How did two teenagers from Vancouver Island get all the way to a remote part of Manitoba after allegedly killing as many as three people in Northern British Columbia? Why was the drug overdose death of a teenager at a Langley, B.C. skateboard park initially reported as an incident requiring the Independent Investigations Office? Why are the names of victims of a fatal July floatplane crash in B.C. kept secret by B.C. authorities?
In an age of transparency, police and regulatory agencies in Canada are less forthcoming than counterparts south of the border in the United States. Canadian authorities tend to default to privacy. Yet they are frequently asking the public for help.
“They’re wondering why the public is not coming forward with information,” said Kash Heed, a former solicitor general of British Columbia who is this week’s guest on theBreaker.news Podcast. “They expect it to be a one-way street.”
“They can absolutely afford to tell us a lot more than they’re telling us right now,” said Heed, a former superintendent of the Vancouver Police and chief of the West Vancouver Police. He calls it a disturbing trend with the RCMP not releasing anything on certain incidents, unless the media finds a reference on social media or gets a tip from an eyewitness. “It’s carried through to some other public accountability agencies, such as the IIO, the coroner’s office, even some of the bureaucracies within our government here that are controlled by some of the political body. The media certainly has a right to raise these particularly issues.”
Listen to host Bob Mackin’s full interview with Heed. Plus, Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim headlines and commentaries.
British Columbia might need to take super steps to protect its natural gems from tourists.
Destination B.C., the Crown corporation that markets B.C. around the world, says it has already stopped promoting hot spots as the global trend of overtourism intensifies on Canada’s West Coast.
Quarry Rock (instagram: silvermooncy)
An information note released to theBreaker.news, under the freedom of information law, says that Destination B.C. has adjusted its “seasonal dispersion of visitors” away from popular tourism locations, parks and cruise ship terminals in peak season.
“We’ve also stopped promoting specific ‘hot spots’ completely, including Joffre Lakes near Pemberton (i.e. our last social media post related to Joffre Lakes was in 2016 and Joffre Lakes does not appear on HelloBC.com) and Quarry Rock in North Vancouver,” the briefing note said. “BC Parks, the local municipality and the Ministry of Transportation are working to resolve congestion problems in these areas. While specific research has not been conducted, anecdotal evidence suggests that most visitors to these congested areas are regional British Columbians, not tourists.”
Destination B.C. staff received training from B.C. AdventureSmart and Leave No Trace Canada to increase educational, safety and sustainability messaging. The Crown corporation concedes that it has limited ability to influence the actions of local residents and it has no control over “which areas or experiences are tagged with the #exploreBC hashtag by members of the public.”
“Our team is receptive and responsive to feedback from local experts and advocates who may be concerned with an area or activity that we are promoting online; this feedback is discussed and taken into account for future content planning. Any mistake or misinformation is corrected immediately and publicly.”
Capilano Suspension Bridge (Mackin)
Overtourism is driven by several factors: social media, an expanding global middle class, more flights from more places, and a rise in tourists from the world’s two most-populous countries, China and India.
A report for the World Travel and Tourism Council by McKinsey and Co., titled “Coping with Success: Managing Overcrowding in Tourism Destinations,” said that travel and tourism was estimated to be worth $7.9 trillion to the global economy in 2017. Destination B.C. figures estimate $18.4 billion in 2017 revenue from tourism across the province, with almost 138,000 employees in more than 19,000 tourism-related businesses. Some of the province’s tourism boom is a byproduct of Vancouver hosting the Winter Olympics in 2010.
“But while some places capture a significant share of the [travel and tourism] pie, others barely get a nibble,” said the McKinsey report. “Moreover, some destinations are in danger of being loved to death.”
The McKinsey report said that overcrowding is easier to prevent than to recover from. Overcrowding leads to alienation of local residents, a degraded experience for tourists, overloading of infrastructure, damage to nature and threats to culture and heritage.
Joffre Lakes near Pemberton and Quarry Rock in North Vancouver have received substantial media attention in B.C. for traffic jams and long lineups of hikers. Congestion has also rankled residents in Whistler and neighbours of North Vancouver’s Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.
Grouse Mountain Skyride (Mackin)
Last January, the forestedtourist attraction that spans the Capilano River held a public meeting at nearby Cleveland Elementary school. The bridge’s owners were gauging public opinion for their proposal to tear down several aging Capilano Road townhouses in order to expand the parking lot so as to ease traffic congestion. Some 150 people showed up, with speaker after speaker voicing opposition and calling for better traffic management by the attraction itself, one of B.C.’s biggest draws with 1.2 million visits a year. Visitors pay up to $53.95 each, but a 30% discount is offered after 5 p.m. in an effort to ease the congestion.
