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Bob Mackin

Richmond could have a new, longest-serving mayor if Malcolm Brodie fends-off a challenge on Oct. 20.

Brodie was elected in a 2001 by-election after Greg Halsey-Brandt was elected to the BC Liberals under Gordon Campbell.

The New York native won re-election four times. A win on Saturday would position him to beat Rudy Grauer’s 1930 to 1949 dynasty.

Richmond incumbent Mayor Malcolm Brodie (Instagram)

Brodie faces the most-aggressive challenge yet, in the form of real estate and immigration lawyer Hong Guo. For Guo, her biggest opponent could be herself.

She is facing a $13 million lawsuit related to a collapsed real estate deal, a professional misconduct hearing with the Law Society of B.C. and an RCMP investigation over vote-buying allegations related to a Beijing-friendly expats society. She says she has done no wrong.

Richmond RCMP said Oct. 19 that it had not found evidence to justify criminal code or election act charges, but it continues to investigate potential voter manipulation. 

After the Oct. 2 mayoral debate, Guo told theBreaker that she does not believe China has any human rights problem and that journalists in her native land enjoy freedom of speech. Both statements contradict reams of evidence gathered over decades by foreign governments, international human rights and media advocates, and global media outlets.

Guo wants to forge closer ties between Richmond and China, which she has incorrectly called the world’s biggest economy (the International Monetary Fund says the U.S. still reigns). After the RCMP investigation was launched, the Richmond Community Coalition said it would not endorse Guo for mayor. Incumbent Coun. Ken Johnston of RCC told the Richmond News that Guo’s bid is “against harmony, against inclusion.”

Guo was not clear what she would do with her law firm, corporate and real estate holdings if she beats the odds and wins. One of Guo’s companies has the same name as a huge, Chinese state-owned enterprise. She incorporated CITIC Investments Corp. in B.C. on Aug. 15, 2008 with partners Golden Mountain Capital, Wu Ze Yong and Maple Union Industry Inc. The Beijing-based China International Trust Investment Corporation is a finance, energy, resources, manufacturing, engineering and real estate conglomerate.

“We work with them, but there is no share involvement,” Guo said in an interview. “They are looking for projects and we would assist where they want to do something, investment for projects.”

Mayoral candidate Hong Guo

Said Brodie: “I can tell you the city the size and complexity of Richmond, not to mention other work you get involved in at the regional and even provincial level, it is more than full time, and I don’t see how anybody can be involved in active business outside of being a mayor. Your time is too thin to do anything else.”

Brodie said Richmond already has close ties to China with sister city Xiamen and friendship city with Qingdao. He said the city needs to look at Asia as a whole, from the Philippines to South Korea. The city is, after all, home of Vancouver International Airport.

Brodie is opposing a planned Gateway casino on the Delta side of the Fraser River and sidestepped questions about money laundering at River Rock casino; it’s a provincial responsibility, he said. He continues to advocate for a new tunnel rather than a bridge over Deas Island to Delta. Guo is a bridge proponent.

“The previous provincial government, they said it’s a bridge or nothing, there wasn’t any other solution,” he said. “We have said the solution is, in-part, upgrade the existing tunnel and twin it. We believe it can be done without exceeding the cost of the bridge and, probably, it will be cheaper.”

The casino location dispute is in mediation and the crossing question is waiting to be answered in a report that the NDP cabinet has been sitting on for months.

Richmond city council candidate Kerry Starchuk (Twitter)

Late in her campaign, Guo hired Vancouver public relations firm Peak Communicators for crisis communications. Then more controversy.

The Richmond News complained to Richmond city hall, Richmond RCMP and Facebook on Oct. 12 about an exchange from the WeChat Richmond Resident 7300 Focus Group II. The News said comments from that WeChat group were falsely attributed to reporter Daisy Xiong and a screen grab was briefly published on Guo’s Facebook page. Neither Guo nor Peak responded to theBreaker’s request for comment.

Earlier in the campaign, the Harold Steves-led Richmond Citizens Association and the Carol Day-led RITE Richmond slates formed an alliance aimed at defeating the Richmond First and Richmond Community Coalition slates that have held power on council. The left-right alliance has clashed with the BC Liberal-allied Richmond Farmland Owners Association, which has resisted efforts by incumbents Steves and Day to limit the size of mansions on farmland. 

The campaign also features star independent city council candidate Kerry Starchuk, the leader of a grassroots campaign to increase English language signage in the majority ethnic Chinese suburb, which has been called North America’s most-Asian city. Starchuk’s “Community Matters” themed campaign coincides with the House of Commons tabling of her petition aimed at stopping birth tourism. The mothers are lured by the instant Canadian citizenship for their offspring. Starchuk wants the Trudeau Liberal government to commit public resources to determine the full extent across Canada and move to reduce and eliminate the practice that sees cash-paying foreigners displacing local patients at Richmond Hospital.

