Vancouver city hall is looking for a partner to redevelop the Pacific National Exhibition’s Amphitheatre into a destination outdoor live music venue.
Artist’s rendering of the new PNE Amphitheatre (City of Vancouver)
The Nov. 1 request for expressions of interest has a Dec. 12 deadline for bidders and seeks “potential successful, innovative, and forward-thinking commercial or non-profit partners with expertise in event venue partnership arrangements for the proposed redevelopment of the PNE Amphitheatre.”
The current 7,000-capacity amphitheatre, which hosts nightly concerts during the annual PNE Fair and a handful of shows at other times, was built in 1966. It is failing to “meet the market’s requirements for accessibility and guest amenities.”
“This, coupled with an identified gap in the supply of venue space in Vancouver and an increase in market demand for events, has triggered consideration to redevelop the Amphitheatre venue,” the tendering document says.
Besides the PNE Amphitheatre, Vancouver’s only outdoor venue for touring shows during summer months is the 2,000-capacity Malkin Bowl at Stanley Park. Many touring shows that play outdoor venues in other markets during summer months end up inside at Rogers Arena.
Artist’s renderings of the new PNE Amphitheatre show covered seating, similar to what once existed at the Plaza of Nations on the old Expo 86 site. Vancouver’s only dedicated outdoor concert venue was the Expo Theatre, which was demolished three years after the world’s fair. Concord Pacific turned down four proposals for a buyer, including one from concert promoter Perryscope, which wanted to take it down and reassemble it at Surrey’s Tynehead Regional Park. The Plaza of Nations was a frequent concert venue after Expo 86, but landlord Canadian Metropolitan Properties let the complex fall into disrepair. The distinctive canopy and half the buildings were demolished in 2007.
Expo Theatre, which was demolished three years after the fair (Expo 86)
The PNE foresees the new amphitheatre holding as much as 9,820, including a mix of floor seats, bleachers and VIP seating in lounges and suites. It would have three permanent structures for washrooms, concessions, offices, dressing rooms, lounges and suites and flex meeting space. There would be a covering for the floor and bleachers, and a stage with sound that would minimize the impact on neighbours.
PNE wants to increase year-round programming and revenue, with allowance for not-for-profit programming and First Nations while continuing PNE Fair exclusive access during the Fair period every summer. It also aims to boost the local music industry and honour all-site-wide union contracts.
Ideally, city hall wants bidders who can book successful programming, secure and manage venue naming rights, balance commercial and public goals within the public site, finance and build with public sector partners, and maintain facilities that meet safety and guest requirements while allowing access to diverse groups.
Not only does the PNE want to make it more accessible, with pedestrian and bicycle connections to New Brighton Park and the waterfront, but it wants the amphitheatre to form a new “Heart of the Park” with the neighbouring festival plaza and livestock building.
The ripple effects of Auditor General Carol Bellringer’s late-September resignation were still being felt when suspended Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz’s retirement was announced Oct. 1.
Lenz did not wait for the release of Doug LePard’s damning Police Act investigation.
So began another eventful month in the ongoing corruption scandal at the B.C. Legislature.
Alan Mullen, special advisor to Speaker Darryl Plecas, with the damning report on the suspended officials (Mackin)
Almost a year ago, on Nov. 20, 2018, Lenz and Clerk Craig James were suddenly suspended and the public was shocked to learn they were under an RCMP probe with two special prosecutors had been appointed. Speaker Darryl Plecas and his chief of staff, Alan Mullen, had called in the RCMP, who continue to investigate.
James resigned in disgrace in May, after retired Supreme Court chief justice Beverley McLachlin found he committed misconduct. She cleared Lenz of wrongdoing, but Lepard, the former Vancouver Police deputy chief, found that she did not have all the facts because Lenz lied to her.
LePard wanted to know what ex-Speaker Linda Reid knew and when she knew it, but she refused to sit down for an interview. Reid, a Richmond BC Liberal MLA since 1991, eventually announced she would not seek another term.
“These folks that represent the general public should be at the highest level,” Mullen told theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin. “Even the leader of the opposition, Andrew Wilkinson has said, and I agree with him, anybody who is asked to participate in an investigation should do so without any strings attached.”
Listen to the full interview with Mullen, recounting the October that was and the conclusions of the LePard Report.
Lawyers and Members of Parliament are not entitled to have cases affecting them heard by summary trial, ruled a judge who dismissed defeated Trudeau Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido’s bid to quash a fraud victim’s lawsuit.
Joe Peschisolido (left) and Paul Oei (Facebook)
Peschisolido lost his Steveston-Richmond East seat in the Oct. 21 federal election to Conservative Kenny Chiu by more than 2,700 votes. On Sept. 12, his lawyer asked the B.C. Supreme Court to throw out Yicheng Jiang’s case against him, claiming that Jiang had not advanced his case for almost four years. Jiang lost US$3.7 million invested in the compost and fertilizer scheme run by securities fraudster Paul Oei, who had retained a lawyer at Peschisolido’s Richmond firm.