“The noise from the [WestCoast Sightseeing/Vancouver Trolley Co.] buses all the up and down Capilano Road is horrific,” said neighbour Howard Meakin. “They don’t turn their engines off, they like to keep them idling.”
“We’re dealing with serious vehicle congestion,” Bannerman said. “Adding more cars is not a solution to the vehicle congestion problem, it’s that simple. I just don’t think building parking lots is fashionable these days.”
The townhouses remain standing and the parking lot the same capacity. Handsworth Secondary school remains an overflow parking lot while it awaits demolition and reconstruction. The parent company, Capilano Group, also runs the Stanley Park Pavilion and Prospect Point.
B.C. Day long weekend is one of the busiest for tourists, with the marquee events like the climax of the Honda Celebration of Light fireworks festival and the annual Vancouver Pride Parade. Visitors had to wait up to an hour on Aug. 3 and 4 just to walk across Capilano Suspension Bridge’s signature wobbly span. The company has a joint marketing and shuttle bus arrangement with Grouse Mountain, where visitors who paid up to $59 each on Aug. 3 were faced with an hour-long wait at the end of the afternoon to board the Skyride gondola for their descent to the parking lot. There were similar delays on the suspension bridge and Skyride last winter, for tourists viewing Christmas light displays at the two attractions.
Traffic jams led the federal agency that runs Granville Island to charge for parking in outdoor lots near the public market. Traffic jams and bus idling near the totem poles on Brockton Point in Stanley Park are a constant concern. Meanwhile, Vancouver’s taxi cartel and city traffic engineers brace for the provincial government to finally green light Uber and Lyft, which will present opportunities and challenges.
Joffre Lakes Provincial Park (sg0305: Instagram)
A budget estimates note for the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change in February 2019 on Park Demand, Expansion and Overuse, said total provincial park attendance reached 23.7 million in 2017-2018. It fell 4.5%, because of wildfires, from the historical high in 2016.
“The total park attendance has been increasing on average, at a rate of 3% over the past five years. Camping attendance also experienced a similar average growth of 3% each year and reached approximately 2.9 million persons in 2017-2018,” the document said.
There are not enough camping opportunities to meet demand in parks, so B.C. is spending $22.9 million to add more than 1,900 camp sites over five years. More than 800 will be in provincial parks and 1,000 in recreational sites.
“A number of day-use areas have seen unprecedented increases, particularly in the South Coast region.”
A “visitor use management action plan” was created for Joffre Lakes, in collaboration with the Lil’wat and N’Quatqua first nations, said an email by B.C. Parks executive director David Ranson.
“These [overuse] strategies include parking lot expansion, a shuttle bus service, emergency phone through wifi connectivity, a possible highway web cam and other traffic management actions (e.g. towing of illegally parked vehicles on highway),” Ranson wrote.
Volunteer search and rescue groups are also feeling the pressure of overtourism.
North Shore Rescue counted a record 141 calls in 2018. Their affiliate, Squamish Search and Rescue, was called to Shannon Falls Provincial Park in July 2018 for a fatal incident that drew worldwide attention. A rescue mission turned into a recovery mission, after a member of the High On Life YouTube collective slipped and fell into a pool and two of her cohorts jumped in to try and save her. Ryker Gamble, Alexey Lyakh and Megan Scraper were part of a group that chronicled sometimes extreme adventure experiences in nature for like-minded millennials. They also garnered controversy along the way.
In early 2017, Gamble and Lyakh were sentenced to jail for a week each for trespassing on a geyser at Yellowstone National Park.
“We got overzealous in our enthusiasm for this wonderful place,” the group said on Facebook. “When standing at the face of such natural wonder, we were drawn to it. In an attempt to get the perfect shot, we acted in a way that doesn’t reflect our respect for the environment we were trying to capture.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is criss-crossing the nation on the taxpayer dime to campaign for the re-election of the Liberal government, before the official election period is declared.
Special attention is being paid to British Columbia, which Trudeau often calls his “second home.” (He lives in Ottawa, the capital, and represents the Papineau riding in Montreal.) The Liberals are in jeopardy of losing seats on the West Coast.
Justin Trudeau on July 29 in Vancouver (Mackin)
Soft NDP and Conservative voters who parked their votes with Liberal candidates in 2015 are likely to abandon the Liberals this October after broken Trudeau promises on the environment and economy. Not to mention his failure to reform the electoral system, balance the budget and implement a “disclosure by default” system of access to information. Then there is the litany of scandals with fundraisers and lobbyists and the SNC-Lavalin scandal that dominated national news for the entire first quarter of 2019.
