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Miscellany, News, Opinion

The House of Commons is adjourned for the summer.

Let barbecue season begin.

That means incumbents and hopefuls for the Oct. 21 federal election will spend July and August gnoshing and sipping with their donors and volunteers to prepare for the home stretch in September and October. It is a key time for organizing.

theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin welcomes back pollster Mario Canseco of Research Co to set the table for the busy summer that follows a rancorous House of Commons session, dominated by the SNC-Lavalin scandal that will continue to dog Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Research Co. pollster Mario Canseco (Mackin)

The session climaxed last week when the Liberals passed a motion to declare a climate change emergency one day and then approved the Trans Mountain pipeline the next.

Canseco says the NDP has to get Jagmeet Singh better known across the country. For the Conservatives, they’ll go steady on the economic front and continue to attack Trudeau for his litany of broken promises.

For Trudeau and the Liberals? “There is the advantage of incumbency,” Canseco said. “Somebody who has been there and has more experience than the rivals who are essentially running to replace him.”

Centre-left voters who backed Trudeau to get rid of the Harper Conservatives in 2015 have been repelled by the pipeline approval and the broken promise to reform the electoral system. The Conservatives are highlighting Trudeau’s scandals and failure to balance the budget by 2019.

Meanwhile, Trudeau is portraying himself as a better leader to deal with President Donald Trump. But Trudeau’s visit to the White House was overshadowed by Iran’s downing of an American drone.

Ultimately, Canseco said, the campaign will determine whether Trudeau’s Liberal government is defeated like Paul Martin in 2006 or returned with a minority father Pierre’s in 1972.

Listen to the full interview with Canseco. Plus commentaries and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.

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

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The House of Commons is adjourned for

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

During its last three full years of business, a Vancouver payment processing company paid its founder $15 million in salary and bonuses, according to federal criminal charges filed in Las Vegas on June 19.

PacNet founder and part-owner Rosanne Day and three others are accused of mail and wire fraud and money laundering in Las Vegas, for allegedly defrauding clients in mail order schemes.

“During the last five years it was in operation, PacNet processed on average more than $100 million per year in cheques and credit card payments from United States consumers to mass-mail clients,” said the criminal indictment filed in the U.S. District Court of Nevada.

The indictment called PacNet “the payment processor of choice for fraudulent mass mailers in the U.S. and around the world.” PacNet, prosecutors allege, was a vital link between fraudulent mass mail clients and banks, enabling fraudsters to profit from criminal schemes by moving money through the banking system undetected.

Day founded the payment processing company in 1994. In September 2016, the U.S. Treasury declared PacNet a significant criminal organization. The designation was lifted in 2017, but the company has never recovered.

Also charged were part-owner and Ireland office head Robert Paul Davis, director of marketing Genevieve Renee Frappier and chief compliance and anti-money laundering officer Miles Kelly. They could face 20 years in jail if convicted.

Davis called himself general counsel, even though he was not licensed to practice law. He was, however, a licensed pilot and often flew the company-owned plane between PacNet’s Shannon, Ireland office, the U.K. and Continental Europe to pick-up mail and payments. Like Day, Davis was also paid $15 million from 2013 to 2015. Frappier received $800,000 and Kelly $650,000 during the period.

PacNet founder Rosanne Day

Clients included companies that sent notifications to consumers intended to mislead them into believing they would receive a large amount of money, a valuable prize or specialized psychic services upon payment of a fee to the companies. Many victims were elderly or otherwise vulnerable.

“Many victims were inundated with fraudulent notifications and were defrauded multiple times. Some elderly victims spent hundreds of thousands of dollars responding to fraudulent notifications before a family member or a victim’s bank detected the fraud and worked to prevent additional losses.”

The indictment said the four executives had been made aware repeatedly that their clients were engaged in fraud. It said Day had been interviewed at least 13 different times since 1996. In 1998, a U.S. officer told her that PacNet was assisting a money laundering operation. Canadian police executed search warrants in 2001 and 207 at PacNet’s offices during investigations of mass mail clients.

The indictment also said they were aware on at least nine occasions between 2013 and 2015 that their clients had defrauded elderly people who suffered dementia and Alzheimer’s.

A statement on the PacNet website called the indictment “factually flawed.”

“PacNet and its employees intend to fight the charges and prove their innocence.”

“PacNet never knowingly processed payments for a fraudulent mailing. If a customer complained, PacNet refunded its money and charged the mailer. PacNet stands by its compliance program.”

PacNet is resisting B.C. government efforts to seize $15.5 million worth of real estate under civil forfeiture laws, including Day’s house on West 22nd in Vancouver’s Dunbar neighbourhood. The company was a member of the BC Liberal AdvantageBC tax rebate scheme cancelled by the NDP. 

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Bob Mackin During its last three full years

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

Justin Trudeau’s May 22 campaign fundraising blitz in Vancouver drew some of the city’s top real estate titans.

Lists published June 20 by Elections Canada do not show the amount raised for the Liberal Party’s re-election war chest, but the lists do show names of Liberal supporters and the costs of tickets to gnosh with the Prime Minister at a Yaletown boutique hotel and a Marpole gourmet Chinese restaurant.