Last year, 474 births to foreign mothers, mainly from China, were recorded at Richmond Hospital, almost 59% more than the previous year.

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Bob Mackin Richmond could have a new, longest-serving

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Bob Mackin

Vancouver mayoral candidate Hector Bremner was working on a client file for the Aquilini Investment Group as recently as March of this year, while he was an NPA city councillor.

But that was not enough for a city hall-hired investigator to find that he broke city hall conflict of interest rules.

In his Oct. 15-dated report, lawyer Henry Wood found “no tangible evidence of a tainting connection” between Bremner and any clients of the Pace Group, the BC Liberal-aligned Gastown public relations and lobbying firm where Bremner was vice-president from early-2015 to mid-2018.

Hector Bremner (Pace Group)

“There is no evidence to suggest that the councillor faced interest that conflicted with his primary duty to act in the public’s best interest when he participated in council’s consideration of the issues that are the subject of complaint,” Wood wrote.

Wood’s report said the two complaints, from ProVancouver city council candidate Mirza Raza and Justin Fung of Housing Action for Local Taxpayers, raised three issues: A provocative proposal to densify so-called “billionaires’ row,” Northwest Point Grey Road, at the Dec. 12, 2017 city council meeting; redevelopment of Northeast False Creek, at meetings of Jan. 31, 2018 and Feb. 13, 2018; and liquor sales in grocery stores, at meetings of March 13, 2018 and April 17, 2018. Bremner recused himself from the latter meeting when he learned an Overwaitea Food Group representative would be speaking. That meeting was five days after theBreaker reported on the conflict of interest complaints submitted to Mayor Gregor Robertson.

Pace clients include the Aquilini Investment Group, Concert Properties, Intracorp, Stantec, Omicron and the B.C. Pavilion Corp. Bremner had also acted for Overwaitea and B.C. Wine Institute two years before he won a city council seat for the NPA in the October 2017 by-election.

“The essence of the complaints is that the business interests of at least those entities created resulting conflicts of interest for Coun. Bremner through his affiliation with the Pace Group,” Wood wrote.

Bremner acknowledged that he has been involved in assisting Overwaitea, B.C. Wine Institute and an Aquilini-owned entity that was not named in the report. The report said that the Aquilini matter, like the other two, was unrelated to City of Vancouver.

“He has assisted in designing communication materials and a public consultation process regarding an Agricultural Land Reserve issue,” Wood wrote. “He continued to have some involvement in that matter until March 2018.”

The Aquilini work was primarily from May 2017 to July 2017. After it was designed, the Aquilinis took over implementation of the plan, “except for updates to the communications materials which Coun. Bremner provided on request until March 2018.”

Bremner’s work with Pace and the investigation were factors in the NPA board’s rejection of Bremner’s application to run for its mayoral nomination. Ken Sim won the nomination in June. Bremner launched his own party, Yes Vancouver, in July. The report was originally expected in mid-September.

In a CKNW interview on Oct. 18, two days before the civic election, Bremner dismissed the complaints as being “written in crayon.” But Wood stated that there was enough merit to investigate. Fung and Raza, he wrote, “raised understandable speculation over the potential for conflicting interests.”

Wood wrote that at the Pace Group, Bremner supported clients including municipalities, first nations, industry and professional associations by developing strategic communications programs. He resigned June 2018, it said. The report said Bremner provided a “comprehensive statutory declaration” sworn by Bremner. That document, however, was not included with Wood’s findings. Wood indicated that he encountered some resistance from the company.

“I had also sought conformation from the Pace Group of certain information provided by Coun. Bremner. The Pace Group responded with a supportive statement that Coun. Bremner had avoided conflicts of interest following his election to Vancouver city council, but they expressed an unwillingness to discus client affairs as a matter of policy. It was in response to this development that Coun. Bremner agreed to provide the statutory declaration referred above.”

The Vancouver Charter says a conflict of interest results from a direct or indirect pecuniary interest in a matter before council or another interest in the matter. Ultimately, Wood applied a “reasonable elector test,” deciding that a “reasonable and well-informed person, once apprised of all the circumstances, would be unlikely to find that Coun. Bremner had a conflicting interest in these matters.”

Bremner (right) during a Pace Group charity event for men’s health (@PaceGroupVan)

Wood conceded that his investigation was limited. For instance, it was beyond his scope to perform extensive property searches of Northeast False Creek, though it is well-known that the Aquilinis own Aquilini Centre and Rogers Arena. Their holdings at the Olympic Village are outside the Northeast False Creek plan. The same goes for Concert’s recently-finished Navio, to the east of the Village.

“Among other obstacles,” Wood wrote, “it is virtually impossible to determine whether the properties are being held in trust by other businesses or individuals.”

Fung said it appears the burden of proof is high, but said the laws to keep public officials accountable need to be tightened. “I’m still troubled that someone who effectively worked at a company that specializes in lobbying governments, works in government,” he said.