Peschisolido argued there was no evidence he was negligent or knowingly assisted in a breach of trust and that Jiang’s delay in prosecuting the case prejudiced his re-election campaign and damaged his reputation.
“Mr. Peschisolido moved to have this summary trial after the trial was adjourned, and on the first day of the election period,” wrote Justice Sharon Matthews in her Oct. 30 verdict. “As is apparent from the timing of the release of these reasons, the election period was insufficient time for a decision to be considered and delivered before the election concluded in any event.”
Matthews found no authority to fast-track cases for someone like Peschisolido. The complexity of the overlapping claims and conflicting evidence means the case is not suitable for summary trial.
In November 2015, Jiang sued Oei and his wife Loretta Lai, their companies Canadian Manu Immigration and Financial Services and Cascade Renewable Organics, Peschisolido, his law firm and Oei and Lai’s lawyer Yvonne Hsu. Jiang alleged that Peschisolido’s law firm received US$15 million in funds from Oei and Lai’s investors and structured the fraudulent investment scheme.
Peschisolido hugging a supporter at his campaign office opening in September, where pro-China protester Eileen Chen (right) said she was helping the Liberal incumbent with Chinese community events.
Document discovery did not begin until early 2018. Some of the delay was also blamed on arguments over whether some documents were privileged and whether Oei and Lai would waive their privilege. Jiang also suffered health and financial setbacks.
“The delay [Jiang] has caused is not so long or undue that it would be appropriate to proceed with a summary trial notwithstanding the conflicting evidence and the interrelation between the case against Mr. Peschisolido, Ms. Hsu and Peschisolido Law Corporation,” Matthews ruled.
In August 2018, B.C. Securities Commission found Oei and his companies committed fraud against more than 50 investors including Jiang. In August of this year, the Law Society of B.C. found Hsu committed professional misconduct related to the fraudulent investment scheme. Peschisolido turned in his law licence and the B.C. Law Society appointed a custodian last spring to wind-up his law firm.
Jiang deposed that he traveled to B.C. in December 2009 and February 2010 and dined with Oei and Lai at a Richmond restaurant with potential investors, where he was introduced by Oei to Peschisolido as “a former member of Parliament and a socialite.”
Jiang said he was told, via translation by Lai, that Peschisolido would receive and handle the investment money, “and that Mr. Jiang could be 100% sure that the investment money would be safe because it was going to be deposited into Mr. Peschisolido’s trust account.”
Jiang claimed Peschisolido shook his hand and gave him a business card with a handwritten email address on it. Peschisolido, however, deposed that he did not recall ever meeting Jiang and that the handwritten email address did not exist until after 2012.
“While Mr. Peschisolido asserts that he was not supervising Ms. Hsu and had no familiarity with her work for Mr. Oei and Ms. Lai and their companies, he was clearly involved to some extent including disbursement of a significant amount of Mr. Jiang’s funds on two occasions, totalling over $1 million. Mr. Jiang argues there were red flags that Mr. Peschisolido and Peschisolido Law Corporation should have identified and acted on. He points to evidence at the Law Society hearing that Ms. Hsu was over her head to argue that she was not properly supervised by Mr. Peschisolido.”
In a July statement, Peschisolido said: “In all my duties, I have always conducted myself with utmost integrity and professionalism.”
theBreaker.news exclusively reported that a protester from a mid-August Vancouver rally in support of China’s Communist Party regime was working inside Peschisolido’s campaign office when it opened in September. Eileen Chen said she was a volunteer on Peschisolido’s re-election campaign. Video evidence contradicted the denial from a spokesman for Peschisolido, who did not respond to interview requests.
In the climax of a four-part social media video series, BC Hydro’s bearded, cardigan-wearing spokesman Dave Mix boasts that he drove from Tofino to the Alberta border in an electric car with “no emissions and it cost me about 30 bucks.”
A BC Hydro ad campaign claimed it cost only $30 to travel by electric car from Tofino to the Alberta border. In fact, the ad campaign cost more than $200,000 and included air travel. (BC Hydro)
The Dave’s Clean Getaway ad campaign, which dovetails with the NDP government’s CleanBC program, cost almost $220,000 and included airplane travel for the star and two others.
That, says an expert, broke “rule number one” of green marketing.
“If you’re going to send out that green message, what’s the bottom line message? Be very damn clear everything related to it is green,” said Lindsay Meredith, Simon Fraser University professor emeritus of marketing.