Tickets were $250 to $1,500 each for the Opus Hotel luncheon with Trudeau, where real estate marketer Bob Rennie was joined by Bien Matute, Sheliza Vellani and Natalie Genest from Rennie and Associates Realty.

Sun Commercial real estate president Chris Lee (second from right) at the May 22 Trudeau Liberal fundraiser. MP Joe Peschisolido is in the background.

Rennie’s Olympic Village developer clients Peter Malek and Shahram Malekyazdi, the brothers who run Millennium Development, were there. So was lawyer Bryan Baynham, who sued on behalf of dozens of Olympic Village condo buyers who complained of shoddy workmanship at the $1.1 billion Southeast False Creek complex.

Baynham was also the lawyer for Vision Vancouver in 2014 when Rennie was then-Mayor Gregor Robertson’s bagman.

Wall Centre general manager Sascha Voth and Wall Financial director David Gruber also attended. Gruber is the riding president for Vancouver Granville, where Liberal-elected Jody Wilson-Raybould will run as an independent in the wake of Trudeau’s SNC-Lavalin scandal.

Last year, as lawyer for developer Peter Wall, Gruber was involved in the pre-election billboard and Facebook campaign promoting Hector Bremner’s failed bid for the Vancouver mayoralty. Former BC Liberal caucus worker Micah Haince, who also worked on the Wall-funded Bremner campaign, was also at the fundraiser.

Another Opus lunch attendee was Amy Venhuizen of Richmond-based MYIE Group. MYIE stands for Mo Yeung International Enterprise and Venhuizen is the assistant to namesake CEO Mo Yeung Michael Ching. MYIE is developing the International Trade Centre in Richmond, which will include an Opus Hotel.

Ching, also known as Cheng Muyang, is the son of a late Hebei province Communist bigwig expelled from the party. Ching’s name was on China’s most-wanted list, but he has maintained he is innocent. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the May 22 Neptune fundraiser.

Ching was photographed at several Liberal fundraisers, including some with Trudeau, in the lead-up to the 2015 federal election. His daughter Linda Ching is a former president of the Young Liberals of Canada in B.C.

Irene Kerr, the CEO of the NDP-created B.C. Infrastructure Benefits Crown corporation, was at the lunch. BCIB hires and pays union workers for major public projects, some of which will rely on federal funding. BCIB spokesman Geoffrey Nutter said BCIB did not pay for Kerr’s lunch or reimburse Kerr. 

Anti-Trans Mountain pipeline protester Will George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation bought a ticket and disrupted Trudeau’s speech. He was not the only anti-pipeline protester to pay for access. So did Sven Biggs of Stand.Earth, a group that hired a diesel-powered ad van to protest Trudeau’s visit to Yaletown. 

Trudeau also held a fundraising dinner at the Neptune Palace Chinese restaurant at the south foot of Cambie Street, with Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan (Vancouver South) and Treasury Board president Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra) also in attendance. Tickets were $750 to $1,500.

Seated near the stage was Westbank Projects CEO Ian Gillespie, whose Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel is Trudeau’s preferred hotel when in Vancouver. Westbank CFO Judy Leung was also on the list of donors.

Sun Commercial president Chris Lee, Bold Properties CFO Justin Khouw, Aspac Developments VP Ryan Laurin, unsuccessful Richmond First school board candidate Jason Zhen Ning Li and restaurateur Ling Xu were listed.

Xu was the name on the deed for a $10.5 million Shaughnessy house bought in 2014 from Chen Mailin, the former duck farmer from China who bought a mansion on so-called Billionaires Row in Northwest Point Grey for almost $52 million in late 2014.

The list showed both a Yajing Wang and ChiChi Wang; Yajing “ChiChi” Wang is an associate at the Liberal-aligned Earnscliffe Group lobbying firm. Her bio says she is a former marketing director with the municipal government in Hangzhou, China.

Elsewhere on the list, two of the names match those of University of B.C. students and their given postal code is for an area on Billionaires Row. Four attendees used a postal code for an area bordering Minoru Park in Richmond that includes the hospital and two motels. 

Only individual Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada can donate to a party, candidate or nomination contestant. The donation limit is $1,600. 

Trudeau was in Kamloops May 21 for former BC Liberal health minister Terry Lake’s nomination meeting. His only government event in Vancouver during the trip was in the morning of May 22 to announce another order of coast guard and navy ships from North Vancouver’s Seaspan.

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Bob Mackin Justin Trudeau’s May 22 campaign fundraising

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin (Updated June 27) 

British Columbia’s NDP government says money laundering has happened at colleges.

Peter German’s second Dirty Money report included an anecdote about a student who brought $9,000 in cash in a duffel bag to pay a $150 charge to a college cashier. The rest was deposited in an account. “In effect, the institution was being asked to act as a bank,” German wrote.

What about a hospital popular with foreign mothers?

Richmond Hospital (Mackin)

Richmond Hospital is ground zero for birth tourism in Canada, drawing mothers from China who want their daughters and sons to be born Canadian citizens. Sources tell theBreaker.news that it is not uncommon for maternity ward bills to be paid with cash.