In August, Bremner was cleared on a technicality of failure to disclose his past as a ministerial aide in the BC Liberal government to the lobbyist registrar. He had been fined $2,000 in February, a fact that he kept secret while he sought a reconsideration related to his February 2015 undertaking for Steelhead LNG.

Registrar Michael McEvoy made a public plea for Attorney General David Eby to solve a loophole because the Bremner case was among several that “represent the very mischief the legislation was designed to eliminate; i.e. the potential for undue influence and the use of insider knowledge in lobbying.”

Bremner got the job in the BC Liberal government in June 2013, after he lost in the New Westminster riding during the May 2013 election. theBreaker exclusively reported that Bremner worked on Christy Clark’s 2011 leadership campaign in which he was copied on emails that contained 99 personal identification numbers for use in the phone and Internet vote to replace Gordon Campbell. The block voting in a proxy process was not prohibited by the party, but it was believed to have played a major role in Clark’s narrow victory over Kevin Falcon in the regionally-weighted, preferential ballot election.

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Bob Mackin Vancouver mayoral candidate Hector Bremner was

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Bob Mackin

Relatives of the Vancouver developer behind a billboard and Facebook campaign that promoted Hector Bremner for mayor are on the list of donors for the Yes Vancouver Party.

The new party reported Oct. 8 that it raised $176,581.60 from 529 donors.

Three of those donors are Peter Wall’s ex-wife Charlotte, daughter Sonya and grandson Colin Wall. They donated $1,200 each.

Charlotte Wall was a director of Wall Financial Corp. from 1989 to 2017 and Sonya Wall is on the board of trustees for the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of B.C.

Graphics from the Peter Wall-financed Facebook campaign.

Peter Wall secretly spent $85,000 on the “Vancouverites for Affordable Housing” pro-Bremner campaign, which ran before local election disclosure requirements and third-party spending limits applied Sept. 22.

The list of donors also includes Michael Redekop and Randy Redekop at $1,200 each. Michael Redekop is president of Quadra Homes and a director of Wall Financial, the company Peter Wall co-founded with cousin Peter Redekop in 1960.

One of Wall’s flagship projects is at Shannon Estate and Mews, where the company built high-end apartment blocks on the grounds of the 1925 heritage mansion originally built by sugar tycoon B.T. Rogers and later owned by horse racing aficionado Austin Taylor. Bremner has been an advocate of replacing mansions with apartments. 

Wall was a major corporate donor of Vision Vancouver and the BC Liberals until the NDP enacted campaign finance reform last year.

David Gruber, a Wall Financial director and lawyer with Bennett Jones, said he “did not have instructions to communicate on Peter’s behalf on this.”

Nobody at Wall Financial replied for comment.

Dermod Travis of IntegrityBC said it will be up to Elections BC to confirm whether political donations from multiple family members were really from their individual assets.

“If somebody asks you to make a political donation and that they will reimburse you for it, bad things can happen to you. SNC-Lavalin [which was caught reimbursing employees for political donations] can speak to the issue quite well,” Travis said. “I suspect there will be some interest after Oct. 20 in examining some of the disclosures of candidates in Metro Vancouver and the Capital Regional District.”

Other notable $1,200 donors to Bremner’s party include developer Ryan Beedie, New Coast Realty agent Tariqul Malik, Wesgroup executive vice-president Beau Jarvis, members of the Wesgroup ownership family, Peeter, David, Michael and Elizabeth Wesik, Granville Entertainment’s Blaine Culling and One Hospitality’s Vance Campbell, and Coromandel Properties’ Jerry Zhong.

Coromandel is marketing its eight-storey, Winston at South Oak luxury condo tower in Hong Kong. Part of the land was previously zoned for a single-family house. 

The list also shows a $1,200 donation from Tarsem Gill. A man named Tarsem Singh Gill, who is an associate of Bremner friend and ex-Ross Street Temple president Raj Bhela, is accused in a long-running, $40 million real estate fraud case.

Brothers Paul and Sergio Zen donated $1,200 each. According to 2011 B.C. Supreme Court filings, their family owns companies that supplied the aluminum rail on 80 to 90% of the high-rise buildings in the Lower Mainland, including the Shangri-La Hotel and the Olympic Athletes Village.

Another $1,200 donor is Shelley Prpich of Shelley Prpich Autobrokers. Until March 2013, when he unsuccessfully ran for the BC Liberals in New Westminster, Bremner held an auto dealer’s licence.

Brian and Marlene Fehr hosted an Aug. 1 fundraiser for Bremner at a West End penthouse worth more than $9 million. They donated $1,200 each, in-kind, to the both the party’s city hall and school board campaigns. Brian Fehr is a billionaire named recently to the Order of B.C.