The production schedule, released under the freedom of information law, shows arrival in Tofino from Vancouver on Pacific Coastal Airlines and a flight out of Nanaimo back to Vancouver at the end of the third day of production. The Vancouver to Kamloops leg ended with a flight from Fulton Field Airport back to YVR. For the Kamloops-Revelstoke-Yoho National Park leg, the crew flew from Vancouver International Airport to Kamloops and picked up a rental vehicle at Budget before retrieving the electric car at a BC Hydro office.
BC Hydro spokesman Dave Mix surfing at Tofino (BC Hydro)
BC Hydro spokeswoman Susie Rieder said by email that the Vancouver Island leg was shot April 28-30; Vancouver to Kamloops May 6-8; and Kamloops-Revelstoke-Yoho May 13-17.
“Because the trip was broken up into different legs, short breaks were taken for pre-production,” Rieder said. “Some crew members flew back to the city then on to different locations in order to prepare for the next leg of the trip. That being said, the car did make the whole trip from Tofino to Yoho National Park.”
It took another three days for Rieder to respond to followup questions about how many crew members traveled by plane and how many flights Dave took.
Rieder said Dave drove the entire trip in the electric vehicle, leg-by-leg, but she admitted that he flew back to Vancouver with two other crew members “so that they could get back to the office as quickly as possible and conduct other work.”
BC Hydro’s most-recent statement of financial information showed that Mix, whose official title is recovery manager, was paid $133,742 last year and billed $8,733 for expenses.
One of the trio’s flights was from Nanaimo to Vancouver. Rieder said they flew rather than sailing on BC Ferries to save a combined three to four hours productive work time.
theBreaker.news wanted to know the make and model of the vehicle the crew rented in Kamloops, but Rieder would only say it was a “small sedan.” A Budget customer service representative told theBreaker.news that the location does not have an electric or hybrid vehicle in the fleet.
Meredith said the choice to use air travel does not totally negate the power of the message, but it does damage BC Hydro’s credibility.
The climax of the Dave’s Clean Getaway campaign at the B.C./Alberta border. (BC Hydro)
“To produce this production, which is all about let’s go green, we lose track of how many hundreds of gallons of jet fuel got consumed moving these people back and forth,” Meredith said. “That, in the end, is going to wind up being a trap.”
Documents provided to theBreaker.news show BC Hydro contracted Basetwo Media for video and post-production; Smak for production, logistics and coordination; Quietly Media for ad buying; and Rival for market research. BC Hydro research claims the videos were viewed 768,850 times on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
The Olympic flame’s journey to Vancouver began Oct. 22, 2009 in the midday sun at Ancient Olympia in Greece, the home of the original Olympics. Then, the next day, tragedy back home. Vancouver Olympics organizing committee chair Jack Poole had succumbed to a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 76.
The VANOC delegation returned to Vancouver for his Oct. 27 funeral and then flew back to Greece, to retrieve the Olympic flame for the Oct. 30, 2009 launch of the domestic torch relay outside the Parliament Buildings in Victoria. The plaza beside the expanded Vancouver Convention Centre, where the Olympic cauldron was lit on the Feb. 12, 2010 opening day, was eventually named in Poole’s honour.
Here is an excerpt from the chapter about the beginning of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay’s Canadian leg, from my e-book, Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics, available via Smashwords and other online e-tailers.
The Canadian Forces CC-150 Polaris Airbus 15001 departed Athens, briefly stopped at Scotland’s Glasgow-Prestwick Airport and touched-down to change crews at Keflavik, Iceland. Capt. Garrett Lawless took control for the last leg to Victoria.
Premier Gordon Campbell and Prime Minister Stephen Harper at Victoria International Airport on Oct. 30, 2009 (Bob Mackin)
The commander at Trenton, Ontario, where both Lawless and the plane were based, was Col. Russell Williams. Williams welcomed the relay to the country’s biggest air force installation on December 15, but was sensationally arrested less than two months later for the sadistic murder of two women. He was convicted and sentenced to two 25-year life terms in jail, prompting the Canadian Forces to eject him from the service and burn his uniform. The case drew international media attention, not just because of Williams’s high-profile job, but for his self-portraits in women’s lingerie from a spree of residential break-ins.
The flight arrived an hour late at 8:45 a.m. on October 30 at Victoria International Airport. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson emerged from the Airbus and strolled down the stairs to the tarmac where he set the miner’s lamp containing the flame. It was passed from politician to politician inside the 443 Maritime Patrol Squadron’s Sea King helicopter hangar under the watchful eye of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The 443’s hornet badge contained the motto “our sting is death.”
The most complex and circuitous delivery from Victoria to Vancouver (just 69 kilometres away) was devised in 2008 by the Greater Victoria Spirit Committee which lobbied Victoria-area resident and VANOC executive vice-president Dan Doyle to make the capital of the Olympic province the start of the national relay.