Vancouver Coastal Health said $737,000 of the $6.2 million it invoiced non-residents for maternity services from April 1, 2018 to May 2, 2019 was paid in cash.

Richmond Hospital charges non-residents a $10,000 per diem for normal vaginal delivery and $15,000 for a c-section. The standard daily ward charge for a mother is $3,675.

From April 2018 to February 2019, there were 389 babies born to foreign mothers at Richmond Hospital. During the previous fiscal year, there were 474 — more than 22% of all births to non-resident mothers, almost entirely from China. VCH figures released to theBreaker.news under the freedom of information laws show that Richmond Hospital collected $31,690 in cash for May 21-23, of which $29,565 was maternity related. Four of the transactions were between $6,215 and $8,000. The only substantial cash transaction for the period that was not maternity-related was $1,040 on May 21 for non-resident inpatient.

The Attorney General’s ministry said the government encourages any institution that handles large cash transactions to review its policies with a view to closing opportunities for money laundering. 

“If the hospital costs of the birth are less than the initial deposit, a refund of the outstanding balance is given. For example, if the deposit is $15,000 and the birth costs $12,500, the payee would receive a refund of $2,500,” said the ministry response to theBreaker.news. “However, instances of refunds in these cases are rare and only occur in eight percent of transactions.”

VCH policy states that any money owing on a deposit for maternity services that is paid in cash will be refunded in cash. Last year, that amounted to $17,000 for services not received by patients.

VCH said it recovered 82% of the total maternity costs from non-resident parents, leaving a whopping $1.16 million owing.

“We are continuing to work to recover the remaining amounts,” said VCH spokeswoman Tiffany Akins. “Non-residents are required to make a pre-payment deposit of $10,000 for a vaginal birth and $15,000 for a caesarean birth.”

Health Minister Adrian Dix (Hansard)

In 2018, VCH sued Chinese birth tourist Yan Xia for not paying a $312,595 bill in October 2012. Because of interest, the bill would now be more than $1.2 million.

Last November, the federal Liberal government responded to Richmond activist Kerry Starchuk’s e-petition against birth tourism that drew support from 10,882 citizens. The government said it would not ban birth tourism, but would take steps to protect the public from immigration fraud by undertaking a comprehensive review.

“Applicants must always be honest about the purpose of their visit. Providing false information or documents when dealing with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or Canada Border Services Agency is considered misrepresentation and has significant consequences,” said the official federal response.

In 2016, B.C. government documents indicated the Ministry of Health knew of 26 so-called black market “baby houses” in the Lower Mainland, where foreign mothers pay thousands of dollars to stay before and after giving birth. One such house was next door to Starchuk. 

“If the federal government wants to take steps with this, they’re the agency that has responsibility,” said NDP health minister Adrian Dix in a January interview. “As a provincial government we have to consider that people who present at our hospital that don’t have Canadian healthcare insurance pay the appropriate costs. In the case of births, that they do pay the appropriate costs up front.

“I, in no way endorse it or support the marketing of birth tourism, but we should be clear, matters related to immigration lie with the federal government.”

In January, U.S. authorities indicted 19 people related to a busted 2015 California birth tourism scheme. Investigators found birth tourism companies charged mothers from China between $40,000 and $100,000 each.

“The birth tourism operations not only committed widespread immigration fraud and engaged in international money laundering, they also defrauded property owners when leasing the apartments and houses used in their birth tourism schemes,” said the Department of Justice news release. 

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Bob Mackin (Updated June 27)  British Columbia’s NDP

Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

On the day a damning report was published about contracted residential facilities for minors in government care, the NDP Minister of Children and Family Development refused to answer questions about a fire at North Vancouver facility earlier this week.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer’s June 19 report found the ministry has no strategy for the use of contracted residential services. It also struggles to find suitable housing for the most-vulnerable children and youth suffering addiction, mental illness and risk of self-harm and suicide.

Smoke damage at the scene of a suspicious June 17 fire in North Vancouver (Mackin)

“The ministry hadn’t defined what contracted residential services should look like or when these services should be used. Instead, the services had evolved on an ad hoc basis to respond to individual and emergency situations,” Bellringer wrote. “The ministry also hadn’t created a plan for the right amount and type of services required to meet the needs of children and youth in contracted residential services.”

theBreaker.news has learned that a youth in care suffered smoke inhalation at a ministry-contracted house early on June 17. During a teleconference with reporters, Conroy was asked whether she had been briefed about the incident. She refused to say.

“I can’t speak to specifics of cases,” Conroy said.

“We always strive to place youth in care that’s appropriate for their needs.”

Deputy North Vancouver District Fire Chief Wayne Kennedy told theBreaker.news that the fire on Sykes Road is being treated as suspicious. Kennedy said that the fire was reported from a caregiver onsite who heard the smoke detector.

“There was one occupant that was located within the structure and was taken to hospital and treated for smoke inhalation,” Kennedy said. “The damage was confined to a single bedroom although there was significant smoke throughout the house.”