Other donors included: Yes campaign svengali Mark Marissen, ex-BC Liberal caucus communications head Lorne Mayencourt, Progressive Group lobbyist Cynthia Shore ($1,200 each); lobbyist Mark Jiles, ex-BC Liberal Youth president Sebastian Zein, and Tina Oliver, the real estate agent who sold the Dunbar house where ex-premier Christy Clark lives ($600 each). BC Liberal MLA Sam Sullivan gave $600 for the Yes school board candidate.

New provincial laws cap individual donations at $1,200 from B.C. residents who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Corporations and unions are no longer allowed to donate.

Robertson (left) and Bremner (CoV)

Ex-Burnaby NDP MP Kennedy Stewart, the perceived frontrunner for the mayoralty, has reported $192,253.39 in donations to his mayoral campaign from 1,459 donors.

Former Vision Vancouver board member Shauna Sylvester’s mayoral campaign claimed it raised $101,737. The Ken Sim-led NPA reported $837,207 in donations from 4,460 individuals.

Official disclosure reports must be submitted to Elections BC within 90 days of the election.

The Fred Harding-led Vancouver 1st and Wai Young-led Coalition Vancouver are not releasing their donors’ lists. Both parties have been linked to the Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society. The Communist Party of China-friendly society is under RCMP investigation for a WeChat message that offered a $20 “transportation subsidy” to vote for recommended candidates in Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond.

Meanwhile, the conflict of interest investigation of Bremner under the city’s code of conduct was dismissed Oct. 16.

Lawyer Henry Wood, who was retained by city hall in May, had originally planned to tender his findings by mid-September, before the election period. Bremner was alleged to have mixed his civic duties with his job as the vice-president of the Pace Group lobbying and public relations firm.

Wood’s report is officially confidential under the city’s code of conduct.

“Hector has said he has no secrets, he should be more than willing to provide the necessary release so it can be released,” Travis said. “Here’s an opportunity for him to give the city his okay for the report to be released.”

Bremner rival Glen Chernen, who is running for city council with Coalition Vancouver, complained in 2017 about Bremner’s failure to disclose to the lobbyist registry that he had worked as an aide to BC Liberal cabinet ministers, including Deputy Premier Rich Coleman.

Bremner’s $2,000 February fine was overturned in August on a technicality. Registrar Michael McEvoy publicly urged Attorney General David Eby to close a loophole to ensure ex-public office holders do not evade detection.

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Bob Mackin Relatives of the Vancouver developer behind

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Bob Mackin

Richmond Coun. Harold Steves is disputing claims from a group that is aiming to defeat him in the Oct. 20 civic election.

The Richmond Farmland Owners Association, which opposes limits on farmland mansions, issued an Oct. 10 news release that called the outspoken farming advocate a hypocrite for being a “co-developer with a mega-home developer for a piece of land carved out of the Steves farm property.”

Steves, who has served continuously on council since 1977, said the association is wrong, because he couldn’t stop his relatives from selling a piece of land north of his farm in 2010 to Elegant Properties developer Jay Minhas.

Richmond Coun. Harold Steves at his Richmond farm (Mackin)

Steves was first an alderman from 1968 until 1973 when he was elected to the NDP government under Premier Dave Barrett and helped found the Agricultural Land Reserve. He sells eggs and grass-fed beef raised on his family farm at the west end of Steveston Highway, that he bought in 1981.

“It was zoned residential in 1969, it was subdivided into lots, I got an appraisal that it was $90,000 an acre residential value, farmland at that time was $5,000 an acre,” Steves said. “The land was owned by my father and four aunts and uncles. I bought it off them for $90,000 an acre, except I couldn’t afford the whole property, it was a lot of money back in 1981.”

He applied to cancel the subdivision and move the property line further north, but left 1.7 acres in family ownership. After his mother Maude died in 2002, he was among nine relatives who inherited the land.

In 2010, the Richmond Review reported under the headline “Change coming to Steves family farm,” that Minhas’s company had applied to subdivide a fallow 1.5-acre parcel owned by the Steves family at 10531 Springwood Crescent. Steves said it was not his choice, but his brother Robert Joseph Steves and the rest of his relatives who wanted to settle his mother’s estate.

“There’s not much I can do about it,” Steves said at the time. “I wouldn’t have done it, but I have no choice.”

Elegant Properties’ Jay Minhas (right) and Christy Clark.

The March 31, 2010 contract for the $442,500 sale lists Sean Lawson of Remax Westcoast in Richmond acting for the buyer, Elegant, and sellers, Harold, Bonita, Judith, Alice, Jeremy, Robin, Robert, Traci and Gregory Steves. An amended June 22, 2010 purchase contract was between four of the Steves — Judith, Robert, Traci and Gregory Steves — and Elegant. When the matter came to city council, Harold Steves declared a conflict of interest and recused himself. In early 2011, Elegant paid between $442,500 and $657,500 to the group of four named in the June 2010 contract, for each of the four lots after the subdivision was approved.

