The federal Liberal government says it will undertake further research into birth tourism.
That, according to Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s Nov. 19 response to an electronic petition initiated by Richmond activist Kerry Starchuk and sponsored by Steveston-Richmond East Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido.
Starchuk’s petition, which was supported by 10,882 people, was brought to the House of Commons on Oct. 5 by Peschisolido. It called upon the government to state it opposes birth tourism, commit public resources to determine the full extent of the practice and implement concrete measures to reduce and eliminate the practice. Under federal law, MP-endorsed electronic petitions that gain 500 or more supporters within four months are tabled in the House of Commons.
Richmond activist Kerry Starchuk ran for city council in October and received almost 7,000 votes (Mackin)
Citizenship acquired through birth on soil has been in place since the first Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947, though it does not apply to children of anyone representing or working for a foreign government. Richmond Hospital averages one foreign birth a day and there have been cases where local mothers have been transferred to other hospitals to make way for foreign mothers. Petitioner Starchuk is also concerned with the potential future health and education costs to taxpayers.
The 354-word response said the government does not collect information on whether a woman is pregnant when entering the country, and a person cannot be deemed inadmissible or denied a visa if they are pregnant or if they may give birth in the country. But foreign nationals are required to state the purpose of their visit.
“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 response.
The response quoted from 2016 Statistics Canada data that said only 300 children were born to foreign women among the 385,000 babies born in the country that year. But that data has been discredited in media reports which found public agencies do not harmonize their research and there are loopholes that prevent accurate data collection.
The Richmond News reported in June that many non-resident women who give birth at Richmond Hospital list their address as a birth house or birth hostel where they are temporarily staying. Richmond Hospital saw a jump in self-pay births from non-resident mothers from 299 in 2015-2016 to 379 a year later. Most were from China.
Richmond Hospital (Mackin)
“Should the birth house operator list the address of their home business at the hospital’s registration desk, the ministry would not count the baby as a non-resident,” the newspaper reported. “Only when the true address of the mother is registered, does the birth become a non-resident in the eyes of Vital Statistics B.C.”
The immigration minister’s response said the federal government “recognizes the need to better understand the extent of this practice as well as its impacts. IRCC has commissioned research from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, which also show the number of children born to non-residents who were required to pay hospital expenses to be less than 1% of total births in Canada, and will undertake further research in this regard.”
That new research was published Nov. 22 in Policy Options by Andrew Griffith and found that the number of births is at least five times greater than Statistics Canada and rising.
“The impact of this practice can no longer be described as insignificant given its effect on the integrity of citizenship and public perceptions that birth tourism is a fraudulent shortcut to obtaining citizenship,” wrote Griffith, who cited data from the Discharge Abstract Database.
Starchuk said Hussen’s response lacks details about the government’s next steps.
“There’s no deadline, they’ve left it open-ended,” Starchuk told theBreaker. “How long are they going to take to do it?”
She was also perplexed why such a multifaceted issue attracted a response from only the immigration minister, but not the ministers of public safety (Ralph Goodale) or border security (Bill Blair).
The response also said the government is “committed to protecting the public from fraud and unethical consulting practices and protecting the integrity of Canada’s immigration and citizenship programs,” so it is undertaking a comprehensive review aimed at cracking down on unscrupulous consultants and those who exploit programs through misrepresentation.”
In 2016, Starchuk also petitioned the federal government to end birth tourism, but the December 2016 reply from then-Immigration Minister John McCallum dismissed the issue. McCallum was later appointed Canada’s ambassador to China.
The lobbyist who was once B.C. Premier John Horgan’s right-hand man and the ex-chief of staff to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley was fined $1,000 for failing to report his past as a senior bureaucrat.
Trevor Presley, an investigator with B.C.’s Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists, found John Heaney failed to disclose he was a former NDP government insider when he registered on Jan. 5 to lobby the B.C. NDP government on behalf of marijuana company Nuuvera Corp. and Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association.
John Heaney (LinkedIn)
Presley’s Oct. 10 report was released Nov. 21, after it was tabled in the Legislature.
Heaney had been the deputy minister of government communications in the administration of Premier Ujjal Dosanjh in 2000 and 2001, after working as assistant deputy minister in cabinet planning for less than a year. Heaney also held senior positions under Premier Mike Harcourt.
“At the time he filed his return he believed the term ‘former public office holder’ referred to a former holder of an elected public office,” Presley wrote.
Heaney quickly corrected the error in the 2018 filing, but ORL staff found a previous 2010-2011 registration in which Heaney had not declared he was a former public office holder.
In an April 4 response, Heaney wrote “I believe it bears repeating that this was an inadvertent and hastily corrected error that I could not have possibly benefitted from, financially or otherwise. And it bears underlining that, as was the case in 2010, I was not a practicing lobbyist making my living from that activity or experienced with the registry.”
