is still generating headlines in Mexico. On Nov. 26, Noventa Grados quoted Juan Luis Zuniga, a former Gomez collaborator who claimed the union blackmailed mining companies: pay $20 million, avoid a strike. Zuniga further alleged that he traveled north as a cash courier.
“We were the ones who made ‘mules’ to take money to Napoleon to Vancouver,” according to a translated quote attributed to Zuniga. “I, for example, went three or four times, each exit was $9,900, because you could not take more, we left four or five, with up to $50,000 of money for Napoleon.”
At the first Legislative Assembly Management Committee since the suspensions of the top two officials, the speaker, who chairs the committee, proposed full forensic audits and vowed to quit if the public is not outraged by the findings.
Very early in his tenure as speaker, Darryl Plecas told the committee on Dec. 6, “very serious concerns were brought to me about certain activities that were taking place within the Legislative Assembly. When I learned of this information, I felt a great duty to safeguard the integrity of this institution and be very mindful about why we’re all here. That’s to make sure that public dollars are spent appropriately.”
Speaker Darryl Plecas (bottom) vows to quit if the public is not outraged by a forensic audit of Craig James (left) and Gary Lenz.
Clerk Craig James and Sergreant-at-Arms Gary Lenz were suspended by the Legislature on Nov. 20 with pay, until further notice. The RCMP had been investigating since the summer and two special prosecutors had been appointed Oct. 1.
No charges have been laid and the details of the allegations have not been made public. But sources tell theBreaker there was an allegation of corruption.
James and Lenz hired lawyers from the Fasken firm and public relations advisors from the Peak Communicators crisis communications company. James and Lenz claim they did no wrong and have asked for reinstatement.
Plecas said he is ultimately responsible for security at the Legislature and has a duty to taxpayers to pursue, with due diligence, any spending or financial impropriety. He hinted at other issues.
“[Taxpayers] would also want me to pay attention to the workplace environment and to make sure that people are treated fairly, etc,” Plecas told the committee. “And I can tell every single taxpayer out there: ‘Take it to the bank. I will be doing that every time. I will be doing due diligence.’ Call it investigation. Call it what you will. I will be doing that for every taxpayer.”
In response to BC Liberal house leader Mary Polak, Plecas was adamant that the investigation was justified and is so confident that he did the right thing, that he publicly put his job and reputation on the line.
The twice-elected Abbotsford South MLA, who is a criminology professor, quit the BC Liberal caucus to become speaker in September 2017. At the end of July 2017, he stood-up to ex-Premier Christy Clark at the first caucus retreat after the party lost power to the NDP, leading to Clark’s resignation.
James and Lenz’s lawyers, Mark Andrews and Gavin Cameron, have not yet responded for comment.
Listen to highlights of the Dec. 6 Legislative Assembly Management Committee meeting and read a transcript below.
BC Liberal house leader Mary Polak: I’d like to, then, ask some questions which I do not for a minute think impact on a criminal investigation. Those are related to the hiring of [former B.C. Supreme Court judge and BC Liberal Attorney General Wally] Oppal. I wanted to understand in what capacity Mr. Oppal has been hired. Where is Mr. Oppal’s salary coming from? Is it Vote 1? If it is Vote 1, under what authority was he hired? And maybe I might have a few questions after that, but we’ll start there.
Mr. Speaker: Well, Mr. Oppal is hired by the Speaker’s office, and I’m not prepared to disclose the details of that. He is legal counsel.
M. Polak: So he is legal counsel to your office or to you personally?
Mr. Speaker: To the office.
M. Polak: If he is legal counsel to your office, then there’s no reason the public can’t know about his hiring and what he’s being paid to do that.
Mr. Speaker: I’m not sure how to respond to that. I’m not sure that Mr. Oppal wants it on the record, of what his pay is.
M. Polak: Well, whether Mr. Oppal wants it or not is not really the question.
Mr. Speaker: Let me say this, because I know where we’re going here. You have one concern or another about my office. We all know that. We all know what’s really going on here.
Let me say this. I’m proposing that we have another LAMC meeting, and at that LAMC meeting I will give you a long laundry list of my concerns. I won’t be talking about the criminal investigation. I will talk about everything but the criminal investigation.