The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics torch route (VANOC)
A police-escorted motorcade whisked the flickering flame in the miner’s lamp to downtown Victoria on the windy, rainy Friday where it was put aboard a traditional 13.5-metre, hand-carved red cedar canoe and paddled across the Inner Harbour by chiefs of the Squamish, Lil’wat, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam tribes from the Lower Mainland. Counterparts from Victoria’s Songhees and Esquimalt tribes greeted them at the dock, before the flame was carried to the Parliament Buildings.
Darlene Poole battled gusts of wind to ignite a cauldron on a temporary stage. Two-time Olympic speedskating champion Catriona Le May Doan and Sydney 2000 triathlon champion Simon Whitfield were the first of the 12,000 torchbearers on the 106-day, 1,030-community, 45,000 kilometre tour.
“I felt such a responsibility to everybody to do it properly and to do it with such pride,” said Whitfield, who also won silver at Beijing 2008.
Whitfield and Le May Doan transferred the flame to diver Alexandre Despatie of Laval, Quebec and retired Victoria rower Silken Laumann outside the landmark Fairmont Empress Hotel. The traveling production crew of 200 mustered the previous day for the $36 million tour and got H1N1 vaccination shots to protect them from the feared flu virus.
Jack Poole’s widow Darlene at the Olympic torch relay ceremony on the Legislature lawn, Oct. 30, 2009 (VANOC/Vancouver Archives)
The flame itself would be transported overnight between most communities by car, ferry or plane. The British Columbia government and municipalities paid for traffic, policing and community concerts to welcome the flame.
Onward it went to the Esquimalt naval base and around Victoria’s suburbs. At Elk Lake it was rowed by members of Canada’s Beijing 2008 gold medal-winning crew.
Darkness came early the day before Hallowe’en and 300 costumed and masked anti-Olympic protesters celebrated the occasion with a Zombie March from Centennial Square outside Victoria city hall. Police from Victoria and Vancouver Island in bright yellow jackets escorted the group. Even the Vancouver Police mounted squad showed up near Bastion Square.
The Vancouver 2010 Ford minivan, with the B.C. vanity licence plate Flame 8, was filled with torchbearers and waiting at Cook and Richardson streets with its lights turned out. Suddenly the van turned right and sped past people who had been waiting for hours to see the relay.
Protest leaders used mobile phones and text messaging to force a last-minute diversion near Government House, the mansion where Lt. Gov. Steven Point lived. A group of 10 torchbearers didn’t get their chance to run, but they did pass the flame from torch to torch in the presence of Point.
The flame finally came to the Parliamentary precinct where Victoria broadcaster Mel Cooper passed it to Jeneece Edroff, a teenage charity fundraiser who overcame a genetic spinal deformity. She re-lit the cauldron sparked earlier by Darlene Poole as fireworks lit up the Victoria sky.
Canada’s national rowing team with the Olympic flame on Elk Lake, Oct. 30, 2009 (VANOC/Vancouver Archives)
The protesters returned, with their own oversized, papier mache torch. As the rain-soaked concert attendees left on the rainy night, Campbell paced in his office at the Legislature’s west annex.
Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit chief Bud Mercer was comfortably on a BC Ferry back to the mainland before Edroff’s torch was even lit. He monitored reports of the diversion via his BlackBerry smartphone. The night was in the hands of Victoria Police Department and its controversial chief Jamie Graham, who came to Vancouver and told his torch stories on November 1 to an audience of his peers.
Graham appeared at the 12th Vancouver International Security Conference. He believed the protesters were “probably going to be violent,” so uniformed police infiltrated the crowd.
“The relationships individual field officers have with protesters and so on just kills these kinds of disturbances and it worked extremely well,” Graham said in the Marriott Pinnacle ballroom.
The $220,000 bill was “well beyond” budget, but worth it. “Police departments from all over the country have taken our game plan, our operational plan and adopted it as their own,” Graham boasted.
The day was not without incident. Graham said two ferry passengers were arrested for dumping water on an undercover security person, while two motorcycle cops wiped out on slippery pavement. “One of them was hurt quite badly, but has since recovered,” he said.
Meanwhile, a secondary security vehicle “got T-boned by an old guy who ran a red light.”
Graham’s biggest revelation was that an undercover cop watched Lower Mainland anti-Olympic torch relay protesters in the rear-view mirror.
“You knew that the protesters weren’t that organized when on the ferry on the way over they all rented a bus, they all came over on a bus, and there was a cop driving the bus!” Graham said.
Hundreds of people protested the Victoria launch of the Olympic torch relay on Oct. 30, 2009. (TheDominionPaper.ca)
The story got national attention. Victoria photographer Bruce Dean complained to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner that Graham had violated police confidentiality. Dean was still angry after he was arrested and some of his photographs deleted in 2007 when he happened to come upon an undercover police operation in downtown Victoria.