Said Steves: “I didn’t want my brother to sell it in the first place and definitely didn’t want him to sell it to Jay.

“They’re trying to make out that I’ve sold my property. It’s something I couldn’t afford to buy in the first place. Now nine people have inherited it and they want me to go take their inheritance away? I can’t do that.”

Steves said Minhas took advantage of a loophole to build three-storey houses instead of two-and-a-half. Minhas said he did everything within the bylaw.

Two of the houses built on land sold by Harold Steves’ relatives to Elegant Properties. (Mackin)

The main farm inside the dyke is zoned residential because it is less than the two-acre threshold to be included in the ALR. The other nine acres on the mudflats, where Steves’s belted Galloway cattle often graze, is a federally protected ecological reserve within Sturgeon Banks. The land qualifies for farm class under the Assessment Act.

“If it was in the ALR, I could build a barn out there, but in an ecological reserve I can’t.”

Steves still owns a one-fifth share of the empty lot at 10591 Springwood Cres, worth $1,691. His 10.5-acre property that includes a two-storey, 1932-built farmhouse, was assessed at $84,827.

Steves is running for re-election with the Richmond Citizens’ Association slate that joined in a coalition with RITE Richmond.

East Richmond-based RFOA is not registered with Elections BC as a third-party sponsor organization. The communications strategist behind the association is Aurora Advisory Group’s Gunraj Gill, who was the election day chair for Richmond-Queensborough BC Liberal MLA Jas Johal.

The RFOA news release included quotes from Ben Dhiman of the association and Parm Bains, a city council candidate with Richmond Community Coalition, who said he was a former elementary school student of Steves. Bains spent 14 years working in communications for the BC Liberal government, and was stationed at Premier Christy Clark’s Vancouver office.

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Bob Mackin Richmond Coun. Harold Steves is disputing

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Bob Mackin

One of the candidates who attended a political fundraiser at a pro-Beijing society’s clubhouse in Richmond said no money changed hands at the event.

Richmond Community Coalition’s Chak Au, who is seeking a third term on city council in Saturday’s civic election, called the Aug. 26 ceremony at the Canada Wenzhou Friendship Society a “photo op.”

Incumbent Richmond Coun. Chak Au at the Wen Zhou Friendship Society’s Aug. 26 ceremony (Wenzhouren.ca)

“We were told that they raised $26,000 altogether, by their individual members,” Au said in an interview at Richmond city hall on Oct. 16. “That was basically a photo op. They just asked us to say a few words about what they thought about the upcoming election and what we want to do if we become successful.”

Au was joined at the ceremony by Richmond mayoral candidate Hong Guo, city council candidates Melissa Zhang (RCC) and Peter Liu (Richmond First), plus Coalition Vancouver’s mayoral candidate Wai Young and council candidate Jason Xie, Vision Vancouver council candidate Wei Qiao Zhang, and Burnaby Citizens Association Coun. James Wang. The society’s website said it started the fundraising campaign on July 1. 

Au was the only one of the above candidates that has agreed to an interview. Au said he was not told how the money would be allotted among the candidates and that he is not involved in accepting RCC donations. That is the duty of the party’s financial agent, Aman Janjua, he said. 

“I did not know how much or who donated to the campaign. But there’s no individual money coming to me and I have not received any cheques whatsoever from them or any of their members,” Au said.

theBreaker reached Janjua, a senior manager at KPMG, for comment late in the afternoon on Oct. 16 and subsequently sent him a list of questions about the society’s donation and whether any of its directors had donated as individuals. He has yet to respond.

Au said later by text message that the financial agent confirmed to Elections BC “that no donations have come to RCC from Wenzhou Society, as under the new government regulations it is illegal.”

“I’ve always understood that non-profit societies are not supposed to donate, that is always the law,” Au said during the earlier interview. “So I think in the past we have received corporate donations, but I know the law has changed, it’s only individuals [allowed to donate].”

The society has not responded to email from theBreaker. There is no answer on the society’s phone numbers. theBreaker has visited the clubhouse twice, but nobody has answered the door. 

The same society’s WeChat account sparked an RCMP investigation into vote-buying, after it published a list of recommended candidates, including Au, and offered a $20 “transportation subsidy.” The controversy prompted Au’s slate, the Richmond Community Coalition, to call on Chinese activist groups to “respectfully stop lobbying Chinese voters to mark their ballots only for Chinese candidates.”

“It’s one thing that people want to get involved, we should encourage that,” Au said. “It’s another thing that they have to follow the rules and understand the rules.”

Campaign signs outside the Wen Zhou Friendship Society near Aberdeen Centre (Mackin)

The society is officially registered in B.C. as Wen Zhou Friendship Society. It was dissolved for failure to file a report on July 22, but restored on Oct. 5. The directors are You Zhao Feng, Zheng Ke Long and Zhu Jian Guo of Vancouver and Zhang Guan Hui of Richmond.