At that meeting, I will be proposing that we have a full audit, a full forensic audit, on the Speaker’s office — that is, my office — one on the Clerk’s office and one on the Sergeant-at-Arms office. You will get every detail of how much I spent. You want full disclosure. The public deserves full disclosure. Boy, are they going to get it.
I would say this — one more point I want to make to emphasize how important this is. I am completely confident — completely confident — that those audits will show that we have a lot of work to do here. If the outcome of those audits did not outrage the public, did not outrage taxpayers, did not make them throw up, I will resign as Speaker, and Mr. Mullen will resign as well.
This has gone on far enough. I’ve been reduced to a cartoon character. The press has focused on nothing but this issue since this first happened, solely on this issue. This is completely unfair. It certainly isn’t fair to a legislative employee, like Mr. Mullen. You all know that you are completely off base. Mr. Mullen was hired with a job description.
You also know, for the record, if I was really playing it right, I would add another $180,000 to my budget because I’m an independent, and I didn’t want to burden the taxpayers with that. So I’m asking Mr. Mullen to do two things.
Yes, I’m proposing we have another meeting, and I don’t want that in camera. I want all British Columbians to know. I want them to know what my concerns are, and I want them to know what Mr. Mullen was concerned about. I want that on the public record. I want everyone to know.
Again, I’ll emphasize: if there is one single thing about those audits — anything — that says there’s anything other than lots of things wrong, I promise you, I will resign as Speaker. That ought to be enough for you to say that I think we’re onto something here, and it needs to be fixed. And it needs to be fixed through the Speaker’s office because it hasn’t been fixed for years.
I don’t know what else to say.
M. Polak: Well, you could say this: if it’s possible for us to have a public LAMC meeting where you describe your concerns, and you either describe Mr. Mullen’s concerns or he describes them himself — I’m not sure what you intended…. If that’s possible without impacting the police investigation, why is it not possible to answer that question now?
Mr. Speaker: Because we thought, as a reasonable person would think: “Don’t be talking about anything so long as there’s a criminal investigation.” And if this hadn’t degenerated into a circus, which it is…. We’ve lost focus on what the issue is here.
All I’m doing is saying, as an elected official: “Oh, I think there’s something wrong here.” That’s all I did, and I’m being criticized for that. My office is being criticized. Previous Speakers have been criticized for not being attentive enough to the public purse. You will not be saying that about me at the end of my tenure.
I’d also say that the faster this audit can happen, the better. I’m sure it’s the wish of you and your colleagues that I get out of here as quickly as possible, so I’m willing to say: “Let’s make this fast. Let’s get this audit triple time. If this can be done next week, let’s do it.” Now, we know that it can’t be. I’m saying, let’s do this fast. Let’s not get back in February without any of this on the table.
This is also hurtful to this institution. We can’t be expected to run normal operations with these non-stop accusations of wrongdoing on behalf of the Speaker’s office, non-stop attacking of a legislative employee who’s simply doing his job.
I would ask you and everyone else: is there any one, single thing that Mr. Mullen has done wrong? I know what’s going to happen at the end of this. People are going to be cheering for Mr. Mullen, and they’re going to say: “Whatever you do here at the Legislature, don’t get rid of Mr. Mullen.”
M. Polak: Mr. Speaker, that may very well be the case. The challenge, of course, is that we don’t know. When we have asked about what it is that Mr. Mullen has undertaken, we are told no answers. We’re not given any answers. Far from making accusations, I am asking questions. All I have done here is ask questions.
But again, if it’s possible for you to schedule another LAMC meeting and in public provide, as you call it, your laundry list of concerns that you had and that Mr. Mullen had, then why is it not possible to discuss it at this meeting?
Mr. Speaker: Because, as a legal adviser would say, when I get into the details of that, I’d better be extraordinarily careful about how I say things. It’s part of why I was reading here.
This is an absolutely serious situation, and the last thing I’m ever going to be accused of is somehow interfering with a police investigation. I do not want any overlap with what’s going on with the police. I am not going to do that whatsoever.
I’m saying, and I propose, that this happen in mid-January. We have another meeting, and at that meeting, I will outline what my concerns are. And I am very confident that I won’t have to say it. All of you will be saying: “Let’s get that full forensic audit going.” What else can I say?
