Recent Posts
Business, News
Business, News, Sports
Connect with:
Saturday / July 19.
  • No products in the cart.
SECTION
logo
mobile-logo
HomeStandard Blog Whole Post (Page 177)
Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

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

Speaker Darryl Plecas (Mackin)

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

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

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

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

Auditor General Carol Bellringer

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

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

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

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

Speaker Darryl Plecas (Mackin)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin In part one of his first

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

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

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

Auditor General Carol Bellringer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin The British Columbia Auditor General’s first

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For May, that was not enough. 

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

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin  The day after the anniversary of

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin (Updated Sept. 18)

A Surrey, B.C. woman has been arrested in Spain on fraud charges related to the ongoing U.S. college admissions scandal.

Xiaoning Sui, 48, is accused of paying a $400,000 bribe to have her tennis-playing son recruited to the University of California Los Angeles soccer team so that he could study there. He had no prior competitive soccer experience, but was billed as a top player on two private teams in Canada.

(UCLA)

Sui is the 52nd person charged, but not the first from B.C. David Sidoo pleaded not guilty to paying $200,000 for an imposter to write his sons’ college admissions tests. U.S. authorities referred to Sui as a Chinese woman and said that she was arrested Sept. 16 in Spain and that they will begin extradition proceedings in Spain to bring Sui to Massachusetts to face the charges. The U.S. Department of Justice did not disclose where in Spain she was arrested and where she is being held.

“Global Affairs is aware of a detention of a Canadian citizen in Spain. Consular officials are in contact,” said Global Affairs Canada spokesman John Babcock by email to theBreaker.news.

Sui could face 20 years in jail, three years of probation and a $250,000 fine if convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. 

An unsealed March indictment alleges that the scheme’s ringleader, Rick Singer, a Chinese translator and a recruiter who is not named held a conference call on Oct. 24 of last year with Sui. Singer allegedly told Sui to wire $100,000 to Singer’s bank account for payment to the coach at UCLA, Jorge Salcedo, in exchange for a recruitment letter.

“The translator translated what Singer said into Chinese, telling Sui: ‘Your son is admitted to this school through UCLA’s soccer team. That $100,000 is directly transferred to that soccer coach. So, although your son is a tennis player, because there is a place in soccer team, so it is the soccer team that takes your son.’ SUI responded, “OK,” according to the indictment.

Jorge Salcedo (UCLA)

In September of last year, the indictment says, Sui sent pictures of her son playing tennis to the recruiter, who forwarded the photographs to Singer. Laura Janke, an assistant women’s soccer coach at the University of Southern California, sent a faked soccer profile of Sui’s son to Singer, that included a photograph of a different person playing competitive soccer.

Sui wired the sum two days after the conference call to a Key Worldwide Foundation account in Massachusetts. On Nov. 5, UCLA approved her son for admission and also awarded him a 25% scholarship.

On Feb. 15 of this year, Sui wired $300,000 from Canada to a KWF account in Massachusetts as final payment for her son’s admission to UCLA.

Singer pleaded guilty to racketeering, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud and obstruction of justice and has agreed to cooperate with investigators. Janke pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge and will be sentenced in January. Salcedo has an Oct. 1 case conference as he contests the racketeering charge.

theBreaker.news previously reported on Sui’s Surrey connection and that British Columbia small claims court records indicate Sui was sued by a Vancouver high-end luxury car subscription service. DK Conquest Luxury Rentals Inc. filed a claim last September for $22,920.11 in repairs and loss of use against Sui and husband Qiran Li. Li allegedly significantly damaged the front end of a 2014 BMW M5. Sui and Li paid a $7,500 damage deposit, but the insurance that Li bought from DK was void “due to reckless use of the vehicle.”

Sui and Li are listed on the small claims action at different South Surrey addresses. One property is worth $2.99 million, the other $1.31 million. They do, however, have a common phone number listed on the statement of claim.

David Sidoo (left) and Justin Trudeau in 2016 (PMO)

Sidoo, a former CFL player who became a wealthy stock market player, tops a list of 19 people named in an April 9 indictment. Sidoo pleaded not guilty on April 29 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy.

He is accused of paying more than $200,000 for Harvard-educated tennis coach Mark Riddell to write college entrance exams for sons Dylan and Jordan Sidoo, neither of whom are charged.