RCMP Sgt. Peter DeVries said the incident involved a female youth with mental health issues and that it was being investigated as a mental health incident, rather than arson. DeVries said there was no evidence of breach of child protection laws, but could not comment on staffing.

An area resident, who did not want to be identified in this story, said police have been called several times over the last year out of concern for the welfare of the youth in care, after escapes and wailing for prolonged periods heard throughout the neighbourhood. 

A prepared statement from the ministry that was sent to theBreaker.news said caregivers are required to take immediate and appropriate action to protect children when incidents occur that could threaten their safety and wellbeing. The so-called Reportable Circumstance report goes to the Representative of Children and Youth and Provincial Director of Child Welfare.

NDP Minister Katrine Conroy BC Leg)

“We cannot speak to case specifics and we cannot publicly share information on where children and youth in care reside,” said the ministry statement.

theBreaker.news has confirmed that an incident report was received by the Representative for Children and Youth.

“We are aware of this incident and it will be going through our RCY review process,” said Jeff Rud, spokesman for the child protection watchdog’s office. “However, it’s too early to determine whether this is an incident we would investigate.”

Bellringer’s report said the ministry has contracts with approximately 100 for-profit and not-for-profit service providers to deliver housing, food and other goods and services for some of the most vulnerable children and youth in care. Bottom line, Bellringer wrote, there is a higher risk that children and youth were not receiving the quality or type of services they needed.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer

As of March 31, 2018, there were 6,698 children and youth in B.C. government care, of whom 1,148 spent time in contracted residential services. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, the ministry spent $151.5 million on contracted residential services for 17.8% of the bed days purchased. The largest service provider, a for-profit organization, had as many as 70 beds in 60 homes across the province at one time. The average age in 2018 of children and youths in contracted residential care was almost 15, with 58% being male, 53% non-indigenous and 42% with special needs. The average length of stay was 327 days.

In a statement after Bellringer’s report, Conroy said the NDP government accepted all the recommendations. She said the NDP government put a moratorium on creation of new contracted residential agencies in June 2018. None may proceed without senior ministry approval.

After her direction last summer, staff met every child or youth placed in a contracted agency’s care. In the past 12 months, the ministry has completed background and criminal record checks on more than 5,800 existing caregivers and new applicants.

“The ministry has begun audits of contracted residential agencies that examine their finances and compliance with policy for screening caregivers,” said Conroy’s statement. “And, in December 2018, we hired a private firm to undertake a review of all of the ministry’s contracting and payment processes, including those for contracted residential services.

“Where we previously lacked accurate and complete data on residential resources, since 2017 we have compiled an inventory that includes each and every agency and service provider. And we have done an initial assessment of all of those.”

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Bob Mackin On the day a damning report

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin (updated June 20 and 24)

A Vancouver city councillor is refusing to answer questions about the support she received for her re-election from a developer who is bidding to rezone a Shaughnessy lot next to a hospice.

Google Street View images from last October show a two-sided sign advertising NPA Coun. Melissa De Genova’s re-election campaign outside 4575 Granville St., near a civic rezoning application sign. Granville Street is one of the most-travelled streets in the city.

Melissa De Genova campaign sign at site of rezoning bid (Google Street View)

The owners of 4575 Granville are Jagmohan Singh Pabla and Kamlesh Rani Pabla, former Kerrisdale restaurateurs who became developers. They want city council to rezone the $4.73 million single-family dwelling so that they can build two, 3.5-storey buildings with a total 21 luxury townhouses renting for $3,700-a-month and-up. The city council public hearing continues June 20. 

De Genova did not respond to an email query. When reached by phone on June 18, she said: “I do not comment on public hearing issues.” 

The project is opposed by the Vancouver Hospice Society, which operates the neighbouring eight-bed hospice. The society is concerned about the impact on staff and patients should it have to close during construction. Once complete, there would be an ongoing loss of solitude for people in the last days of their lives.   

Melissa De Genova (Mackin)

“We’re not opposed to construction, but the magnitude is the issue,” society chair Stephen Roberts said at the June 13 hearing.

When contacted by theBreaker.news, Jagmohan Singh Pabla handed the phone to his son, Gurveer Pabla, the president of Pabla Development Group and a licensed real estate agent with Team 3000 Realty. Gurveer Pabla refused to answer questions and instead asked a reporter to send him an email. He did not respond to the email by deadline. 

The Pablas hired former city planning chief Brent Toderian and Virginia Bird of Pottinger Bird Community Relations to lobby city hall for the rezoning. Toderian was hired at the start of June, before the public hearings, but Bird has worked on the project since 2017.

Bird was also a $500 donor to both De Genova’s re-election and Kennedy Stewart’s mayoral win.

One of De Genova’s campaign nominators was Abundant Housing Vancouver pro-development activist Adrian Crook, who spoke in favour of the Pabla application at the June 13 public hearing. De Genova shared some campaign resources last fall with Crook and four other independents who had been previously linked to the NPA. Crook raised money for his unsuccessful campaign from developers Ryan Beedie and Ian Gillespie, who donated $1,200 each.