Burnaby RCMP Chief Supt. Rick Taylor recommended in his report to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner that Graham be found in discreditable conduct. Graham claimed he was joking about the driver being a spook, but Taylor felt Graham “did cause concern amongst senior police personnel engaged in planning and security operations” for both the torch relay and 2010 Winter Olympics.
Graham was slapped with a similar penalty in 2007 for not cooperating with an investigation into Vancouver Police conduct on the Downtown Eastside during his tenure as Vancouver’s chief. He also made headlines in 2006 for leaving a used, autographed shooting range target on the desk of city manager and VANOC director Judy Rogers. “A bad day at the range is better than the best day at work,” he wrote to Rogers.
Bob Mackin is author of the e-book Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics, the only independent history book about the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. It is available from Smashwordsand other online e-tailers.
(Bonus content below: the passenger manifest from the Canadian Forces jet that carried the Olympic flame from Greece to Canada and a video from the dress rehearsal for the Olympic flame lighting in Olympia.)
The City of Vancouver manager in charge of patios denies any special treatment was afforded the well-known proprietor of a Yaletown restaurant that violated its permit.
Elisa Steakhouse patio in January 2019 (City of Vancouver)
The Aquilini family, which owns the Vancouver Canucks and Rogers Arena, turned the former Milestones at 1109 Hamilton St. in Yaletown into the 200-seat Elisa Steakhouse, named for the matriarch who died in 2015. In August 2018, the city granted Elisa a large sidewalk patio permit on the historic Yaletown loading docks, an opportunity to earn more food and drink revenue. But theBreaker.news has exclusively learned that the Aquilinis’ high-end restaurants division violated the permit when it built a structure over the patio.
Aquilini real estate vice-president Bill Aujla intervened, just seven months after he joined the company from his previous job as city hall’s director of real estate and facilities. In a May email, obtained under freedom of information, Scott Edwards, the engineering department’s manager of street use, allowed the Aquilinis’ Toptable Group to continue operating the patio under an interim large patio permit through Oct. 31. The city has not used its power to order removal and restoration. In an Oct. 28 interview, Edwards said a short extension is possible after the permit expires this week.
“I’m treating them like any other business,” Edwards said.
The perception is otherwise, said governance watchdog Dermod Travis of IntegrityBC.
“Any individual that has a City of Vancouver inspector come around, and something comparable, now has something to hold up and say ‘I demand to be treated just like the Aquilinis’,”Travis said. “That’s the biggest trap they dug for themselves.”
The new permit for a 58.6-square metre sidewalk patio was issued Nov. 14, 2018. But, by the end of November, an illegal structure was discovered by the city’s large sidewalk patio coordinator who threatened to revoke Elisa’s patio permit.
Elisa Steakhouse patio in October 2018 (City of Vancouver)
“I happened to be in Yaletown and saw the patio,” Anthony Hoang wrote Nov. 30 to Jim Johnston, director of development and construction for Aquilini. “The patio does not look like what we approved. Definitely we did not approve the deck and awning with support beams from the patio. I need you to stop work on the patio. And you cannot use the patio until we decide what further actions are required. If not complied, your patio permit will be revoked.”
Despite Hoang’s warning, more unapproved construction was photographed in January.
Aujla sent an email to senior heritage planner Zlatan Jankovic on Feb. 11, mentioning that he had been referred by city engineer Jerry Dobrovolny and deputy planning director Susan Haid. Jankovic told Aujla on Feb. 19 that the patio was “unsupportable.”
“The patio floor modification and all related patio work were done without a permit. The current condition should be reversed to the status before the intervention (before any of the work was done without a permit),” Jankovic wrote. “Just to remind, permits must be obtained prior to any changes to the exterior of the building, the patio surface, the patio use, the canopy or associated signs… please initiate steps to rectify the situation as soon as possible.”
Roberto (left), Luigi, Francesco and Paolo Aquilini and Michael Doyle at the November 2018 opening of Elisa Steakhouse (Elisa/Facebook)
In a message later that day to Edwards, Jankovic said that Aujla did not dispute the wrongdoing. “He is only interested in moving forward by reversing the damage, redoing the patio appropriately etc…whatever it takes (as he said) to get this properly processed and approved.”
In a March 8 email to Aujla, and copied to Jankovic, Aquilini Live Entertainment and Hospitality president Michael Doyle downplayed the dispute. He called it a temporary patio like others in Yaletown that can be removed in 24 hours, if required.
Edwards emailed Aujla and Doyle on May 17 after a meeting at the restaurant. Despite the company building a structure that “encloses and privatizes this public space,” Edwards granted interim approval through the end of October. “This would allow the Elisa restaurant to support its first year of operation which, as you pointed out, is often the most challenging period.”
Revolving door
When asked why the city did not order the Elisa patio restored to the permitted condition, Edwards said: “We’re interested in working with them to be able to resolve this.”
“If it was an imminent life safety concern, we would have treated this with a much more furied pace,” said Edwards.