Heaney unsuccessfully asked the registrar to cease the investigation for being minor or trivial and because it had been more than two years since he filed his first return, which put him beyond the statute of limitations.
“I am troubled by the pattern displayed by the lobbyist of not declaring himself as a former public office holder,” Presley wrote. “However when issuing this penalty, I can only consider the most recent contravention in the context of the British Columbia’s legislation. Therefore I consider a penalty of $1,000 to be appropriate in this instance.”
The report said failure to disclose past work in government undermines transparency and the public’s confidence in the registry. The law, Presley explained, is to address the public’s concern that former public office holders can benefit from insider information and influence.
Catherine Holt (LinkedIn)
Heaney quit in August 2017 from Notley’s office, but was quietly hired later that year as an aide in the Alberta finance ministry and later in the energy ministry. He was also under investigation by Alberta’s information and privacy commissioner for meddling in the freedom of information process.
In the report released Nov. 21, another former NDP insider was slapped with a $500 fine.
Like Heaney, Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce president Catherine Holt failed to report her past as a senior bureaucrat in the 1990s.
In a Sept. 18 investigation report by investigator Tim Mots, Holt was found to have misreported her past in 2017 and 2018 filings. Holt immediately corrected the 2018 omission, but was unable to do the same for the 2017 registration because it had already been terminated.
Holt claimed she made an error because she believed the rule to apply only to politicians. Her lawyer unsuccessfully sought leniency.
Mots called it a minor infraction, because of the 19 years that have passed since Holt worked in the provincial government. She was an assistant deputy minister in the premier’s office.
“It is highly unlikely she had undue influence over current public office holders. It is unlikely that she has any remaining insider knowledge,” Mots wrote. “There is no perception here that the in-house lobbyist moved freely between government and lobbying enhancing her influence over the public service.”
Last December, Holt was appointed chair of the B.C. Transit board of directors by the Horgan cabinet. Holt is a former consultant to TransLink who was paid more than $266,000 when her ex-Sage Group business partner Doug Allen, another former B.C. government bureaucrat, was the TransLink CEO.
NDP Government House Leader Mike Farnworth, who is also Solicitor General, rose at 11:06 a.m. on Nov. 20 in the Legislature after Question Period, to interrupt the start of a committee hearing on environmental assessments.
The six-term Port Coquitlam MLA and veteran cabinet minister’s hands were trembling, as he looked down to read from a single page. An announcement of this sort had never been made in the 147-year history of British Columbia’s Legislative Assembly.
“By leave, I move: That Mr. Craig James, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and Mr. Gary Lenz, Sergeant at Arms, are placed on administrative leave with pay and benefits, effective immediately.
Mike Farnworth announcing the suspension of the B.C. Legislature clerk and sergeant-at-arms (Hansard TV).
“During the period of administrative leave, and as a consequence of an outstanding investigation, Mr. James and Mr. Lenz must not access Legislative Assembly network equipment, systems or services and must not be present within any building that is part of the Legislative Precinct as defined in section 1 of the Legislative Assembly Management Committee Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 258.
“This resolution is subject to periodic review and modification by the Legislative Assembly.”
No one objected. The motion passed unanimously.
Farnworth had waited until both James and Lenz had left the chamber to make the announcement. He even took a walk outside the chamber, after both had left.
Premier John Horgan sat beside Farnworth, looking glum. Horgan later said outside the Legislature that he had been briefed yesterday and had spoken to Opposition Leader Andrew Wilkinson. He claimed to know very little about the investigation.
In the minutes after the bombshell, there was communications chaos in Victoria.
Craig James (standing left) and Gary Lenz (back to camera) minutes before their suspension was announced in the B.C. Legislature (Hansard TV)
theBreaker contacted Farnworth on his cell phone to find out more, and specifically asked if police were involved. After a pregnant pause, Farnworth declined to answer. He only repeated that the two men were on administrative leave and referred theBreaker to Attorney General David Eby. Eby subsequently referred theBreaker to the Clerk’s Office. Sage Aaron, a spokeswoman for Horgan, referred theBreaker to the Speaker’s Office.
James, carrying personal belongings, told reporters that neither he nor Lenz knew what was going on and were equally shocked. TV cameras showed him escorted out of the building. James left in a silver Buick sedan driven by Lenz.
Later, during the noon hour, an aide to Speaker Darryl Plecas, Alan Mullen announced that there was a police investigation into a criminal matter and that a special prosecutor had been appointed.
Mullen said it was unprecedented. “It’s disturbing, it’s disruptive,” he said.
When the province’s public prosecution service issued a statement, it said there were two special prosecutors. An investigation had been active for at least two months.