M. Polak: Just to be on the record, I have no problem…. In fact, I think it’s almost necessary for us to go back and take a look at the financials and how the offices have been operating — no problem with that at all.
But again, I haven’t heard an answer. Why is it that the questions I’ve been asking can’t be discussed, if you’re saying that actually they can — that these matters can be discussed in public? You’ve just said that’s possible, and yet I’ve been told I can’t ask my questions.
Mr. Speaker: Well, I’m not reading it that way, but let’s move on to Sonia.
[Green house leader Sonia] Furstenau: I think that given that you have committed to a follow-up meeting in which all of these questions can be canvassed, may I suggest that we actually have an important agenda ahead of us that we should be moving to?
A survey released Dec. 6 by a U.S.-based anti-bribery organization calls New Zealand the least-risky country in the world to do business.
The new edition of Trace International’s Bribery Risk Matrix graded 200 countries, using data aggregated from the United Nations, World Bank and World Economic Forum, and found 82 countries were moderate risk, 59 high risk and eight very high risk.
Trace found New Zealand had a total risk score of 5, while the worst, Somalia, had a 92 score. By domain, the best countries were New Zealand (opportunity for business interactions with government), Luxembourg (anti-bribery deterrence and enforcement), Sweden (government and civil service transparency) and Denmark (capacity for civil society oversight).
Canada was ninth with a 15 risk score. Also in the top 10 were Sweden (2), Norway (3), Denmark (4), Finland (5), Netherlands (6), United Kingdom (7), Germany (8) and Iceland (10). Other notable jurisdictions included Hong Kong (14), Australia (16), U.S. (18), Ireland (19), Japan (26), Russia (108) and China (151).
Europe was judged the least-risky continent, with a 32 average score. Africa was the riskiest, at 62. The average global score was 50.
The matrix ranks countries on four domains and nine subdomains and addresses the risk that companies will be asked for bribes within each country, rather than the conduct of the companies or citizens.
“The Trace Bribery Risk Matrix addresses an ongoing concern for companies doing business internationally: the possibility of being asked for a bribe by a foreign public official,” according to the organization. “Such a scenario can arise in countless ways, and the risk of it happening is affected by myriad factors. Confronting this complexity requires marshalling information about multiple facets of any prospective or ongoing business venture, including the people involved, the dynamics of the industry, and the degree of bribery risk specific to a given market, region, or country.”
What do two mining executives, an event planner and veteran restaurateur have in common?
They are behind an anonymous website opposing the NDP school surtax and the phoney tax notices mailed to thousands of Point Grey residents.
The B.C. Corporate Registry lists Jonathan Rubenstein, Brian Edgar, Lana Pulver and Bud Kanke as directors of STEP UP. But you won’t find their names on StepUpNow.ca, which anonymously solicits donations and personal information.
“I am not at liberty to put you in touch with them, because they’re reluctant,” Rubenstein told theBreaker in a phone interview. “I do not have personal authority over the website, so I’m not at liberty to answer your question about what thinking went into that.”
Clockwise, from upper left: StepUpNow’s Jonathan Rubenstein, Brian Edgar, Bud Kanke and Lana Pulver.
Rubenstein chairs MAG Silver and is a director with Detour Gold and Roxgold. The Detour website says he has had direct roles in mining transactions worth more than $9 billion. Edgar is the non-executive chairman of Silver Bull Resources and was the CEO of its predecessor, Dome Ventures Corp. He is also a director of four other oil, gas and mining companies. Pulver is the founder of Eventzz and president of Events on Point. Kanke formerly owned popular upscale eateries Joe Fortes, The Cannery and The Fish House in Stanley Park.
The quartet hired strategist Lauren Rowe of PlusMe Communications Services, who has worked on B.C. Lottery Corp. and Kinder Morgan campaigns.
“The policies of the NDP government are oppressive, and counterproductive and, most of all, divisive,” Rubenstein said. “So that’s what this is all about. It’s not so much about the people, as it is about the antithesis to the NDP policies.”
STEP UP is officially the Society to Encourage Political Understanding and Participation. Its stated purposes are: to provide information about public policies and public issues and analysis about how they may affect peoples’ lives, families, property, rights, obligations and financial well-being; to encourage constructive discussions about public policies and public issues; and to encourage people to make informed decisions in respect of public policies and public issues and to advocate for specific decisions based on understanding. It was incorporated June 13.