Trudeau and his entourage have traveled on a $14,000-an-hour government jet to and from B.C. six times since late May, including B.C. Day long weekend for the Vancouver Pride Parade and a cash-for-access fundraiser in Surrey. In June, Trudeau made a one-day trip to Burnaby, B.C. for photo ops, returned to Ottawa the next day, and turned around and headed all the way back to Vancouver for the Women Deliver feminist conference.
Meanwhile, the Trudeau Liberal government has imposed carbon taxes on several provinces, vowed to ban single-use plastics and committed the Government of Canada to billions of dollars of spending to battle climate change at home and abroad. Yet Trudeau is accelerating his exhaust-spewing travel during the pre-election barbecue season in a bid to raise more dough and rally the Liberal troops in order to cling to power.
Why isn’t the Liberal Party picking up the bill? On this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, hear what Trudeau had to say to that and the questions of other reporters on other topics.
Plus, Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim headlines and commentaries.
Firemaster Productions took to the skies above English Bay in Vancouver on July 31 for the hump day of the three-night, Honda Celebration of Light fireworks extravaganza.
Enjoy the dazzling finale, courtesy of theBreaker.news.
EXCLUSIVE: Kelowna West’s Ben Stewart is out of the BC Liberal caucus.
Ben Stewart (BC Liberals)
theBreaker.news understands there was an emergency conference call for caucus members in which they were informed that the MLA in the BC Liberal stronghold has departed because of a matter related to an Elections BC investigation that involves a donation from his constituency assistant.
Elections BC spokeswoman Rebecca Penz said that the agency “received a letter late in the day [Aug. 1] from MLA Ben Stewart in regards to political contributions to the BC Liberal Party. We will be reviewing the matter to determine if there are any issues of compliance with the Election Act.” Penz refused to release details.
Stewart did not return phone calls, but said by email in late afternoon on Aug. 2: “Sorry to advise that I voluntarily left BC Liberal caucus last evening while Elections BC rules on a request I sent them to investigate an irregular donation under new election financing rules. Have to sit out of caucus till EBC rules on the matter. I’m confident there is no wrong doing as this is an administrative matter.”
theBreaker.news has asked Stewart to provide a copy of the letter he wrote to Elections BC, but he has not responded to that request.
BC Liberal filings for the second quarter of 2019 with Elections BC show that Stewart exceeded his contribution limit and the party returned $1,200 to him on June 25. He was the only MLA listed in the prohibited contributions list for the period. Under new campaign finance rules enacted by the NDP government in 2017, individual donations were capped at $1,200 per year to each registered political party, including its candidates, nomination contestants and registered riding associations. The limit was increased to $1,225.17 for 2019.
The opposition party is already a target of an RCMP investigation announced before the 2017 election. David Butcher was named special prosecutor to look into indirect political contributions and other potential contraventions of the BC Election Act. The outcome of the investigation has not been announced.
Stewart, who founded the Quail’s Gate winery in Kelowna 30 years ago, was elected twice in Westside-Kelowna in 2009 and 2013, but gave up his seat in 2013 so that then-Premier Christy Clark could return to the Legislature after she was defeated by the NDP’s David Eby in Vancouver-Point Grey. In return for his sacrifice, Clark appointed Stewart as B.C.’s Beijing-based trade envoy for $150,000 a year plus expenses. Stewart returned to the Legislature in a 2018 by-election, following Clark’s late July 2017 resignation from politics.
The BC Liberal Feb. 14, 2018 Kelowna West by-election financing report, audited by Ernst and Young, was originally filed May 11, 2018, but has been amended twice, on Feb. 6, 2019 and May 9, 2019. The latest amendment shows that the campaign reimbursed $5,408.46 in election expenses, pushing the total income up to $121,962.02. The expenditures were amended accordingly, downward to $74,590.78.
Stewart’s departure means the BC Liberals are down to 41 seats, the same as the governing NDP, which has the support of the three Green MLAs in a confidence and supply agreement that helped topple the BC Liberals in June 2017.
The only other independent is Darryl Plecas, who left the BC Liberal caucus in September 2017 to become speaker. Plecas was the catalyst for Clark’s resignation, after he stood-up to her at a post-election Penticton caucus retreat in July 2017. Coincidentally, Stewart’s move out of caucus happened a day after the second anniversary of Clark’s last news conference as a politician where she falsely claimed that she enjoyed the full support of caucus.
theBreaker.news has asked the BC Liberal caucus for comment, but nobody from the caucus communications office is immediately available. The caucus has been meeting this week in Terrace.