“Businesses are definitely interested in getting a longer season out of patios. What perhaps was once envisioned as a summertime patio, given our mild climate, people are trying to make them comfortable year-round.”
Aujla declined an interview request. He said by email that he assisted Doyle because he is familiar with city requirements and those who are responsible for permitting. All applications and subsequent requirements were taken by Doyle or his staff, he said.
Scott Edwards of City of Vancouver (Linkedin)
Asked if it was awkward to deal with a former senior manager from city hall, Edwards called it “not unusual.”
“There’s many people that change jobs and it’s an easy way to be able to contact them and have some background with them perhaps, but it doesn’t change how we’re managing this process.”
In late July 2018, Aujla immediately left city hall to join the Aquilinis as their vice-president of real estate. Aujla’s 13-year career at city hall included overseeing the completion of the Olympic Village, which went into receivership after the 2010 Winter Olympics. In April 2014, the Aquilinis bought the remaining 67 condos in a $91 million deal that retired the city’s debt from the $1.1 billion complex.
Travis said Aujla’s involvement highlighted the need for a year-long cooling-off period, like the one that exists provincially.
“One of the biggest dangers about this revolving door that goes on between individuals going back and forth between the public sectors and private sectors is regulatory capture,” he said.
Bill Aujla (City of Vancouver)
Aujla is the second top official from City of Vancouver to join the family-owned real estate, entertainment, hospitality and farming conglomerate. In 2015, Vancouver Police Department chief Jim Chu retired and joined Aquilini as the vice-president of special projects and partnerships.
During his successful campaign for the mayoralty, Kennedy Stewart proposed a civic lobbying registry and a ban for key staff members from lobbying for 12 months after leaving their civic positions.
“Right now, lobbyists have unchecked access to decision-makers and the city’s conflict of interest rules are out-of-date and toothless,” Stewart said during the campaign.
After taking office last November, Stewart and city council asked the provincial government to amend and expand the Lobbyist Registration Act. Travis said Stewart should have proposed a temporary made-in-Vancouver solution while waiting for the province to act.
The Green wave did not happen and there was no Orange Crush. The People’s Party fizzled, while the Bloc Quebecois had a resurgence. The Conservatives won the popular vote. The Liberals lost their majority, but retained the most seats and control of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Research Co. pollster Mario Canseco (Mackin)
The Oct. 21 federal election contained no grand vision for the country’s future and often sank to mudslinging.
On this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, host Bob Mackin asks pollster Mario Canseco of ResearchCo to analyze the results.
Justin Trudeau has already shut the door on a coalition with the NDP, but will govern on a case by case basis. Trudeau is still likely to need the NDP votes to pass some of its legislation.
“They are trying to do this the Scandinavian way, I’ll get some of the parties to vote for me on issues they care about and I’ll get some of the parties to support me on things the major party may not care about, which is the way it’s been done in Denmark and Sweden,” Canseco said in a feature interview.“I think it’s a difficult situation particularly because of the animosity that we’ve seen come out of… Alberta and Saskatchewan and also the fact that he Bloc almost tied the Liberals when it came to the actual popular vote in Quebec.”
The Conservatives increased their popular vote, but could not defeat a weakened Liberal Party because of the “lack of emotional connection by Andrew Scheer with voters.”
There were low expectations for the NDP and high expectations for the Greens. Elizabeth May’s party was predicted in summer to eclipse the NDP.
“The largest disappointment, aside from what happened with the Conservatives,” Canseco said. “You had a summer that was definitely full of news related to climate change, the campaign happens at the same time as Greta Thunberg was crossing the Atlantic. You had plenty of opportunity to try and connect on that issue and it just didn’t materialize for them.”
Both the Greens and the PPC could have won more if they had stopped focussing on a national campaign and pinpointed five to 10 ridings where they could concentrate resources.
Listen to Canseco’s full interview. Plus commentaries, headlines and Trudeau’s last bozo eruption of the election campaign.
The B.C. NDP government is refusing to show how bureaucrats scored and ranked shortlisted bidders for the $2.83 billion Broadway Subway, according to documents obtained under the freedom of information laws.
The June report of the four-person evaluation committee includes a chart, but the evaluation scores and rankings for four bidders were censored to allegedly protect government finances and the companies’ trade secrets.
SNC-Lavalin’s Vancouver office (Mackin)
The committee recommended a shortlist of three: Acciona-Ghella Joint Venture, Broadway Connect (Dragados/Aecon) and West 9th Partners (SNC-Lavalin). Urban Transit (Salini Impreglio/Astaldi) did not make the cut.
The announcement came a month before SNC-Lavalin withdrew its bids among a major reorganization as the company faces a trial on corruption and bribery charges. On Sept. 11, which was, coincidentally, the same day the federal election began, the B.C. government formally announced Urban Transit had replaced SNC-Lavalin on the shortlist. A decision on the preferred bidder is expected by late spring 2020. The 5.7 kilometre SkyTrain extension to Arbutus is expected to be operating by 2025.