Abundant Housing Vancouver’s NationBuilder campaign website forwarded form letter emails to city hall in favour of the 4575 Granville proposal. Some of the proponents are identified only by first names, such as Ayo, Sunny, Nixon, Mariyam, Jessica, Vicky, Gurvir, Sanj and Kumal.

That is not the first oddity. In March of 2018, dozens of Twitter accounts purporting to belong to American-based users, all with middle initials and last names, Tweeted the same messages, such as “4575 Granville in Shaughnessy” and “4575 Granville – Plans, Availability, Prices.” All of those messages contained a since-expired link to Century 21 real estate agent Mike Stewart’s Vancouver New Condos website, which is published in English and Chinese. Stewart was recently flogging pre-sales at 4575 Granville on another website before the June 13 public hearing. More than a week later, Stewart, said that his company mistakenly posted 4575 Granville on his website as market housing and he denies having a business relationship with the Pablas. 

Late in the afternoon of June 20, Roberts made a last-ditch plea before the resumption of the public hearing.

In a letter sent to councillors and media outlets, Roberts wrote that the rezoning process has left him “sad and disheartened about decision-making in Vancouver.”

His letter to councillors and media said that the planning department, which recommended approval, lost a hardcopy petition of 1,500 signatures opposed to the plan and it also ignored an online petition of 5,500 signatures. A city-sponsored public meeting drew 355 people that he said were opposed. It gained media attention, but not the attention of bureaucrats.

Roberts said that hospice supporters and volunteers have been verbally accosted at city hall by supporters of the rezoning, who are involved in the pro-density Abundant Housing Vancouver group.

“But we are up against big money,” Roberts wrote. “A developer with two PR teams. An activist organization seeking to make it look like they are stakeholders and representatives of widespread support, when really it seems they do not intend to live in the affected neighbourhood, or have any concern for other community amenities. Are these activists connected to the developer? I don’t know, but they were the first to register to speak at this public hearing.”

The hospice’s eight beds represent a quarter of the city’s hospice beds. The clinical operations are funded by Vancouver Coastal Health, but volunteers run two thrift stores to keep the lights on.

“With the only access to the hospice and the proposed development and its 32-car underground garage being from a narrow lane at the rear of both, the increased traffic, service vehicles, moving trucks, etc. on an ongoing basis and the excavation, concrete pouring, and large scale construction needed for the 3.5 storey blocks, the very existence of the hospice is threatened,” Roberts wrote. “Ambulances and hearses access the hospice from this lane. The lush, serene gardens of the hospice would be overlooked by patios and BBQs in the development.” 

Meanwhile, Abundant Housing Vancouver wrote a letter to mayor and council on June 20, disputing the suggestion on June 13 by NPA Coun. Colleen Hardwick that it is an “astroturf” campaign. The pro-density group claimed it is an “all-volunteer organization with minimal resources” and that letters sent to council via its letter generator are “genuine comments” that deserve consideration by elected officials.  

However, Abundant Housing Vancouver is far from naive.

The directors include Terra Housing senior development manager, Urban Land Institute member and Vancouver City Planning Commissioner Albert Huang, BC Liberal constituency director Thomas Falcone, Crook campaign financial agent Jennifer Maiko Bradshaw and veteran political consultant Brendan Dawe. Dawe’s clients have included the Liberal Party of Canada in B.C. and several BC Liberal MLAs, including current leader Andrew Wilkinson. He has also worked as a “message deployment specialist” for SCL Elections. 

SCL Elections is the parent company of controversial Brexit and Trump campaign dataminer and social media manipulator Cambridge Analytica. 

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Bob Mackin (updated June 20 and 24) A

Business, Miscellany, News, Opinion, Sports

It’s the basketball team from a hockey town that debuted in a baseball stadium 24 years ago.

The 2018-2019 season began on the West Coast, with a training camp in Metro Vancouver. It ended on the West Coast, in Oakland, Calif., by hoisting the NBA championship trophy.

A roster from the United States, Congo, England, Spain, St. Lucia and Cameroon. Under the executive leadership of a president from Nigeria. Kept together by a Scottish-born Canadian physiotherapist. (It was the Canadian-born son of Scottish immigrants who invented basketball way back in 1891.)

Howard Kelsey (Mackin)

Canadian history on June 13, 2019, when the Toronto Raptors brought the nation closer together and became NBA champions for the first time.

“The country has already benefitted in a huge way, that we won’t know all the benefits will manifest themselves in 10 or 20 years,” said Howard Kelsey, a member of Canada’s Los Angeles 1984 Olympics team in an interview with theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin.

Kelsey is the driving force behind August’s KitsFest at Kitsilano Beach, one of North America’s top destinations for pick-up basketball. He is also behind the Vancouver Showcase, a November pre-season tournament for the top men’s and women’s NCAA basketball teams at the Vancouver Convention Centre. A perfect storm for basketball north of the border, where the Canadian Elite Basketball League is playing its debut season and Canada Basketball is preparing for the FIBA World Cup in China at the end of August.

“Anything that’s basketball-oriented now is on fire. Basketball is the flavour of the month or flavour of the year. Hopefully the flavour of the decade, now.”