This story will be updated when more information is received.
A friendly interview on a podcast hosted by a BC Liberal donor has reignited questions about opposition leader Andrew Wilkinson’s credibility.
Wilkinson’s appearance on the July 31 edition of This Is Vancolour included claims that NDP Premier John Horgan went all the way to Washington, D.C. to pick up a donation cheque from a union and that Speaker Darryl Plecas went to London just to buy a hat.
“One of the last things that John Horgan did before the hammer came down on foreign fundraising was to fly down to Washington, D.C., supposedly to talk to the Americans about softwood lumber,” Wilkinson said on the podcast. “The real purpose was to pick up a cheque for $375,000 US from the head of the United Steelworkers of America.”
Andrew Wilkinson (left) and Mo Amir (Twitter)
theBreaker.news contacted the BC Liberal caucus office and Wilkinson’s riding office and emailed party president Paul Barbeau to ask for proof of Wilkinson’s allegation about Horgan. None replied.
The Office of the Premier issued an emphatic denial.
“That allegation is a complete fabrication,” said Horgan spokesman George Smith. “Premier Horgan went to Washington to stand up for forestry jobs in the softwood lumber dispute, something the BC Liberals never did. He did not ‘pick up’ a cheque.”
Horgan’s official visit to the U.S. capital the week after his swearing-in July 25-27, 2017 did include a meeting with USW president Leo Gerard. But the itinerary also included meetings with Canadian Ambassador David MacNaughton, two congress members from the Pacific Northwest, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
USW headquarters made one of the biggest donations in B.C. political history of $500,000, but that was on April 7, 2017 when the equivalent sum in U.S. dollars was almost $373,000. USW also donated $10,000 after the campaign on July 19, the day after Horgan’s swearing-in.
Host Mo Amir asked Wilkinson about Plecas, who blew the whistle on corruption and waste in the offices of Clerk Craig James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz. Neither Amir nor Wilkinson mentioned the RCMP investigation of James and Lenz or the two special prosecutors assigned to the case.
“[Plecas] took a trip to London to buy a hat, all business class, tens of thousands of dollars,” Wilkinson said.
Amir: “Is that accurate, just to buy a hat?”
Wilkinson: “Yes, that’s entirely accurate.”
In December 2017, Plecas traveled with James and Lenz to London on an itinerary that was arranged by James. While Plecas did buy a ceremonial hat for his duties as Speaker, there were also meetings with officials of the United Kingdom’s MI5 security service and a visit to the Scottish Parliament.
In fact, that was one of the first major trips that led to the Nov. 20, 2018 suspension of James and Lenz, the ongoing police investigation and James’s retirement in disgrace in mid-May.
At the exclusive Ede and Ravenscroft tailor shop, James bought a suit worth almost $1,200 that he billed to the Legislature. In her May report, retired Supreme Court chief justice Beverley McLachlin concluded the suit was for James’s personal use, bought contrary to Legislative Assembly rules and therefore a misconduct. James negotiated his retirement the night before he was destined to be fired in the Legislature. The three house leaders, including BC Liberal Mary Polak, agreed to let James retire without repaying a single penny for his misconducts.
“When we were preparing to fly home, 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.”
Wilkinson also targeted Plecas’s chief of staff, Alan Mullen, saying he was “terminated from his job as a casino security person for being drunk on his job.”
Mullen had been a manager at two Great Canadian Gaming Corp. properties for three years. He later joined Corrections Canada. Mullen sued the casino company for wrongful dismissal in 2007. Reached by theBreaker.news on July 31, Mullen said he “categorically denies at any point being intoxicated on the job or that being a reason for departing Great Canadian.”
Amid all of Wilkinson’s misstatements about others in the interview, he took time to criticize an environmental lobby group’s 2017 campaign finance reform ads that targeted him and then-premier Christy Clark near his Dunbar office and the donor-owned house in which Clark lives. The BC Liberals refused to regulate the size and source of donations before the 2017 election which prompted widespread accusations of conflict of interest in the awarding of government contracts and sale of public lands. More than two years ago, the RCMP opened an investigation of political donations by lobbyists.
“There was a full-size billboard put up by the Dogwood Initiative opposite my campaign office in the 2017 election accusing me of bribery and corruption,” Wilkinson said. “Those are outright lies, they are falsehoods. I could sue them for defamation and win, but it’s not worth the bother.”