STEP UP’s website states that it was “founded by concerned B.C. citizens who, prior to, weren’t politically engaged.”
But Elections BC’s political contributions database shows $21,470 in donations from Edgar to the BC Liberals, $8,500 from Kanke to the BC Liberals and $500 from Rubenstein to the NPA’s 2014 Vancouver civic election campaign.
Before STEP UP formed, Rubenstein appeared on CBC Radio and CTV News to oppose the school surtax — a 0.2% levy on property worth more than $3 million and 0.4% on the value over $4 million — and to criticize David Eby, the Vancouver-Point Grey MLA and Attorney General threatened with a recall campaign. Rubenstein lives with his wife, Mary Ann Cummings — who he said is involved with the anonymous WakeUpVancouver group — in a 1934-built Shaughnessy house assessed at $6.27 million. He said it is now worth 12 times more than when they bought in 1988. The new school surtax will add another $20,000 burden on top of the $8,500 civic property tax bill.
UDI logo from ScrapTheSpeculationTax.ca
“This is a tax which is being sold deceptively as a school tax,” Rubenstein said. “It is not a school tax, it goes to general revenue. It might as well be called the Site C dam overrun tax.”
STEP UP is the latest in a trend of anonymous anti-NDP website and social media campaigns.
After the 2017 B.C. election, in which the BC Liberals lost their majority, the B.C. Proud Facebook group anonymously pushed for another election. Conservative operative Jeff Ballingall was later revealed to be the director.
theBreaker also revealed that the Shaughnessy Heights Property Owners’ Association (whose president is Cummings) was behind the anonymous Say No to New Provincial Surtax on Property petition on Change.org. Westside opponents of the school surtax, including SHPOA members, discussed strategies with BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson and were offered assistance from BC Liberal director of operations Kavi Bal.
Christopher Wylie (Mackin)
Mayoral candidate Hector Bremner, who finished a distant fifth place in the Oct. 20 civic election, was supported by billboard and Facebook ads secretly paid by developer Peter Wall and arranged by BC Liberal operative Micah Haince. Facebook removed anonymous ads that attacked NPA candidate Ken Sim the same weekend it shut down the anonymous pro-Bremner page.
In a September speaking engagement at a Vancouver convention, Facebook whistleblower Christopher Wylie blasted anonymous digital political campaigns, because they hide from accountability and often trade in disinformation.
Facebook, he said, “has created the degradation of our public forum, because you can’t actually see what happens.”
A Lower Mainland real estate investor, whose company supplied steel to the Beijing 2008 Olympics, failed to convince a B.C. Supreme Court judge who was responsible for losing the BMW she bought and sent to China more than eight years ago.
“While Ms. [Shu E.] Liu has clearly suffered a significant loss, she has unfortunately failed to establish on a balance of probabilities the facts necessary to support her claims that the defendants are responsible for that loss,” according to Justice Christopher Grauer’s Dec. 3 verdict.
Liu ordered a 2009 BMW like the one pictured. (MotorTrend)
All of Liu’s claims were dismissed against defendants Westport Motor Cars, Wei Chu and Linsong Chen, after a 16-day trial last spring.
It started with an ad in a Chinese-language newspaper in Richmond, offering help to send vehicles from Canada to China. Liu’s then-husband, Bing “Tony” Guo, looked into it for her.
Liu eventually bought what was described as a gently used BMW 750Li for $240,000 (including shipping, customs and taxes) and sent it to China for her family to drive. Westport Motor Cars Ltd. found the vehicle in Missouri and arranged for it to be sent to Long Beach, Calif. and loaded onto a freighter bound for Guangzhou, China.
“That [price] seems to be quite a lot, but I am told this is rather less than it would cost to buy an equivalent vehicle there,” Grauer wrote. “It did not, however, go well.”
Liu claimed she, directly and through Guo, made an oral contract with Westport for a $20,000 deposit and $80,000 payment for the car, and that Westport undertook to supply the vehicle, ship it to China, and arrange importation, customs clearance, licensing and delivery to Liu’s Chinese home.