Hear the complete interview with Kelsey and clips from Casey Candaele, the new manager of the Northwest League Vancouver Canadians. Also, Mackin asks federal border security and organized crime reduction minister Bill Blair why the Trudeau Liberals aren’t doing enough to stop organized crime and money laundering in British Columbia’s ports. 

Plus commentaries and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.

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

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It's the basketball team from a hockey

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

The former BC Liberal Premier billed herself “The Honourable Christy Clark,” before ex-speakers and ex-cabinet members were told of the Government House proclamation that purported to allow them to use the title.

ChristyClark.com

As theBreaker.news reported in May 2018, Clark launched her new website a year after the provincial election that led to the end of her political career. In promoting herself as a motivational speaker-for-hire, Clark used “The Honourable” in the headline and throughout her bio. 

Clark was following an April 18, 2018 proclamation by outgoing Lt. Gov. Judith Guichon that gave former speakers, former cabinet members and Clerk Craig James the entitlement under a policy devised by James. Guichon’s term ended six days later when Janet Austin was sworn-in.

In June 2011, three days after Clark was sworn-in as the Vancouver-Point Grey MLA, the BC Liberals used their majority in the Legislature to promote committee clerk James to chief clerk, rather than let an all-party committee decide the successor to George MacMinn.

In July 2017, James met with Clark in Vancouver on her final day as premier. They met at least three times more after she left office, according to receipts released with Speaker Darryl Plecas’s January report on waste and corruption to the Legislative Assembly Management Committee. What Clark and James discussed is not known. Clark did not respond to an email sent by theBreaker.news to her address at Bennett Jones. 

One of those Clark-James meetings was May 2, 2018. Two days later, on May 4, 2018, the registration for ChristyClark.com was updated. The Clark domain had previously forwarded users to her Facebook page.

Four weeks later, on May 30, 2018, a major law firm’s news release heralded “The Honourable Christy Clark joins Bennett Jones in Vancouver” as a senior advisor. Clark is not a lawyer and has only an honorary doctorate from a South Korean women’s university. 

James retired in disgrace last month after being found in misconduct for wrongly taking a $258,000 pension allowance and spending $8,000 on suits and luggage for personal use. James and suspended-with-pay Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz remain under RCMP investigation.

theBreaker.news has learned from the clerk’s office that Clark had a headstart. She marketed herself as “The Honourable” in May 2018, but it was not until June 2018 that the clerk’s office began to send correspondence to notify former speakers and former executive council members that they were eligible to use the title.

Clerk Craig James swore Christy Clark in as Westside-Kelowna MLA in 2013, near Clark’s Vancouver office. (Facebook)

As fate would have it, Clark and the rest were not really allowed to be “The Honourable.”

Why? The proclamation was invalid. 

“The Great Seal of the Province of British Columbia was not affixed to the documents, as stated in the text of each, nor were the documents counter-signed by the Attorney General,” wrote Attorney General David Eby to Plecas on Feb. 6. “These statutory requirements are set out in the Attorney General Act and Ministry of Provincial Secretary and Government Services Act. I am advised that staff in the federal Department of Canadian Heritage have indicated that these documents have no current legal effect.”

Independent watchdog Dermod Travis of IntegrityBC said British Columbians deserve a full explanation for the meetings between the clerk and ex-premier. 

“The fact process was not followed to the letter demonstrates yet again that the former clerk would often bend rules in order to achieve a goal and that’s been particularly the case when it’s a buddy,” Travis said. “I think that one of the potential pitfalls in all of this is, if all of the information people should have is not made available, then these types of things get missed.”

Acting Clerk Kate Ryan-Lloyd sent letters to former speakers and cabinet members last month to advise them that they cannot use “The Honourable.”

As of mid-June, the title still precedes Clark’s name on her personal website, law firm bio and on websites for Recipe Unlimited, InterAction Council and the Max Bell School for Public Policy. She is a director of the publicly traded parent company of Keg Restaurants and Swiss Chalet, an associate member of the think-tank for former heads of state and government and co-chairs the advisory board of the public policy school at McGill University. The 2018 news release announcing Clark’s appointment to the Shaw Communications board, however, did not include “The Honourable.”

The Department of Canadian Heritage allows a premier of a province to use the title only while he or she is in office. Those appointed to Privy Council, however, can use the title for life. The largely symbolic federal body includes current and former federal cabinet ministers, former chief judges, speakers and governors general.

The only Clark in the Privy Council is the former Progressive Conservative prime minister Joe Clark. The only ex-B.C. premier in the Privy Council is Ujjal Dosanjh, who received the title because of his time as the federal Liberal health minister.

Travis said the tempest over the title is another reason why British Columbians deserve full transparency, including an explanation for the Clark-James meetings and the release of the transcripts from retired Chief Justice Beverley McClachlin’s administrative probe of James and Lenz.

“This is another example of British Columbia charting a course on its own with no regard for convention, no regard for tradition, no regard for the parliamentary process and is continually out of step on many of these issues with the other nine provinces,” Travis said. “B.C. is a province, it’s not a private club; it should be administered as a province with a government, not a private club with executive meetings behind closed doors.”

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Bob Mackin The former BC Liberal Premier

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

The year was 1996. Vancouver and Toronto both had expansion teams in the National Basketball Association.