Damage control has occupied much of Wilkinson’s time in 2019.
Mo Amir (left) at a November 2015 BC Liberal fundraiser (SPF Precut)
In late February, Wilkinson was slammed for demeaning tenants, when he called renting “kind of a wacky time of life,” and “a fact of life that’s a rite of passage.”
In an effort to criticize ICBC rate hikes and lobby for private auto insurance, Wilkinson tried to convince reporters in March that the NDP was to blame for an unnamed Volkswagen driver’s insurance premiums zooming from $3,745 to $8,040 a year.
Wilkinson told The Province: “I don’t know the details.” It turned out the VW driver had been blamed for rear-ending another car.
Wilkinson also had to clean up the mess after bozo eruptions by one of the party’s most senior MLAs. In May, ex-Deputy Premier Rich Coleman compared NDP agricultural land commission reforms to the Holocaust and attended an anti-abortion rally outside the Legislature the next.
Wilkinson’s appearance on the podcast was an apparent move to help the party reach a younger demographic after conceding earlier this year that its caucus and membership had grown old.
The podcast’s host, lumber executive and yoga instructor Mo Amir, began the episode by admitting he is a former card-carrying member of the BC Liberals who sat on a riding association, attended conventions and training sessions, volunteered in communications and “donated thousands of dollars to the party.” But he “quietly stopped all of that in 2013 after Quick Wins,” otherwise known as the ethnic outreach scandal.
The Elections BC database shows $11,370 in contributions between 2011 and 2017 to the BC Liberals from Muhammad Amir (the name the podcast host shares with his father), both individually and from the SPF Precut Lumber company. SPF was a VIP sponsor of BC Liberal MLA Teresa Wat’s November 2015 fundraiser at the River Rock casino’s show theatre, headlined by Premier Christy Clark.
Mo Amir clarified to theBreaker.news that he did not volunteer or renew his membership in the party after 2013, but had involvement in some of his company’s later corporate donations to the party.
CLICK BELOW AND LISTEN to clips of BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson from the This Is Vancolour podcast.
The overtime bill for the British Columbia Legislature’s in-house security ballooned by 244% since 2014.
Overtime pay for the 33-member Legislative Assembly Protective Services (LAPS) was almost $327,000 in 2017-2018, but grew to more than $557,000 in the year-ended March 31, 2019, according to the LAPS Expense Analysis report.
LAPS expense analysis report
The report, obtained by theBreaker.news, said overtime cost taxpayers $162,000 in 2013-2014.
The cost increases happened under Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz and his recently retired substitute, Randy Ennis. Lenz oversaw LAPS until last Nov. 20 when he was immediately suspended with pay along with Clerk Craig James. The RCMP is investigating both Lenz and James for alleged corruption, but neither has been charged.
Lenz remains on paid leave, but James retired in disgrace in May after he was found in misconduct. Ennis retired at the end of the spring Legislative session in May. Doug LePard, the former Vancouver Police deputy chief and Metro Vancouver Transit Police chief, is conducting an investigation under the Police Act.
The last fiscal year was the first time that LAPS officers’ salary and benefits broke the $4 million mark and the total cost of LAPS hit $5 million. The June report said total salaries and benefits for the new fiscal year already hit $1.44 million, including $180,635 overtime pay. Eighteen constables at the Legislature were listed in the report of salary payments over $75,000.
Craig James (left) and Gary Lenz (Commonwealth Parliamentary Association)
By comparison, the Oak Bay Police Department spent $4.88 million last year, including $167,482 on overtime. Oak Bay has 23 officers covering 10.5 square kilometres and serving 18,000 population. The Legislative Precinct is just 5.05 hectares with no full-time residents.
The Legislature website describes the duties of LAPS as ensuring safety and security for MLAs, staff and the public in the precinct. “Constituency office security, business continuity planning, parking, card-lock access, and emergency first aid services also fall under the purview of LAPS.”
The Victoria and Esquimalt Police Board budgeted $53.9 million to run its 243-constable force in 2018 for 103,000 residents. The overtime bill was $1.96 million.
Meanwhile, the all-party Legislative Assembly Management Committee met July 30 for almost 48 minutes. The meeting was held almost entirely behind closed doors because of a discussion about an unspecified personnel matter.
Deputy Speaker Raj Chouhan chaired the meeting, because Speaker Darryl Plecas was on vacation. Plecas’s chief of staff, Alan Mullen, is completing a tour of various provincial and state legislatures. Mullen is compiling a report aimed at improving B.C. Legislature security policies and procedures.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would not comment July 29 on the costs of his recent series of trips to West Coast for cash for access party fundraisers and campaign-style spending re-announcements.