Grauer said evidence was clear that Westport agreed to secure the vehicle she chose, deliver it to Long Beach, recondition the car and arrange for its shipping to the Huangpu port.
“Did Westport also agree to arrange for the vehicle’s importation into China, licensing and delivery to Ms. Liu at her home in China? I am unable to find that it did.”
Liu’s BMW was among several used imported vehicles that were impounded and confiscated by the Chinese government after arrival in Guangzhou on Sept. 10, 2010. Liu, who does not drive, got nothing for her money.
“All parties deny having anything to do with that, and the documentation is remarkably sparse. It is a mystery.”
Liu alleged that Westport, its representative, Linsong Chen, and Wei “Steven” Chu, who was involved in the importation, were responsible. The defendants claimed that Liu and Guo arranged importation on their own.
Liu, 66, immigrated to Canada in 2006 and transferred her business interests to her adult children after she arrived. She continued to visit China frequently, “where she has several automobiles, including a Bentley and a Porsche. But she had a particular fondness for big BMWs, in which she could be comfortably driven.”
In the verdict, she is described as a Lower Mainland real estate investor with her friend, Yong Hong “Juliette” Zhang.
“When things went wrong in China, Ms. Liu sought the assistance of her cousin, Xusheng Liu, a retired judge of the enforcement division of the Intermediate People’s Court of Laizhou City in Shandong Province.”
Westport owner Todd Macdonald and salesman Cornelis Bobeldijk testified, but it was Linsong Chen, “the only Mandarin-speaker, who dealt directly with Ms. Liu and Guo. Ms. Liu and Mr. Guo maintain that Mr. Chen made a number of representations on behalf of Westport upon which they relied.”
Chu, who became a defendant in November 2016, had successfully imported into China a used Porsche Cayenne that he purchased from Westport in 2007. In 2010, he assisted Liu in paying the equivalent of $130,000 in Chinese customs and import duties for her BMW.
Grauer wrote that much of the evidence is missing, including documents about the BMW that were contained in a safe stolen from Liu’s home in 2014. Westport closed in early 2012 and did not keep email records after its web domain expired in 2014.
Xusheng Liu investigated what happened to Liu’s BMW in China, and corresponded with another man named Chu. Xusheng Liu said his computer crashed and he could only restore emails that he had sent.
Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)
“He has no record of emails he received (not even as part of the chain leading to his reply), a fact the defendants say is highly suspicious.”
Chu produced many bank records, but not all relevant ones. Many documents were translated from Chinese to English more than once by different translators, with different results, Grauer wrote.
Xusheng Liu discovered that the Intermediate People’s Court of Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, convicted eight Han Chinese (all of whom had confessed their guilt) for smuggling items banned for import and export on Dec. 5, 2012. A used BMW 750 with the same vehicle identification number as Liu’s was among the vehicles seized.
Lawyers for Westport failed to have the Jinhua City court judgment deemed inadmissible; Grauer admitted it for proof of the seizure, but not as proof of the truth of findings.
Importation of used vehicles is generally banned in China, with some exceptions for foreigners working in China.
Chu, who became a lawyer in China in 1992, had his studies at Northwestern University in Illinois sponsored by a Chinese state-owned metals company. He passed the New York bar exam in 1998 and came to Canada two years later.
“As Mr. Chu explained it, the president of that company, through the overarching Chinese Communist Party National Asset Management Committee, was close to the president of another state-owned company in Tianjin who had a relative in Tianjin Customs. Through their companies, both presidents wished to buy some luxury automobiles to bring into China, and, as the heads of state-owned enterprises, apparently did not need to worry about import regulations.”
When Chu imported the Porsche Cayenne, the car arrived in Tianjin and became subject to supervision for a year while it remained in the name of another person. Grauer explained that supervision was intended to discourage importation of used cars for resale, as opposed to personal use. After one year, it was transferred into Chu’s name.
“From what I can piece together, a similar process was followed (or at least was intended) for Ms. Liu’s BMW.”
Generally, China does not allow the importation of used cars. An exception applied until July 2010 for resident staff in Chinese offices of overseas companies or overseas Chinese who are long-term, but temporary. Afterward, importation was only allowed for government representatives, high-level personnel and specially invited experts, Grauer wrote.