If convicted, David Sidoo could face up to 20 years in prison. His next court date is Oct. 2.

Riddell pleaded guilty on April 12 to fraud and money laundering in the scheme hatched by mastermind Singer, who admitted that he “created a side door that would guarantee families would get in.”

Prosecutors allege Riddell traveled from Tampa, Fla. to Vancouver and used false identification to pose as Dylan Sidoo to write an SAT [Scholastic Aptitude Test] test on Dec. 3, 2011 at a venue that has not been disclosed.

Riddell allegedly traveled to Vancouver again, to write a test on June 9, 2012 that is described in the indictment as a “Canadian high school graduation exam.”

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin (Updated Sept. 18) A Surrey, B.C.

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

An incumbent Trudeau Liberal MP’s campaign team includes a prominent member of the Chinese nationalist group that demonstrated outside a Vancouver transit station last month.

Eileen Chen (right) at Joe Peschisolido’s campaign office opening on Sept. 15, as the Liberal incumbent hugs a supporter.

theBreaker.news has confirmed that Eileen Chen is the events assistant in the Chinese community for Steveston-East Richmond candidate Joe Peschisolido. Chen attended Peschisolido’s Sept. 15 Liberal campaign office opening where she coordinated photographs of Peschisolido and supporters.

On Aug. 17, outside the Broadway-City Hall Canada Line station, Chen stood in the front row of the mob that sang the People’s Republic of China’s national anthem, waved brand new flags and professionally printed signs, and hurled insults at local supporters of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.

Chen is the chief executive of a Richmond event production and advertising company called CYC Royal International Culture Group Co. (aka Haoyu International), which also has offices in Hangzhou and Liaoning, China. Haoyu’s Chinese-only website includes photographs of Chen with officials from China’s Vancouver consulate. An English translation of the Haoyu website says the company’s services include cultural exchanges, project planning, business exhibitions, film and TV shoots and advertising.

Chen did not respond to theBreaker.news request for comment. Likewise, Peschisolido did not reply to queries on Aug. 24 and Sept. 16.

Eileen Chen (right) and Adamas Kou, supporting China’s Communist regime on Aug. 17 in Vancouver (Mackin)

theBreaker.news independently confirmed that Peschisolido’s assistant, Michael Wong, was aware that Chen participated in the Aug. 17 protest. On that day, Chen was joined by Haoyu’s chief technology officer, Adamas Kou.

The website for the Shanxi Province branch of the Communist Party’s Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese credited the Canada Vancouver Shanxi Natives Society and director Cao Zhen Yu for coordinating what it called a “solidarity gathering.”

Independent watchdog Dermod Travis of IntegrityBC called the situation irregular and inappropriate.

“Individuals who want to participate in Canadian political affairs need to follow Canada’s foreign policy line, not their own individual foreign policy lines,” Travis said. “And there has been too much interference by [People’s Republic of China]-backed organizations in B.C. and Toronto. If the U.S. were doing it, we would be in an uproar. It’s time that Canadians be in an uproar when the P.R.C. does it.”

Peschisolido has been a magnet for controversy since his 2015 election in Steveston-Richmond East. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not appoint him to cabinet, but he does co-chair the Canada-China Legislative Association.

It took until December 2017, more than two years since he won the riding, for Peschisolido to decide to wind-down his law firm. In August, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion confirmed that he was investigating a Conservative complaint alleging that Peschisolido failed to disclose that the B.C. Law Society had appointed a custodian in April.

Chen (left) and Peschisolido at the Sino-Canadian Geographical Indication Development Association launch in August 2018 (Wow TV)

Last month, Peschisolido filed papers in B.C. Supreme Court in an attempt to distance himself from a lawsuit involving a former client of his law firm. The B.C. Securities Commission found in 2017 that Paul Oei had defrauded investors for $5 million.

In July, Peschisolido denied that his law firm helped mask an alleged gangster’s $7.8 million stake in a Coquitlam property through a bare trust, claiming he did not deal with Kwok Chung Tam in any capacity.

Last year, Peschisolido was photographed at social events with People’s Liberation Army veteran Rongxiang “Tiger” Yuan and Paul King Jin, the banned-from-B.C.-casinos Richmond man accused of money laundering. In a July statement, Peschisolido denied knowing Yuan and Jin.