You is also a director of the Canada Wenzhou Business Association, which was registered to “pool the wisdom and strength of immigrants from Wenzhou; To establish an investment platform; and To promote economic exchanges between Canada and China.” Pan Miaofei is a $400,000 donor to the society and was on the board until May 2017. The society’s website said he attended the August donation ceremony.

Au said he had met You and Pan in social occasions, but does not have intimate knowledge of the society. Pan hosted a private fundraiser for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at one of his local mansions in 2016. In October 2017, his heritage Shaughnessy mansion suffered a fire that was ruled an arson. Nobody has been charged.

“They’re one of the hundreds of associations that we have contact with. I don’t know the persons at the association deeply,” Au said. “It is quite common in the Chinese community they have the kinsmen’s association plus a business association and sometimes it’s overlapping in terms of directorship.”

U.S., Australian and Canadian authorities have cautioned about Chinese government attempts to influence local government elections through pro-Beijing business and expat organizations in a coordinated program overseen by the Communist Party of China’s United Front Work Department.

“Yes, I’ve read about those stories, but I don’t know how true they are and personally I’m not connected or being influenced,” Au said.

Su Bo, the vice-minister of United Front, attended the Vancouver-hosted 9th Conference of the World Guangdong Community Federation last May, according to documents released to theBreaker under freedom of information. The event highlighted the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s massive, multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure-building program that extends to Africa and Europe.

Incumbent Chak Au (Mackin)

Au said he attended the conference to promote Richmond as a destination for overseas Chinese to invest and do business. “[Mayor] Malcolm [Brodie] and I were invited to the event. It was really to promote Richmond, rather than the other way around.”

Au is a family therapist who came to Canada from Hong Kong in 1988. He said that “we cannot directly influence China,” but said he is proud of Canadian values of human rights and democracy.

Asked if he would acknowledge China has human rights problems, he said that “every society has their own problems; Canada is not perfect.”

“Look at our record on the First Nations. Working towards common understanding and reconciliation is important,” he said.

Guo, who is aiming to defeat incumbent Brodie, told theBreaker on Oct. 2 that China has no human rights problem and that reporters enjoy freedom of speech, contrary to the reams of evidence gathered over decades by Human Rights Now, Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Asked for his opinion of Guo, Au said “voters have to make their own judgment.”

Richmond candidates have a lot on their minds, from the proliferation of mansions on farmland and birth tourism to a lack of English on signage, high land values and money laundering at River Rock casino. Au said he is saddened because this election is the “most-unpleasant” he has encountered.

“I’ve seen my community be more divided or polarized, and this is exactly what I don’t want to see happen,” he said.

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Bob Mackin One of the candidates who attended

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Bob Mackin

B.C.’s biggest municipal workers union is offering to reimburse members who take time-off to campaign for left-wing candidates in Vancouver’s Oct. 20 civic election, just as it did during the 2014 election.

Independent watchdog Dermod Travis says this is further evidence the NDP B.C. government botched campaign finance reform that was supposed to ban unions and corporations from stuffing big money into political campaigns.

CUPE 15’s Bankiner (CUPE)

“Everyone — unions and business groups and property developers — knows very well what the spirit of the law was meant to be and they should be rising to the spirit of the law, not plummeting to the letter of the law,” said IntegrityBC’s Travis.

An Oct. 15 memo marked “urgent” on the CUPE Local 15 website and email from secretary-treasurer Sally Bankiner offered to help members book-off from their regular full-time positions.

“CUPE BC is working with locals and the Vancouver and District Labour Council to engage voters in the fast approaching city election for mayor, city council, school board and park board,” Bankiner wrote. “For progressive labour friendly candidates to get elected we need members to help get the word out.”

CUPE Local 15’s website says it has 6,000 members with 19 employers in Metro Vancouver, including Vancouver municipal, education and community workers. The memo did not mention any names of candidates, but VDLC has already endorsed former Burnaby NDP MP Kennedy Stewart’s bid for mayor with a slate of candidates from the OneCity, COPE, Vancouver Greens and Vision Vancouver parties for other positions.

CUPE B.C. is a registered third-party election sponsor, but Local 15 is not. Third-party sponsor organizations can spend $150,000 province-wide.

Bankiner’s memo said work will involve calling fellow CUPE members, knocking on doors, helping with office tasks or organizing and motivating volunteers.

“Training will be provided, so even with no previous campaign experience any Local 15 member will be able to provide vital help to this effort. CUPE BC will be reimbursing Local 15 for your wages and benefits for all days you are booked off to provide assistance,” Bankiner wrote. “This is a great opportunity to be involved in an exciting, positive campaign to make Vancouver a better place to live and work.”

Bankiner was not available for immediate comment.

Travis said the confusion causes public cynicism.