Scoring of bidders on major transit projects became a major story in Ottawa, where CBC revealed that SNC-Lavalin failed to reach the technical threshold for a $1.6 billion LRT extension contract. The company got the contract based on its low bid. Ottawa’s city clerk eventually confirmed that SNC-Lavalin scored 67.27%, below the 70% threshold, in the technical evaluation. Competitors were in the mid-80s.
Nanaimo SkyTrain Station (Google)
The Trudeau Liberals’ SNC-Lavalin scandal cast a cloud over the Broadway Subway process, but was not enough to keep the company off the shortlist, as proven by a scripted answer in a presentation for Transportation Minister Claire Trevena.
In bold letters, it said: “If asked: Why is SNC-Lavalin shortlisted for major projects in British Columbia given the corruption allegations against the company?”
“All shortlisted respondents were evaluated against the criteria in the publicly available request for qualifications. All respondents declared litigation or other material adverse proceedings that may affect their ability to deliver the project. The evaluation determined that the shortlisted teams were capable of delivering the project.”
The report said the evaluation committee was comprised of PartnershipsBC vice-president David Hubner and PartnershipsBC project director George Kyriakelis, who is a former Kiewit engineer, and the transport ministry’s executive director of major projects finance Dave Stewart and executive project director Lisa Gow.
British Columbia’s tax on foreign real estate buyers is not racist and it does not breach the Canadian constitution according to a B.C. Supreme Court judge’s Oct. 25-released ruling.
Jing Li, a Chinese citizen living in Burnaby, agreed to pay $559,000 plus $27,995 GST for a condo in Langley on July 13, 2016, two weeks before the BC Liberal government-imposed 15% tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver went into effect. The new tax amounted to an extra $83,850 on her condo. Li completed the purchase, including all applicable taxes, on Nov. 18, 2016.
Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)
“The plaintiff says that the main deleterious effects of the tax are, firstly, the reinforcement and perpetuation of the widely held view that foreign nationals and especially Chinese buyers are the cause of housing affordability and, secondly, the impediment to foreign nationals, especial Chinese persons, to immigrate and reside in the [Greater Vancouver Regional District],” wrote Justice Gregory Bowden. “I accept the defendant’s response to those arguments. The view that foreign nationals significantly contributed to the escalation of prices of housing in the GVRD is neither a stereotype nor a continuation of racist policies from the past. The experts have agreed that the inflow of foreign capital has significantly contributed to price increases in the GVRD.”
In her case against the B.C. government, Li was represented by four lawyers, including Joseph Arvay. Bowden heard arguments over 21 court days between June 2018 and April 2019.
Bowden’s Oct. 24 ruling found that behind the B.C. government tax measure was “a pressing and substantial objective, namely, the reduction of the demand by foreign buyers for housing of all types in the GVRD so as to make housing more affordable.”
Andy Yan (SFU)
Li failed to establish the tax breached section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which says every individual is equal under the law and is legally protected from racial or national discrimination. She had argued that foreign buyers from Asian countries, particularly China, were disproportionately affected because they are the largest group of immigrants in the region and more likely to purchase real estate than others.
“The plaintiff has not established that the tax impedes the ability of someone, whether a Chinese national or other nationality, to immigrate and reside in the GVRD,” Bowden wrote. He relied on expert evidence from Simon Fraser University Prof. Andy Yan.
“It is also notable that there was overwhelming support for the Tax among Asians living in Greater Vancouver. Prof. Yan states that Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Vancouver of Chinese descent are equally impacted by housing unaffordability and equally will benefit from any measures that improve affordability. He states that, in opinion polls taken after the announcement of the tax, 89% of Asian residents in Greater Vancouver indicated support for it. In this context, it cannot be said that the tax perpetuates an Asian disadvantage.”
The B.C. NDP government, which succeeded the BC Liberals in July 2017, increased the foreign buyers’ tax to 20% in February 2018 and expanded it to cover the Capital Regional District, Central Okanagan Regional District, Fraser Valley Regional District and Regional District of Nanaimo.
British Columbia is not alone. Taxes on the inflow of foreign capital have been imposed in other jurisdictions. Bowden noted Hong Kong, Singapore, Israel and three states in Australia that introduced higher property transfer taxes or stamp duties. New York City and the State of Florida also imposed different rates based on citizenship. Switzerland has restricted the number of homes that can be owned by non-Swiss persons, while Mexico, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan have restricted purchases by non-residents of certain types of property such as oceanfront or farmland. Ontario imposed a 15% additional property tax on foreign nationals and foreign corporations within the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
Bowden ruled that the benefits of the tax outweighed any of the suggested harms of the tax, and are “proportionate to the objectives” of the government. Even if it had breached the constitution, Bowden wrote, “it is a reasonable limit justifiable in a free and democratic society.”