Justin Trudeau on July 29 at Kitsilano Coast Guard base (Mackin)
Trudeau has traveled five times to British Columbia since late May and is scheduled to make a sixth trip during the B.C. Day long weekend.
He appeared midday on the last Monday of July at the Kitsilano Coast Guard base at Vancouver’s Vanier Park, which his government reopened in 2016 after its closure cost the Conservatives at the polls in 2015. He stopped at a Davie Street gay bar in late afternoon to sip a beer with Pride festival organizers before ending the day at an evening campaign fundraiser on the University of British Columbia campus. Admission for the party fundraiser, in the Robert H. Lee Alumni building, was $750 to $1,500 per-person.
Asked by theBreaker.news why the Liberal Party of Canada is not paying for his politically-charged, jet fuel-consuming travel, Trudeau pivoted to criticism of his Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, and today’s opposition leader, Andrew Scheer.
“I will make no apologies for the fact that we have a big country that is important to get out there and spend time and listening to people and working with them,” said Trudeau, who is a Montreal-area MP. “This is an important part of the job of prime minister. I’m very happy to be here as prime minister in B.C. which is a second home to me.”
Trudeau flies domestically with an entourage and RCMP security detail on a CC-144 Challenger military jet that costs taxpayers more than $14,000 per-flying hour to operate.
A Victoria-based independent watchdog said the frequency of trips and the types of events are signs that the Liberals are worried about losing seats to the Conservatives in the Oct. 21 election. Dermod Travis of IntegrityBC said Trudeau is frantically traveling to B.C. like a politician normally does at the end of a campaign. The official election period is not expected to begin until September.
“That particular tactic is something you generally use at the end of the campaign, because it’s a means to try to get extra media coverage,” Travis said. “He was here, he was there, he was at this place, he was in that province, all within 24 hours kind of thing.”
An analysis by theBreaker.news found that Trudeau has logged more than 38,000 kilometres in the air on trips from Ottawa to the West Coast and back in the last two months. Some have been direct round-trips with short turnaround time. Others have featured multiple stops to or from B.C. The five trips represent at least 20 tonnes in carbon emissions for Trudeau, who has imposed a carbon tax on motorists in Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan.
Trudeau’s July 30 return to Ottawa comes after the latest trip to B.C. included 10 days of what his website called “personal” time. His annual visit to Tofino was sandwiched between two cash for access party fundraisers and two campaign-style spending photo ops.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (right) with area Liberal MPs on July 29 (Mackin)
On May 21, Trudeau flew from Sept-Iles, Que. to Kamloops, B.C. for ex-BC Liberal minister Terry Lake’s nomination meeting. He announced another round of Coast Guard shipbuilding by Seaspan in Vancouver the next morning and stayed in the city to headline lunch and dinner fundraisers attended by movers and shakers of the city’s real estate industry.
The Opus Hotel lunch in Yaletown was $250 to $1,500 a plate, while the dinner at Neptune Palace Chinese Restaurant was $750 to $1,500 a plate. Trudeau and co. made their way back to Ottawa via Meadow Lake, Sask., Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. and Antigonish, N.S.
On June 1, Trudeau arrived from Montreal for glad-handing, baby-kissing and selfie-taking at the Hats Off Day festival in Burnaby, interrupted by a meeting with Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley, who aired his safety concerns about the Kinder Morgan tank farm on Burnaby Mountain. Trudeau returned to Ottawa for just one day and came back to Vancouver on June 3-4 to speak at the Women Deliver Conference.
“He shouldn’t be doing this Ottawa-to-B.C. routine,” Travis said. “It strikes everybody as being far too political, it’s a contributor to emissions at this time, and it doesn’t make sense to his body clock.”
Trudeau came west again, stopping in Edmonton July 12 and Calgary July 13 before he spent the rest of July 13 in Surrey for a photo op to promote the 2015-launched Canada Child Benefit and speak at a rally in Surrey-Newton Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal’s campaign office. He was back in Ottawa on July 14.
Only four days later, on July 18, Trudeau flew from Montreal to Victoria where he joined B.C. Premier John Horgan to re-announce funding for new BC Transit buses before a $100 to $300-per person cash for access fundraiser at the Delta Ocean Pointe Resort.
During his “personal” time on the West Coast, Trudeau took time out for phone calls with French president Emmanuel Macron and new United Kingdom prime minister Boris Johnson.