British Columbia was governed by the provincial NDP. Canada had a Liberal federal government.

The latter, under Prime Minister Jean Chretien, decided to shut down the Ports Canada Police to save money. The decision sparked strong words from B.C.’s Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh. The future premier pleaded with Fisheries and Oceans Minister David Anderson to change his mind.

Port Canada Police patch

“The safety of much more than just the port will be compromised if this issue is not resolved immediately,” Dosanjh is quoted in a March 22, 1996 news release, headlined “Province opposes decision to disband ports police.”

As Dosanjh pointed out, there had been $1.25 billion of illegal drugs seized at the port during the previous 10 years. Close to $2 million in luxury cars were seized in the first quarter of 1996, before they could be shipped offshore by smugglers.

The Port of Vancouver police detachment numbered 29 officers, seven civilian staff and eight seasonal employees, responsible for 275 km of coastline from Port Moody to Boundary Bay. 

Anderson and Chretien stuck to the decision, which made no sense. Neighbouring municipalities had to pick up the slack on an as-and-when needed basis. Dosanjh’s words were sadly prophetic.

Fast forward to 2019. The Vancouver Grizzlies went south to Memphis in 2001, but the Toronto Raptors are competing for the NBA championship.

There is a Liberal government in Ottawa and an NDP government in Victoria again.

Anti-money laundering expert and former RCMP Western Canada chief, Peter German, reported on millions of dollars of luxury cars being smuggled out of the Port of Vancouver to China. His Dirty Money report highlighted the lack of police at Canada’s biggest port.

“In the post-9/11 world this is a serious gap in our law enforcement umbrella,” German wrote. “The comparison to Seattle is stark, where the Port of Seattle Police Department has 150 staff to police SeaTac Airport and the Seaport, including numerous specialized units. In addition, U.S. federal authorities are present at the ports, including border patrol, customs officers, and others.”

Blair (left), James, Morneau and Eby on June 13 (Mackin)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are counting down the days to the October election, after waking up last year to B.C.’s calls for help to battle money laundering and organized crime affecting the real estate market.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair were in Vancouver on June 13 for a summit with provincial counterparts, including B.C. Attorney General David Eby and Finance Minister Carole James.

The two Bills headlined the tented meetings at Science World, a geodesic dome built for Expo 86 that was renovated in time to host the Russian Olympic Committee parties during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Russians flew-in on an Aeroflot charter with a quarter-million U.S. dollars in crates. After the Games, Russian government auditors took a close look at spending in Vancouver by Sochi 2014 organizers and found some of it flowed through shady banks in Cyprus. But I digress. 

With the Parq Casino and foreign-owned and foreign-financed glass condo towers behind him, Morneau announced the feds added another $10 million to the fight against money laundering, to be spread around the country. 

So I asked Blair, the former Toronto Police chief, will the Liberals commit to bring back the Ports Canada Police?

Blair was noncommittal.

“What we will commit to is continue to work to ensure the integrity of our borders. I will tell you I’ve actually visited [Canada Border Services Agency] and watched and witnessed the important work they’re doing at all our ports, including the Port of Vancouver,” Blair said.

“We recognize that ports of entry are significant vulnerabilities that need to be strengthened, and we’re making those investments to maintain security of our borders and to ensure, it’s work we do collaboratively with our provincial and municipal partners to ensure that areas are appropriately resourced for policing, as part of the ongoing discussion that takes place.”

Not until Eby and German went to testify at a Parliamentary committee in March 2018 did the Trudeau Liberals wake-up. In this year’s budget, the Liberals committed $200 million over the next five years to better fund the RCMP and other agencies. Including a new anti-money laundering action and coordination team, with the catchy monicker ACE, that brings together police, prosecutors and regulators.

The B.C. NDP, meanwhile, green-lit a judicial public inquiry last month into money laundering in B.C., with a deadline of May 2021. That announcement from Premier John Horgan came the week after a report estimated $7.4 billion was laundered in B.C. last year, of which $5 billion was in real estate.

But why did the Liberals wait until the end of their mandate to do something? The warning signs were there at the start in 2015 and they did nothing for more than two years. Asleep at the wheel? Soft on crime? Blair relied on the old automatic: blame cuts by the previous government. 

But that doesn’t excuse the relative inaction for the first half of the Trudeau administration.

The Liberals could have looked at the watershed RCMP and CSIS Project Sidewinder report from June 1997 that called money laundering by Chinese intelligence services and triads a threat to national security.

Science World (Mackin)

They could have read Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s speech in Vancouver, eight years ago on June 15, 2011.

Carney’s dire forecast said “some pockets of the Canadian housing market are taking on characteristics of financial asset markets.”

“Greed among speculators and investors—and fear among households that getting a foot on the property ladder is a now-or-never proposition,” Carney said, noting that the price of a home in Vancouver is 11 times the average of a Vancouver family’s household income.

Vancouver’s mayor made a half-hearted effort in mid-2017, when he was still entertaining the idea of running for a fourth term, and wrote a letter to Morneau.