A whistleblower who sparked B.C.’s public inquiry into money laundering says the lawyer for B.C. Lottery Corporation’s chief executive officer contradicted evidence from Peter German’s 2018 Dirty Money report.
Ex-BCLC anti-money laundering director Ross Alderson (LinkedIn)
During an Oct. 18 application hearing before the public inquiry’s head, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen, Jim Lightbody’s lawyer Robin McFee quoted German’s Failed Strategy chapter. In that chapter, German mentioned an unnamed BCLC investigator said that “no transaction was refused before 2015” and that a senior official within the Crown corporation told him in 2012 that his job was “not to investigate money laundering” at casinos.
“He pointed out that nobody was investigating money laundering despite copies of suspicious transaction reports being provided to [Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch] and to the RCMP. In his view, nobody showed any interest in the issue,” German wrote.
McFee told Cullen: “Now, that’s an important aspect of evidence that Mr. German relies upon that, one expects, will come before you as the commissioner. Mr. Lightbody — the buck stopped with him. He takes great issue with that. He says that’s incorrect.”
BCLC CEO Jim Lightbody
Ross Alderson was the BCLC anti-money laundering director until fall of 2017. When he went public last January on CTV’s W5, Alderson described a 2012 incident of refining at River Rock Casino, in which a gambler came in with $100,000 in $20 bills and left with $100,000 in $100 bills. Alderson reported the incident to his superiors.
“I escalated that to senior management and I was told categorically that it was not my job to investigate money laundering,” Alderson said on W5.
Alderson declined an interview, but provided a written statement to theBreaker.news.
“I am somewhat perplexed by the statement by Mr. McFee regarding comments made to me stemming from a meeting in 2012 being incorrect,” Alderson wrote. “Particularly, as his client was neither present at the meeting, nor likely had any knowledge of it until this year. In addition there are multiple references in the Dirty Money report including an interview with the previous BCLC chairman of the board and BCLC director of compliance where they both state that BCLC’s role is not to investigate money laundering.”
Robin McFee (Mackin)
In 2015, BCLC began to stop gamblers from buying-in with cash unless they could disclose the source of their funds. Since April 2015, 600 players have been added to a cash conditions list. An internal report by Alderson in September of 2015 warned that high rollers from China were engaged in transnational money laundering at B.C. casinos.
On Oct. 25, Cullen granted Lightbody’s application for participant status in the inquiry, which means Lightbody’s lawyer can cross-examine other witnesses. Cullen specifically cited the same section of German’s report as an example of potential for conflict between BCLC’s corporate interests and Lightbody’s personal or reputational interests.
Lightbody, he wrote, “may be subject personally to adverse comment or criticism arising from an adverse assessment of BCLC’s corporate actions.”
In the same ruling, Cullen denied an application from Fred Pinnock, who was commander of the RCMP’s Integrated Illegal Gaming Enforcement Team from 2005 to 2008. Pinnock’s application said the inquiry would not exist without him and other whistleblowers. He had warned that casinos were becoming a haven for organized crime, but the BC Liberal government disbanded the team anyway in 2009. He said his unsuccessful efforts to expand the mandate of IIGET harmed his working relationships with the RCMP and Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, and led to his early retirement.
“Mr. Pinnock submits that he was right and that others within the RCMP, BCLC, government and GPEB knew or were willfully blind about this. In that sense, he submits his reputational interests may be engaged as the Inquiry may vindicate him,” Cullen wrote.
Cullen decided Pinnock did not meet criteria for participant status because the thrust of his submission was that “he was attempting to overcome the apathy of those charged with the relevant responsibility; not that he was a part of it.”
Former BCLC and Great Canadian Gaming security executive Rob Kroeker is the only individual other than Lightbody that has been granted participant status so far. The application by BCLC casinos and security vice-president Brad Desmarais is adjourned until November. Alderson withdrew his application, but is expected to be a witness. Sixteen government, corporate and society entities already have standing.
Justice Austin Cullen (Mackin)
At the Oct. 18 hearing, Pinnock’s lawyer, Paul Jaffe, referred to delays in accessing documents under the freedom of information law.
“It’s interesting that for four years, efforts have been made for the Lottery Corp. and Fintrac to provide disclosure of documents relative to the observations of Mr. Pinnock and his concerns about organized crime in the gaming venues,” Jaffe said. “And for years those efforts have been unsuccessful.”
Jaffe suggested Cullen could have jurisdiction to “fast-track the FOI process and make an order” for material to be disclosed.
Although the chair of the BCLC board is considered head of the public body for the purpose of the FOI law, the BCLC executive who decides day-to-day on which documents are released to FOI requesters is the CEO.
Until he went on cancer leave in September, that was Lightbody.