A single independent special prosecutor is appointed if an investigation or prosecution contains a significant potential for real or perceived improper influence in prosecutorial decision making. In this highly unusual case, two were appointed, because of “the potential size and scope of the investigation.”
The statement said Peter Juk, the assistant deputy attorney general, was asked by the RCMP on Sept. 28 to consider retaining a special prosecutor. David Butcher and Brock Martland were appointed Oct. 1.
Special prosecutor David Butcher
Butcher was the special prosecutor on the Quick Wins investigation, in which BC Liberal operative Brian Bonney pleaded guilty to breach of trust related to the multicultural outreach strategy under Premier Christy Clark. Butcher was also the March 2017-appointed special prosecutor on the investigation of political donations by lobbyists.
During a break in Bonney’s sentencing hearing last January, Butcher told reporters that he would be finishing his report by March. After Butcher’s new appointment was revealed Nov. 20, theBreaker asked Dan McLaughlin, communications counsel with the Public Prosecution Service, about the status of Butcher’s previous assignment. McLaughlin reiterated the original statement made March 30, 2017, which concluded: “As the matter is currently subject to an ongoing investigation, neither the Criminal Justice Branch nor Mr. Butcher will comment further or release any additional information at this time.”
“The B.C. Prosecution Service has nothing to add at this time,” McLaughlin told theBreaker.
He did not answer whether Butcher’s assignment to investigate James and Lenz had any crossover with the previous probe.
Martland, meanwhile, is a criminal defence lawyer who represented convicted Surrey Six murderer Matthew Johnston.
Martland’s practice website says his specialties include criminal investigations, prosecutions and trials, criminal appeals, violent crimes, drug offences, sexual offences and white-collar crimes. He was a law clerk to Supreme Court of Canada Justice John Major.
There is no official information about the allegations yet.
Special prosecutor Brock Martland
“The RCMP has an active investigation underway, with respect to allegations pertaining to their administrative duties, and we are not in a position to provide any other details or specifics. A thorough investigation is underway and will take the time necessary,” said Sgt. Janelle Shoihet of the RCMP E Division headquarters.
A report in the National Post on Nov. 21, which was based on unnamed sources, claimed that the RCMP investigation was about allegations of fraud and theft.
“More details could be disclosed,” said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch. “It seems like the only reason not to would be if others in the Legislature are involved in the alleged wrongdoing and they are worried that those people may destroy evidence that is within the Legislature.”
Who Are They?
Craig James: As clerk of the Legislature, he is akin to the CEO.
James started his 40-year career in parliamentary institutions in 1978 in Saskatchewan. He came to B.C. in 1987 as the first Clerk of Committees. He became the acting chief electoral officer 14 years later and, in 2012, the 12th Clerk of the B.C. House.
James was the acting head of Elections BC from summer 2010 to summer 2011, including the period of the HST referendum.
In 2012, James came under fire for his lavish travel spending, including junkets to Nairobi, Kenya (for a Commonwealth Parliamentary conference), Washington, D.C. and Phoenix. He spent $43,295 in public money between August and December 2010. Auditor General John Doyle slammed the Legislature for financial mismanagement, including missing receipts and failure to produce financial statements.
James was paid $347,090 and billed $51,349 in expenses for the year ended March 31, 2018.
Craig James (left) and Gary Lenz (Commonwealth Parliamentary Association)
Gary Lenz: As sergeant-at-arms of the Legislature, he is akin to the COO.
Lenz’s job put him in charge of security, operations and maintenance of the Legislative precinct. Lenz, who was raised in Manitoba, is the former detachment commander for the Sidney-North Saanich RCMP.
Lenz was paid $218,167 and expensed $23,079 last year.
Has This Happened Before?
theBreaker is endeavouring to find out if anything like this has happened in a Canadian legislature or elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Esteemed Canadian history professor and author Jack Granatstein said he was unaware of a similar incident.
Not since Dec. 28, 2003, when police carted away boxes and boxes of documents related to the BC Rail privatization investigation, had anything like this happened at the B.C. Legislature.
What next?
Your guess is as good as any.
Mullen described himself as a friend of Plecas’s and a former manager at Kent Institution in Agassiz, where Plecas had acted as a prison judge. Mullen said he had been hired as a $75,000 aide for Plecas in his Abbotsford constituency and in the Speaker’s Office, but lacked legal training.
After the focus shifted to Mullen, Plecas vowed to set the record straight. “You will find it interesting what I have to say this afternoon,” he told reporters on Nov. 22. “I will be making a statement.”
Plecas cancelled his statement. Instead, Mullen made another appearance when he announced former BC Liberal attorney general and former B.C. Supreme Court judge Wally Oppal would join as Plecas’s second special advisor. Oppal revealed the next day that he was behind the cancellation of Plecas’s statement and he defended Plecas as an “honourable person” with an academic background as a criminology professor.