When Liu’s BMW was shipped to China, the customs document was issued by Yiwu Customs in the name of a Pakistani national named Mr. Ali from Youni International Trading. When it arrived, Huangpu Customs issued an invoice in the name of Ali, ultimately paid through Chu, for the equivalent of $140,000.
The Jinhua City judgment states that, according to confessions, 124 approval forms were obtained from Yiwu Customs under false pretences purporting to be issued to the representatives of foreign businesses, including Youni International Trading.
“Xusheng Liu testified that notices were subsequently issued advertising auctions of the seized vehicles on behalf of the People’s Procuratorate of Jinhua. He said that he saw a BMW 750, black with an orange interior (matching Ms. Liu’s description), in the auction yard. He did not know the VIN. He thought that the vehicle was sold for parts, although the evidence of its ultimate fate is unclear.”
Grauer ruled, on balance of probabilities, that Liu’s BMW had been seized and disposed by customs.
“Whether it was sold for parts, or currently graces the garage of someone in China not related to Ms. Liu, does not really matter. I am satisfied that it did not find its way to Ms. Liu.”
City of Richmond records indicate that a person named Shu E. Liu was the owner of a house on Lancing Road that was cited for an illegal suite in September 2011.
In 2016, when the house was under different owners, the Vancouver Sun reported it was used as a “baby hotel” for pregnant women from China and Richmond bylaw inspectors later shut down an illegal hostel for tourists.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled that a Chinese-Canadian real estate investor was defamed on the WeChat social media platform, but she awarded him only $1 in damages.
In her written judgment, Justice Neena Sharma slammed Miaofei Pan for paucity of evidence and his lack of candour with the court. Pan had claimed $360,000 to $450,000 in damages because he said his reputation had been harmed and the stories caused him depression and anxiety.
“From my purview as the trial judge, and exclusive fact-finder, the plaintiff demonstrated on a number of occasions throughout his testimony an attitude that he should not have to answer to the defendant, and indirectly to this court, about his business affairs,” Sharma wrote in the Nov. 30 verdict. “That combined with his decision to rely purely on deemed falsity of the defamatory statements rather than backing up his testimony with documents, strongly confirmed my disinclination to find the plaintiff credible or reliable.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shaking hands with Miaofei Pan at a 2016 Liberal fundraiser (Wenzhou government)
Pan sued journalist Bing Chen Gao, who wrote 10 articles in December 2016 and January 2017 about Pan under the pen name Hebian Huang. Gao, who works at Canadian City Press, used the pseudonym because he believed the Chinese government was behind the cancellation of WeChat accounts in his own name.
Gao’s reporting had accused Pan of buying seats on the boards of Chinese expat societies, owing millions of dollars worth of taxes in China and stiffing hundreds of families in a failed real estate development in China. Sharma found two of the 10 articles were defamatory and ordered them removed from Gao’s website, but she rejected Pan’s application for a permanent injunction against Gao.
During the 11-day trial, Gao represented himself in court, while Pan retained three lawyers from the same firm.
Gao, she wrote, was reporting on matters of public interest and importance, without malice, but in a genuine search for truth. He could not, however, rely on the responsible communication defence because he never tried to contact Pan for his side of the story.
Sharma had grave concerns about Pan’s credibility and approached his testimony with great caution. She pinpointed his unproven allegation that Gao was motivated by blackmail.
“The plaintiff made an assertion without any corroboration and, although in contact with and originally intending to call as a witness someone who apparently could corroborate his testimony, that witness was not called. In my view, it is appropriate to draw an adverse inference that had that witness been called, he would not have supported the plaintiff’s testimony.”
She accepted Gao’s testimony that he never tried to blackmail anyone.
“I accept his testimony that he believes himself to be an honest journalist trying to expose wrongdoing in the Chinese-Canadian community. In other words, I do not accept that he had any kind of animus towards the plaintiff personally.”
Pan moved to Canada 11 years ago and is a past president of the Wenzhou Friendship Society and Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations, both organizations allied to the Chinese government. He is married and has two sets of twin daughters.
Miaofei Pan, second from left, and his family welcomed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to their mansion for a 2016 Liberal fundraiser. (Wenzhou government)
At one of his Vancouver mansions in November 2016, Pan hosted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and 80 guests for a $1,500-per-person, Liberal Party cash-for-access fundraiser. Pan’s Shaughnessy heritage mansion was severely damaged in an October 2017 arson fire. Nobody has been charged.