“They should not be searching for loopholes when they know very well what the intent was and it is regrettable that they chose not to follow the intent and the spirit of the law,” he said. “It is hoped that the government, after Oct. 20, will finally recognize it is time to overhaul B.C.’s election legislation from top-to-bottom and get it right before we go into any other election cycle.”

In 2016, Local 15 scored a 7% wage hike for its contract through 2019. The deal covered almost 4,000 workers who perform inside work for the city and park board, Ray-Cam Cooperative Association and Britannia Community Services Society. 

During the 2014 civic election, this reporter revealed how CUPE Local 1004, the city’s outside workers union, spent its $70,000 political action fund. The funds were matched by the union’s B.C. and national headquarters. It sparked allegations of conflict of interest from the NPA and an unsuccessful court petition to remove Gregor Robertson and Geoff Meggs from public office. Vision Vancouver launched a defamation lawsuit against the NPA in the dying days of the 2014 campaign, which was later settled out of court. 

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Bob Mackin B.C.’s biggest municipal workers union

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Bob Mackin

A British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal case against a Mandarin-only Richmond strata council has been cancelled after the complainant reached a confidential settlement with the council.

The hearing for Andreas and Dorte Kargut and others had been scheduled to run Oct. 15-19 and Oct. 22-25. They were alleging racial discrimination against the strata council. 

“The parties have resolved all outstanding issues,” read a statement from Rose Keith, the Karguts’ lawyer. “The parties will not be disclosing the details of the settlement.”

“We reached a last-minute settlement,” Dorte Kargut told theBreaker. “We are bound by confidentially and non-disparagement. We are looking forward to healing as a family and moving forward.”

Andreas Kargut went public in late 2015 about the Wellington Court strata council shunning those who could speak only English. His complaint, originally on behalf of nine owners at Wellington Court, alleged that the strata council and then-president Ed Mao discriminated against the owners on the basis of their race, by holding strata meetings in Mandarin and allowing the use of proxy voters. 

Karguts leave Richmond, summer 2017 (Facebook)

In its submissions to the tribunal, the strata council denied the discrimination allegations. It said it was “more efficient” to do business in Mandarin, the language that all strata council members and a majority of townhouse owners could speak. 

Mao resigned shortly after the complaint. Kargut and his family moved in summer 2017 to Vernon.

A preliminary decision last December that allowed the case to proceed noted the dilemma that neither the Strata Property Act nor the Bylaws specify in what language the meeting must be held or the minutes be kept. Before 2014, Wellington Court meetings were held in English only and minutes kept in English. But in successive annual general meetings, Mandarin-speaking owners were voted to council, many by proxy holders.

In a Dec. 13, 2017 written decision, tribunal member Walter Rilkoff rejected the Wellington Court strata council’s application to dismiss the action, and said that the policy to conduct business in Mandarin effectively turned the strata council into a “closed shop.” 

“Realistically [it is] not open to non‐Mandarin speakers who wish to be part of the governance of the strata,” Rilkoff wrote. “In turn that can have the longer‐term effect of closing off living in the strata to the majority of people who do not speak Mandarin.”

Rilkoff noted the threshold is low for a discrimination complaint to proceed to a hearing. The complainant need only show that the supporting evidence is not conjecture or speculation.

“This is not a decision that this complaint will succeed. Rather it is that on a preliminary basis, and on the basis of the information before me, I am unable to determine that it has no reasonable prospect of success.”

Rilkoff wrote that a stated purpose of the Human Rights Code is to foster a society in British Columbia in which there are no impediments to full and free participation in the economic, social, political, and cultural life of this province.

“A situation where owners who do not speak a foreign language, but speak one of Canada’s official languages and the lingua franca of this province, are precluded from full participation in the governance of their homes, is not likely to be found to eliminate barriers, but to erect them,” Rilkoff wrote. “Where that distinction is based on what may be appear to be racial or ethnic divisions, the situation may be found to violate the Code.”

The decision said complaints are usually made by a minority or marginalized group, which may have suffered historical discrimination. Discrimination by the minority against members of the majority group, Rilkoff wrote, “is no more acceptable just because that group has obtained a majority in a particular enclave. Within the universe of the strata, the Kargut group may well be a minority.”

A majority of owners are Mandarin speakers, the decision said, but “Wellington Court is not, and cannot be, a closed community open only to people of one ethnic group. Any owner is free to sell their unit to anyone and anyone is entitled to purchase a unit. That buyer in turn is entitled to meaningfully participate in the strata’s governance.

“By the same token, a majority of the owners are Mandarin speakers, although it may be only a few who do not have a facility with English. In those circumstances, it may be unlikely that the complainant group could obtain a remedy, even if wholly successful, that provides for all strata council meetings to be conducted in English only. The Strata may be under an obligation to provide reasonable accommodation to the Mandarin speakers.”