Mayor Gregor Robertson complained of high housing prices, and asked for help to combat tax evasion and speculation in Vancouver real estate. 

“While your recent actions to provide greater oversight on issues of capital gains are greatly valued, I often hear from residents who are concerned about fraudulent practices connected to home purchases in Vancouver,” wrote Robertson, who was also the chair of the city’s police board. 

In a July 24, 2017 reply, Morneau mentioned that Canada Revenue Agency increased its compliance and enforcement efforts, but he misspelled the province twice.  

“With regards to housing vulnerabilities and affordability challenges in the GVA [Greater Vancouver Area], I encourage continued engagement of the City of Vancouver with the new provincial government in British Colombia (sic) in the federal-provincial-municipal working group on housing,” Morneau wrote. 

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Bob Mackin The year was 1996. Vancouver and

Business, Miscellany, News

Bob Mackin

Air Canada’s Jazz is suing the Vancouver International Airport Authority and a to-be-identified company for more than $2 million for engine repairs.

Jazz Aviation Ltd. filed the lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court on June 10, the eve of the second anniversary of a scuttled flight to San Jose.

This Jazz jet suffered engine damage in 2017 at YVR (Alexander Butuc/Planespotters)

One of the two GC CF34-85C engines on the Jazz-operated Bombardier CRJ 705 ingested foreign material debris that was loose on the airside area, according to the statement of claim.

Shortly after takeoff from runway 26L, and during the ascent, the flight crew noticed vibration in the engine. They were forced to return to YVR and the plane underwent a post-flight inspection. The foreign material was identified as having originated from a utility post metal cover in the area of Gate 70.

The cost to repair was pegged at US$1,956,186.40.

None of the allegations has been proven in court.

Buyer’s remorse? 

Owners of a corner house on Cambie and 38th in Vancouver are suing the buyer who failed to complete the deal.

Charn C. and Monica Ma sued Shao Dong Lin on June 7 in B.C. Supreme Court for breach of contract.

The plaintiffs say the defendant paid the $500,000 deposit as per the April 20, 2018 deal, but did not pay the remaining $8.1 million by the March 28, 2019 completion date.

Lawsuit over collapsed $8.6M real estate deal (BC Assessment)

“The defendant failed to complete the sale and purchase of the property on the completion date,” said the statement of claim filed by the Ma couple. “The defendant’s failure to complete the sale and purchase of the property is a breach of the contract.”

The one-storey, four-bedroom, two bathroom duplex, built in 1952, was assessed at $6.5 million at the time. Its latest value is $7.94 million. None of the allegations has been proven in court.

Technicalities hamper wrongful death lawsuit 

A 75-year-old Vancouver woman who blames Vancouver Coastal Health and a doctor for her spouse’s death suffered another setback in B.C. Supreme Court.

Audrey Jane Laferriere’s spouse, Randy Michael Walker, suffered a traumatic brain injury at age 53 in 2010 and was a patient at George Pearson Centre and Vancouver General Hospital until he died in April 2014. Laferriere sued various defendants in 2015 and 2016, alleging they had “hastened or conspired to hasten” Walker’s death and that he had been unlawfully confined. Laferriere, who was also Walker’s personal representative and executor, also claimed that she had been defamed.

The defendants, including Vancouver Coastal Health and Dr. James Vincent Dunne, denied Laferriere’s claims and sought to have those claims dismissed for contravening Supreme Court Civil Rules.

Justice Nitya Iyer’s May 7 decision said that Laferriere, who was self-represented until last year, did not comply with 2017 court orders to provide lists of documents and witnesses, particularize claims, attend an examination for discovery by Vancouver Coastal Health and complete examinations of discovery of each defendant.

In August 2018, Laferriere told the court that she retained lawyer Manuel Azevedo.

“Unfortunately, little changed,” Iyer wrote. “Mr. Azevedo did not ensure that the Plaintiff complied with the outstanding orders or contact the defendants to discuss a schedule for doing so.”

Laferriere filed an amended notice of claim in March of this year, but the judge said that it did not comply because a vast majority of additions were not underlined, as per court rules.

The number of defendants was reduced from 26 to eight and 110 paragraphs were added, with new factual allegations and legal claims.

At a March hearing, the judge dismissed claims against various parties named in the lawsuit.

In affidavits from last November and March, Laferriere explained that her non-compliance with court rules was caused by suffering from persistent complicated bereavement and post-traumatic stress disorder. She attached doctor’s notes containing the diagnosis to the affidavits. A February note from a doctor said she suffers flashbacks and a relapse of anxiety and depression triggered by reviewing events with her lawyer.

“The defendants say Ms. Laferriere’s health condition does not excuse her conduct,” Iyer wrote. “They say that Justice Abrioux made it clear that, if Ms. Laferriere’s ill-health prevented her from pursuing the litigation, her recourse was to apply for a stay of proceedings. Her failure to do so means that she can no longer claim her health as a lawful excuse.”

Iyer said that Azevedo took no steps to rectify the non-compliance.  She dismissed the 2015 claim and gave Laferriere until May 31 to stay proceedings in her 2016 claim.

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Bob Mackin Air Canada’s Jazz is suing the

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