“In all my duties, I have always conducted myself with utmost integrity and professionalism,” Peschisolido said in a July statement.

In September 2016, Peschisolido apologized for wearing a Communist Young Pioneers scarf at a Vancouver city hall celebration of China’s national day. He later said he regretted wearing the symbol of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

Peschisolido’s main challenger in the Oct. 21 election is Conservative Kenny Chiu, the 2015 runner-up by 2,856 votes.

“I’m astounded that the Liberal Party of Canada has allowed him to run for re-election under their banner,” he said. “Nominations aren’t closed [until month-end]. They still have an opportunity to put that right.”

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin An incumbent Trudeau Liberal MP’s campaign

Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin (Updated)

A student who published a threatening message about West Vancouver’s Rockridge Secondary on Snapchat has been suspended from the school until further notice, according to the school’s principal. 

Judy Duncan said in a one-paragraph email to parents on Sept. 16 that the West Vancouver Police conducted a thorough investigation and decided that the school would open as usual.

Rockridge Secondary (WVSD)

“We are confident that all measures have been taken and that there is no threat to student safety. We look forward to a regular school day [Monday],” Duncan wrote.

In an update later in the day, Duncan wrote, “The school can also confirm that the student involved in the post will not be attending Rockridge Secondary until further notice.”

The image circulated on Snapchat shows a photograph of the suspect, a downcast boy wearing rose-coloured glasses, under the words: “I will be there distinction thought fighting by my side. This pitifully ruled school of ours, will come to an end tomorrow. This is a threat. Not some rant so TAKE ACTION NOW.” (theBreaker.news is choosing not to publish the image for the time being.)

“Officers have met with the student responsible and have determined there is no credibility to the threat,” said West Vancouver Police spokesman Const. Kevin Goodmurphy. Currently, he said, no criminal charges are being considered. 

School board chair Carolyn Broady said she had been briefed, but would not comment because of protocol and referred a reporter’s query to the school board’s communications office.

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin (Updated) A student who published a

Miscellany, News, Opinion

Talk Minus Action Equals Zero.

The trademark credo of punk legend Joe Keithley.

D.O.A.’s Joe Keithley (Mackin)

Last year, after multiple attempts, the D.O.A. singer/guitarist was finally elected to public office: city council in his hometown, Burnaby, B.C., with the Green Party.

He is getting involved in the federal election, with his non-partisan Punk the Vote Festival on Sept. 21 at the WISE Hall in Vancouver.

“I know people do take all sorts of points of view when they consider who to vote for, but this is what I’m pushing: vote for the candidate that would try and fight climate change,” Keithley said in conversation with theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin.

Keithley grew up near the Trans Mountain Pipeline tank farm at Burnaby Mountain. He is an outspoken opponent of the pipeline expansion, which the Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the day after declaring a climate emergency.

“When you sell yourself as the harbinger of truth and virtue and you’re going to do things differently and then you turn around and do things exactly the same way that politics has been done forever, then you kind of lose that credibility with people,” Keithley says of Trudeau.

Keithley reflects on his first year on city council, says he will boycott the Chinese government reception at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention later this month (“The People’s Republic of China is not interested in helping anybody but themselves”) and boldly predicts the Vancouver Canucks will return to the Stanley Cup playoffs next year.

Plus commentaries and headlines from the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim and host Mackin awards a virtual Nanaimo bar to a B.C. charity that is making a difference.

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

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

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

 

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast: D.O.A.'s Joe Keithley talks pipeline, politics, punk and puck
Loading
/
0 Comments

Talk Minus Action Equals Zero. The trademark credo

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

A colleague of the senior RCMP intelligence director accused of leaking federal government secrets says the charges against Cameron Jay Ortis are totally out of character.

“Nothing in my experience with Cameron would lead me to suspect he would be any way involved in activities that would lead to such charges,” Paul Evans, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s school of Public Policy and Global Affairs, told theBreaker.news by email. “Like others who know him well, I was shocked by the news of the arrest of a very fine Canadian.  While the matter is under investigation, I have no further comment.”