Trudeau attempted to justify his travel spending by saying he has a responsibility to be prime minister “for all Canadians.”
“It is, in fact, one of the best parts of my job to get out and meet Canadians right across the country, whether it’s town halls where we have an opportunity to take questions from the general public and actually respond to those questions in a way that no other party leader does,” Trudeau said. “Whether it’s coming out for important announcements that demonstrate that the cuts Conservatives consistently put forward end up harming our environment and harming Canadians. These are the kinds of things that make a big difference in people’s lives and that’s why I’m so glad to be back here in B.C.”
Trudeau is scheduled to headline a $500 per-person ($70 for its Laurier Club members) Liberal Party cash for access fundraiser at 5 p.m. Aug. 4 in the Taj Park Convention Centre in Surrey. He is expected to march earlier that day in the annual Vancouver Pride Parade, which received $1 million from taxpayers via the new Trudeau-created “Canadian Experiences Fund.”
Ultimately, Travis said, Trudeau’s travel spending is another reason why there needs to be a debate about how government resources and caucus budgets can be used for partisan activities leading up to elections and between elections.
Toronto Raptors’ assistant coach Alex McKechnie calls Coquitlam, B.C. his off-season home and this summer he brought a special treat to share with everyone.
The Larry O’Brien Trophy.
On July 23, McKechnie brought the NBA championship trophy to the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame at B.C. Place Stadium. An apt location, because the province’s sports shrine contains artifacts from when the Vancouver Whitecaps joined the North American Soccer League in 1974 and McKechnie was on the team’s medical staff.
Since then, the Scottish-Canadian sports science guru, known for “load management,” has worked with some of North America’s top athletes. But winning the NBA championship for a Canadian team is the crowning achievement.
What set the Raptors apart from other championship on which he has worked?
“A real belief, the coaching staff was amazing, there was a belief from the front office, a belief on everything. I think during my Laker years, we had superstars with Shaq and Kobe… there was an expectation of winning and I think in this case it wasn’t really expected ‘Are they for real?’ those are the questions that media would ask. There was a real belief in the group and that just grew and grew and grew. Complete unselfishness within our locker room, a belief from the coaching staff, an ability to empower the players.”
On this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, hear McKechnie talk to reporters about how the Raptors became champions and about his reaction to NBA MVP Kawhi Leonard signing a free agency deal with the Los Angeles Clippers.
McKechnie said he has at least another year with the Raptors and it unofficially begins in August when he will bring eight players to Burnaby for a testing and development camp.
Plus, Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim headlines and commentaries.
The reorganization of SNC-Lavalin has thrown a curveball at two Metro Vancouver infrastructure projects.
On July 22, the troubled Montreal construction and engineering giant announced it would exit so-called lump-sum turnkey contracting and shift its oil, gas and mining and infrastructure construction divisions into separate businesses.
Premier John Horgan at SNC-Lavalin’s Canada Line maintenance facility in Richmond. (BC Gov)
Since then, the company has withdrawn bids for the $2.83 billion Broadway Subway and the $1.4 billion Pattullo Bridge replacement project. The former bid was on its own, the latter with Acciona under the “Fraser River Partners” umbrella.
SNC-Lavalin spokesman Nicolas Ryan confirmed the decision in an email to theBreaker.news on July 25. SNC-Lavalin most recently built and operates the 2009-opened Canada Line and the 2016-opened Evergreen Line extension to the Millennium Line. It had been shortlisted for a bridge planned to replace the Massey Tunnel, but the NDP government mothballed the project.
“SNC-Lavalin will fulfil the contractual obligations of its current lump-sum turnkey projects,” Ryan wrote.
The other public private partnerships that SNC-Lavalin withdrew from were the $2.6 billion Edmonton Valley Line West LRT and $1 billion Louis-Hippolyte-Fontaine Tunnel Rehabilitation. The four projects total represented a total $7.43 billion opportunity for the company.
Inframation News showed KPMG was the grantor financial advisor on the Pattullo bid and Aird and Berlis the grantor legal advisor on the Broadway bid.
Acciona and Ghella are partnered in a bid for the Broadway Subway against the Broadway Connect team led by Dragados and Aecon. Pattullo bidders remain Kiewit’s Fraser Community Connectors and the team of Flatiron, Dragados and Carlson.
In hindsight, the bid for the Broadway Subway appeared unstable.
Even with Ryan confirming SNC-Lavalin was out of running for the Pattullo Bridge, the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure insisted on July 25 that the company was still a candidate.