Sharma was not satisfied that Pan suffered any harm to his reputation. “Even after he chose to resign as president of the Wenzhou Society, many people wanted him to remain as the ‘honourary’ president. This was in February 2017 after publication of all 10 articles.”
The verdict said that Pan denied he under-reported his income as $30,000 in order to be eligible for the Canada Child Tax Benefit. Pan, however, acknowledged in court that “for some years his household income would have made him eligible for the CTB, but he testified that he did not collect it because he had ample savings. That change in testimony only came about because mid-trial I ordered the plaintiff to produce his income tax returns, which, remarkably, he had failed to do throughout the litigation.”
Pan testified that he sold 100% of the shares of Wenzhou City Linyang Estate Company to Zufan Zheng and had no involvement in the Huachen Yipin real estate development in China after 2006. The project eventually ran out of capital and Zheng was detained by local police. Pan’s name continued to be listed on the share register after 2006 by the Industrial and Commercial Administration Bureau in China.
“I understood the plaintiff to mean that somehow the tax authority understood and accepted that the share registry was not accurate. He maintained that he had no involvement with the Linyang Company or the Project since 2006,” Sharma wrote.
“None of that evidence was given during his direct-examination. During cross-examination the plaintiff explained that he did not think it was ‘necessary’ to mention why his name might still appear on the share registry as a shareholder in the Linyang Company during his direct testimony.”
Journalist Bing Chen Gao (Facebook)
Sharma’s judgment said Pan denied Gao’s report that he and wife Winhuan Yuang owed the equivalent of $8.3 million in taxes in China. Pan testified it was possible one of the companies he used to own did not pay all of its taxes.
Pan was executive chairman of CACA from 2012 until 2014 and served two terms as president of the Wenzhou Society from 2011 to 2017. The court heard he loaned $400,000 to the society in 2011 and donated $400,000 in 2012 for its Richmond clubhouse. He also testified that he spent more than $50,000 of his own money on CACA.
The Wenzhou Society was accused before the Oct. 20 municipal elections of using WeChat to offer a “transportation subsidy” to vote for society-endorsed candidates in Richmond, Burnaby and Vancouver. Richmond RCMP said it found no evidence of vote buying, but it would continue to investigate.
Sharma wrote that neither Pan nor Gao speak speak English, so their testimony was translated from Mandarin by the same interpreter that had been hired by the plaintiff.
Gao was fired from writing a column in the Global Chinese Press newspaper in 2016 after Gao criticized China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, for lashing out at reporters asking about human rights during an Ottawa news conference.
Pan called three witnesses: former Zhejiang United Friendship Society president Daoling Liang; Wenzhou Friendship Society vice-president Suping Chen; and Pan’s chartered accountant Allan Zhang. Gao called two witnesses: colleague and friend Ning Yu (Louis) Huang and former business associate Qi Bo Wang.
What does the ongoing investigation of digital dirty tricks have in common with the mysterious B.C. Legislature scandal and the long-overdue inquest into a prominent police officer’s suicide?
They’re part of this week in review on theBreaker.news Podcast.
In London, a trio of Canadian lawmakers joined the Parliamentary committee investigating social media disinformation and fake news on Nov. 27. Hear from U.K. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, the former B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner who is probing the role Victoria’s AggregateIQ played in the Facebook data scandal.
Suspended Legislature clerk Craig James and sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz hired Vancouver law firm Fasken and the Peak Communicators crisis communications company to set-up a Nov. 26 news conference where they emphasized their innocence. Meanwhile, Speaker Darryl Plecas issued a statement to defend his duty to report concerns to police and conduct his own due diligence. “The Legislative Assembly has a right to protect the integrity of the institution,” Plecas wrote.
In Burnaby, a B.C. Coroner’s Court heard testimony over three days about the 2013 suicide of RCMP Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre and the jury issued five mental health-related recommendations to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki on Nov. 29. Hear from Walter Kosteckyj, the lawyer for the mother of the late Robert Dziekanski, who attended the fact-finding hearings to support Lemaitre’s widow.
Plus commentaries and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.