University of B.C. professor Paul Evans (UBC)

Abbotsford, B.C.-raised Ortis, a 47-year-old cybersecurity expert fluent in Mandarin, was charged Sept. 13 under three sections of the Security of Information Act and two sections of the Criminal Code. The accusations include unauthorized communication of special operation information, breach of trust by a public officer and unauthorized use of a computer. Offences allegedly took place in 2015 and 2018.

John MacFarlane, a spokesman for the Public Prosecution Service, said outside an Ottawa courthouse where Ortis made an appearance by video that the civilian is alleged to have “obtained, stored, processed sensitive information.” The Crown wants a judge to deny Ortis bail.

“The Crown believes that he intended to communicate that information to people he shouldn’t be communicating to,” MacFarlane told reporters.

Ortis completed his doctorate in philosophy in political science in August 2006 at UBC and held a postdoctoral appointment at UBC’s Centre for International Relations. Evans was on Ortis’s doctoral dissertation committee and worked with him on training programs for junior researchers from Asian policy institutes. They also co-published essays on ways the Internet was being used for positive and negative purposes in the Asia-Pacific region, Evans said. 

“After taking up his role in Ottawa we met socially from time to time,” Evans said. “He did not discuss the details of his work and throughout was an exemplar of discretion and integrity in our interactions.”  

Evans was co-chair with Yuen Pau Woo, a Justin Trudeau-appointed senator, of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada from 2005 to 2008 and authored 2014’s “Engaging China: Myth, Aspiration, and Strategy in Canadian Policy from Trudeau to Harper.” One of the papers that Evans and Ortis produced was “The Internet and Asia-Pacific security: Old conflicts and new behaviour” in 2011. 

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin A colleague of the senior RCMP

Business, News

Bob Mackin

A former right-hand man to ex-Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson scored a $22,000 no-bid contract from Premier John Horgan’s office, theBreaker.news has learned.

Kevin Quinlan (Twitter)

Kevin Quinlan got the gig on May 31 for “coordination services for Food Security Task Force Project.” Horgan spokeswoman Sage Aaron said Quinlan was hired for project management, not policy analysis.

“Costs will be vouchered to the Ministries of Agriculture and Jobs, Technology and Trade,” Aaron said. The government launched a food security survey website in July on ways to boost agritech and reduce food waste. The survey closes Oct. 15.

Quinlan’s contract is below the $25,000 threshold for competitive procurement. If a ministry can prove only one contractor is qualified or there is urgent and confidential need, it can award a contract of any size without competition. Quinlan’s contract falls under the confidential category.

Quinlan began as Robertson’s executive assistant in 2008 and ultimately became chief of staff in 2016 when Robertson’s longtime right-hand man Mike Magee quit to become a lobbyist. Quinlan was also deputy communications director on Vision re-election campaigns in 2011 and 2014.

Amid declining popularity in 2018, Robertson chose not to run for re-election after new campaign finance laws that banned corporate and union donations. theBreaker.news revealed in 2018 that Quinlan and Robertson used Gmail to hide their email from freedom of information requests. Among Quinlan’s duties revealed in the trove of hidden email was to ghostwrite Robertson’s Tweets.

Cardona (left) and Robertson (Vision)

Quinlan took a Simon Fraser University night school course in real estate development in 2015. After Kennedy Stewart won the mayoralty, Quinlan took a course at Harvard University in finance for senior executives.

In April, he opened Quinlan Consulting to provide climate change, infrastructure and finance strategy and public policy analysis to businesses, governments and non-profits. Quinlan also joined Toronto consultancy Mantle314 Inc. as senior advisor in July.

The Geoff Meggs effect

Quinlan is no stranger to Horgan’s chief of staff, former Vision Vancouver Coun. Geoff Meggs.

Since Meggs quit city council in July 2017 to join the Premier’s office, cabinet has appointed numerous ex-Vancouver city hall bureaucrats and politicos to provincial boards or jobs.

Health board appointees include: ex-city manager Penny Ballem and ex-assistant city manager Wendy Au (Vancouver Coastal Health), ex-Vision Coun. Kerry Jang and Vision donor Gary Pooni (Provincial Health Services Authority), ex-Vision treasurer Opreet Kang (Fraser Health) and Trout Lake community centre president Kate Perkins (Providence Health). Perkins worked in the city elections office in 2011 and as Pride coordinator in 2012. In leaked 2012 email, she described herself as Ballem’s “mole” during the contentious operating agreement negotiations between community centres and the Vision-dominated Park Board.