Aritst’s rendering of the new Pattullo Bridge (TransLink)
“One of the proponent teams is Fraser River Partners which is a joint venture of SNC-Lavalin and Acciona Infrastructure Canada Inc.,” read the statement sent from the ministry’s Jamie Weiss. “There is no change to the pre-qualified bidding teams to report on this project at this time. However, the request for proposals includes a process that allows for potential changes in Proponent team members. Procurement for these important infrastructure projects is confidential and still ongoing.
“We can’t comment on SNC Lavalin’s response to you,” Weiss said, referring theBreaker.news back to the prepared statement.
An industry source, who declined to be identified, said SNC-Lavalin has lost staff beyond cyclical variations. Some of the other bidders have picked up ex-SNC-Lavalin workers. The company also no longer wants to take risks on design/build/finance/operate contracts. The source also said that both Trevena and TransLink senior officials have been briefed that only one bidder remains for the Pattullo Bridge.
Did SNC-Lavalin foreshadow the withdrawal when the Broadway Subway shortlist was revealed in late June? The SNC-Lavalin team was called West 9th Partners, but it had no partners. Only four SNC-Lavalin entities: SNC-Lavalin Capital Inc., SNC-Lavalin Constructors Pacific Inc., SNC-Lavalin Inc. and SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.
SNC-Lavalin is one of the major contractors on the $10.7 billion Site C dam in northern B.C., working with Klohn Crippen Berger to design major civil components of the dam and generating station.
“We continue to maintain a strong business relationship with SNC-Lavalin,” said BC Hydro spokeswoman Tanya Fish. “Should their situation change, we do have contingencies in place to ensure project work and timelines are not impacted. We would seek to retain the expertise and experience of SNC-Lavalin engineers currently working on the project.”
BC Hydro refuses to release the names of the SNC-Lavalin executives and workers on the project, but a list obtained by theBreaker.news shows that they are attached to both the Vancouver and Montreal offices.
The cancellation of its bids doesn’t necessarily mean that SNC-Lavalin won’t have a role as a subcontractor or supplier to either project. But it is a major surprise after British Columbia became one of its most important markets.
In 2011, its then-chair, Gwyn Morgan, was a major backer of Christy Clark’s rise to power. Morgan chaired SNC-Lavalin from 2007 to 2013 and donated $285,600 under his own name to the BC Liberals from 2009 to 2018. SNC-Lavalin received billions of dollars of contracts after Clark won the BC Liberal leadership and became premier, such as the Evergreen Line, engineering design on the Site C dam and the contract to build BC Hydro’s John Hart Generating Station in Campbell River.
But SNC-Lavalin’s future is in doubt because it is facing a trial in Quebec on bribery and corruption charges related to work with the Gadhafi regime in Libya. If convicted, it would be blacklisted from federally funded work.
SNC-Lavalin lobbyist Sam Boutziouvis (Twitter)
SNC-Lavalin had lobbied hard for a new remediation law so it could avoid the courts. In 2018, Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould resisted pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office to overrule independent prosecutors who opted to seek a criminal trial. Wilson-Raybould was shuffled out of the Attorney General’s role in January and eventually ejected from Liberal caucus. She will run in Vancouver-Granville for re-election as an independent in October.
SNC-Lavalin also lobbied senior B.C. government officials at the same time as bureacrats were deciding the shortlist for the Pattullo and Broadway, despite tendering rules against lobbying.
theBreaker.news exclusively reported that SNC-Lavalin’s vice-president of government relations, Sam Boutziouvis, hired Whistler’s Richard Prokopanko last fall to arrange meetings with several deputy ministers and cabinet members. SNC-Lavalin officials met with several bureaucrats, but the only minister who was warm to the idea of meeting was transportation minister Claire Trevena. Boutziouvis and Trevena were scheduled to meet on budget day in February, but the meeting was postponed indefinitely after a death in Boutziouvis’s family.
SNC-Lavalin’s departure could also have ripple effects for the Surrey SkyTrain extension to Langley that is planned instead of a light rail transit system. Latest estimate for the project is $3.12 billion, nearly twice the $1.6 billion that had been earmarked for the LRT system that Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum cancelled after winning a comeback election.
Since leaving SNC-Lavalin in 2015, Burke was appointed to the project board for the Capital Regional District’s sewage plant and sat on a PartnershipsBC due diligence panel to review TransLink’s Broadway Subway business case.
Toronto Raptors’ assistant coach Alex McKechnie calls Coquitlam, B.C. his off-season home and this summer he brought a special treat to share with everyone.