In summer 2017, Kargut told theBreaker that he made the difficult decision to accept a job transfer and to move his family to Vernon because Wellington Court “was no longer a home, it was just a place where we lived.” He said there was harmony at the townhouse complex, until proxy votes were used to systematically replace English-speaking owners on strata council with those who spoke Mandarin. 

In an interview after the tribunal’s preliminary decision last year, Kargut said that he “couldn’t keep up the fight, pay the costs of the fight and still live in Richmond, have a mortgage, and also have to deal with the stress of a bunch of people that put a lot of effort into showing that we were unwanted around any of them.” He said it had cost his group $45,000 in legal fees so far. 

The strata council, Kargut said, “shot itself in the foot” by not resolving at the 2016 annual general meeting to translate all council meetings to English. A date for a hearing has not been set and Kargut expects it could take months to happen. 

“The future of our official languages is at stake, every Canadian would have an interest at stake here.”

Andreas Kargut had launched a GoFundMe campaign in June 2016 and raised $9,150 of its $85,000 goal. In an update on the page, before the settlement, he wrote:

“This has been an extremely difficult journey and a very humbling experience. We were not only victims of alleged discrimination, but we were also at the mercy of lawyers who have the right to fight back and challenge every effort for us to make it to the end. We have lost three years of our lives due to this. In the end we found Wellington Court to be an unsafe place for our family to live.

“We sold our place and moved to Vernon in July of 2017 in order to get away from it all and continued our fight for our right to use one of Canada’s official languages. We lived in harmony for over 10 years with all of our neighbours. Literally overnight official language was no longer good enough for them. Rather than joining us on the strata council team and asking for translation they took over and made Wellington Court an unfriendly place for people that did not speak Mandarin.”

Kargut wrote that his lawyer made an unsuccessful attempt at a settlement in July and that it has cost more than $60,000 in legal fees as of Oct. 1. He estimated the seven-day hearing would cost another $50,000. “If everyone who has been on our GoFundMe page could just contribute $8.00 we may have enough to help us fight this as it has put us into financial hardship.”

He also wrote that his group is comprised of Canadians of German, Hong Kong, Colombian, Ukrainian, British and Malaysian heritage.

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Bob Mackin A British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal

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There are 71 candidates running for 10 city council seats in Vancouver’s Oct. 20 general election. Almost 10% of them are on this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast.

Hear the “elevator pitches” for your vote by: independent Justin Caudwell, Coalition Vancouver’s Glen Chernen, independent Hamdy El-Rayes, Vancouver Greens’ Pete Fry, NPA’s Colleen Hardwick, ProVancouver’s Rohana Rezel and COPE’s Anne Roberts. 

Host Bob Mackin asked each one of them why they deserve your vote and what they will do to advance the cause of open government, should they be elected. 

Plus commentaries and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.

Click below or go to iTunes and subscribe. 

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

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There are 71 candidates running for 10

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Bob Mackin

One of two men acquitted of planning the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history was seen at a campaign event for Tom Gill’s Surrey First mayoral bid.

Now Gill’s party is trying to distance itself from Ripudaman Singh Malik.

Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri were found not guilty in 2005 of the 1985 Air India bombings that killed 331 people.

Malik at a Gill campaign event (Twitter)

Twitter user @JaswinderGrew41 published a photo and video on Oct. 7 of a Surrey First event, where Malik was seen seated among more than 100 people in a banquet room, listening to Gill.

theBreaker also obtained a copy of WhatsApp message that appears to have originated from Malik, encouraging attendance at a Sept. 1 meeting in the Khalsa School in Newton. Read the message: “To support Tom Gill for Mayar (sic) & slate for council…. please attend.”

Gill did not respond to theBreaker, but campaign spokesman Norman Stowe of the Pace Group did.

“[Gill] attends a dozen different events every day that are organized by individuals and community groups across the city,” Stowe said. “It would be impossible for him to personally know everyone who might attend and he was not aware of Mr Malik’s attendance at any particular event.”

Did Malik donate to the Surrey First campaign?

“While we’re confident we have not had a campaign contribution from Mr. Malik we have asked our finance folks to go through everything to be sure,” Stowe said. “They will be back to me on Monday.”

Gregor Robertson with Malik in 2010 (Anton)

It is not the first time that Malik’s attendance at a political event has caused a stir.

Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson was photographed in 2010 smiling near Malik at the Khalsa School in Vancouver by NPA Coun. Suzanne Anton. Robertson said he was there for the school opening and did not shake Malik’s hand.

In 2011, Vancouver South Conservative Wai Young was invited to the Khalsa School, where Malik endorsed her bid to unseat Ujjal Dosanjh to teachers and parents.

Young later said that she had been invited by the principal and would have not attended had she known Malik was present or involved with the school.

Young is running for Vancouver mayor under the Coalition Vancouver banner.

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Bob Mackin One of two men acquitted of

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