Premier John Horgan with chief of staff Geoff Meggs on a February 2019 trip to Washington State (BC Gov)

Vision-hired general manager of buildings and permits, Kaye Matheny Krishna, went to work in Victoria as deputy minister of municipal affairs and housing last March. Ex-Vision park board commissioner Niki Sharma is an aide to Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, while twice-defeated Vision city council candidate Diego Cardona is an aide to Advanced Education Minister Melanie Mark.

Cabinet named ex-Vision city councillor Raymond Louie to the province’s Medal of Good Citizenship Committee and ex-Vision city councillor Heather Deal to the Council of the Architectural Institute of British Columbia. Cabinet appointed ex-Vision park board commissioner Catherine Evans to the B.C. Society of Landscape Architects’ board of examiners.

Former Robertson aide Mira Oreck worked for two years in Horgan’s office as director of stakeholder relations. Another former Robertson aide, Naveen Girn, joined Horgan’s office in May as director of strategic outreach and stakeholder relations.

Horgan’s office has also hired Suzanne Hawkes of Convergence Communications to run cabinet retreats. Hawkes is Magee’s wife and Convergence is their company.

Last, but not least, Vision Vancouver’s godfather and chair of the Hollyhock resort on Cortes Island, Joel Solomon, is an NDP-appointee to the University of British Columbia’s board of governors.

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin A former right-hand man to ex-Vision

Business, Miscellany, News, Opinion

Bob Mackin

Let the promise-making, bellyaching, navel-gazing, fibbing, fabricating, shaming, advertising, door-knocking, burma-shaving and robocalling… intensify.

You thought I was going to say begin, didn’t you?

Canada’s 43rd federal election campaign unofficially began with the end of last spring’s sitting of the House of Commons. You might say it unofficially began the day after the last election, in 2015.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits Rideau Hall to ask Gov. Gen. Julie Payette to dissolve the house on Sept. 11 and proceed with the fixed Oct. 21 election. Trudeau had until Sept. 15 to do so. No word on why Sept. 11 was chosen. It did raise a few eyebrows, as it is a solemn occasion: the 18th anniversary of the day 26 Canadians died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

Trudeau begins the campaign enveloped by the stench of corruption, as the Globe and Mail reports his appointees in the Privy Council Office are blocking the RCMP from investigating cabinet documents. Trudeau enters the election with two, count ’em, two conflict of interests and an active RCMP investigation, after promising an ethical government in 2015. Can Conservative opposition leader Andrew Scheer capitalize? 

Bookmark theBreaker.news for daily news and listen to theBreaker.news Podcast every week (also subscribe via Apple Podcasts).

Got a news tip or document to leak? Contact theBreaker.news here.

Meanwhile, on the eve of writ day, a Conservative-aligned company is robocalling. Joseph Ben-Ami’s Ditchley Research is seeking answers to its four-question survey. Ben-Ami is a former aide to Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day. (The call was actually from “Theresa from Ditchley Research,” not Joseph.)

The four questions?

  1. Are you a Canadian citizen, 18 years of age or older?
  2. Do you approve of the job Justin Trudeau is doing as Prime Minister?
  3. Do you support the construction to expand the Trans-Mountain Pipeline from Alberta to the Port of Vancouver?
  4. Tomorrow Justin Trudeau will ask the Governor General to call an election for Oct. 21, as you consider how you will vote, what issue is most important to you in deciding which party you will support?
  • Carbon Tax
  • Seniors Benefits
  • Federal Deficit and Debt
  • Legalization of Cannabis
  • Families and Children
  • Other
  • Undecided

Click below to listen. 

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

0 Comments

Bob Mackin Let the promise-making, bellyaching, navel-gazing, fibbing,

m
About Us

theBreaker.news and theBreaker.news Podcast: your source for news, opinion and analysis about British Columbia issues, institutions and influencers.

Contact
theBreaker is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and published by Bob Mackin.
Email: bob@thebreaker.news
Send tips via secure Protonmail theBreakernews@protonmail.com
Support theBreaker.news
For as low as $2 a month, you can help support theBreaker.news on Patreon
Support theBreaker.news on Patreon
Find out how by clicking here!