“These things take time, there’s a very complex criminal matter going on,” Oppal said.
BC Liberal house leader Mary Polak demanded Plecas call a meeting of the Legislative Assembly Management Committee. In October, the draft schedule included a Dec. 6 meeting.
A separate letter from Polak, but signed by BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson, contained 11 questions about the process. Questions surround the role of Mullen, whether the Attorney General’s ministry was consulted for legal advice, and who the lawyer was that attended the Monday night meeting convened by the speaker for the house leaders to be briefed on the situation.
Polak’s letter referred to one sent by Mark Andrews of the Vancouver firm Fasken, who James and Lenz retained. Andrews heads the firm’s commercial litigation group and was the lead lawyer on BC Hydro’s successful court defence of various challenges of the Site C dam.
Andrews wrote in the Nov. 23 letter to the three party house leaders that his clients deny any wrongdoing but will cooperate with the investigation. Andrews demanded the all-party motion for their suspension be rescinded so that they can be reinstated. Andrews’s letter also said Plecas had no constitutional authority to carry out an investigation or hire a special advisor to do so.
“They are entitled to be treated as innocent until proven guilty,” Andrews wrote. “They are the most senior and long-serving and loyal servants of the Legislative Assembly whose reputations are in the process of being destroyed by these events.”
Suffice to say, more to come…
Watch highlights of the Nov. 20 B.C. Legislature drama below.
South of the border, NFL teams are jockeying for playoff spots and NCAA teams are jockeying for invitations to the best bowl games.
Meanwhile, the 54th Vanier Cup is in Quebec City on Nov. 24. The 106th Grey Cup is Nov. 25 in Edmonton.
On this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, John Valentine, a professor at Edmonton’s MacEwan University, offers his thoughts to host Bob Mackin about the state of the CFL versus the NFL. Valentine spoke at the North American Society of the Sociology of Sport convention in Vancouver in early November.
Also, hear from retired B.C. Lions’ centre Angus Reid about his new book,Thank You Coach: Learning How to Live, By Being Taught How to Play. Reid, a member of the Lions’ 2006 and 2011 Grey Cup-winning squads, talks about the football and life lessons he learned from offensive line coach Dan Dorazio and head coach Wally Buono, who retired this month as the winningest coach in CFL history.
Both Valentine and Reid weigh-in on the future of football, a storied game facing waning interest in Canada’s major markets amid shifting demographics and ongoing concern over concussions.
“It’s the greatest team sport because it has the most people participating for one common goal, where everybody is bringing what they can to the table,” Reid said. “We need this sport. It’s a great teaching tool, but we do always have to make sure we are improving it and making sure we are doing everything we can to make it as safe as possible.”
Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and commentaries.
Parq Vancouver, the casino and hotel complex beside B.C. Place Stadium, lost $108.5 million for the first nine months of 2018.
That, according to the third quarter report of Dundee Corporation, the Toronto investment firm that is partnered with Las Vegas-based Paragon Gaming in the year-old resort.
(Parq)
“The initial ramp up of operations has been slower than anticipated due to a number of factors, including the regulatory cost and business impact of new anti-money laundering regulations applicable to casinos in British Columbia, which were implemented in December 2017,” said the Nov. 14-issued report.
Of the $108.5 million loss, $17.7 million was on operations. The rest of the deficit was from deferred taxes, interest and foreign exchange.
Parq needed a $33.4 million infusion in March to meet construction, interest and hedging payment deadlines. On Sept. 30, an unnamed industry investor funded an additional $20 million into the project in the form of a promissory note.
Dundee CEO Jonathan Goodman told analysts in a Nov. 15 conference call that the disappointing financial performance is a “very frustrating situation,” but Dundee is actively seeking solutions.
“We’re working towards, hopefully, getting a financial restructuring there,” Goodman said. “With that financial restructuring we’ll bring in a new group as a partner in the resort that has significant experience in the hotel and food and beverage side. We’ve identified a number of cost savings which can be very accretive.”
Parq made global headlines in early November when Toronto rapper Drake was refused service. Parq management denied Drake’s claim that he was racially profiled and blamed the incident on new provincial anti-money laundering measures.
Ex-BCLC VP Susan Dolinski (BCLC)
Parq’s $2.84 million in lease payments for 2017-18 were forwarded to the Musqueam Indian Band, under an accommodation agreement with B.C. Pavilion Corp. The casino is operated in partnership with B.C. Lottery Corp. Parq also includes two Marriott luxury hotels with 517 rooms, a 60,000 square foot conference centre, spa, five restaurants, three lounges and a 1,069-spot parkade.
Meanwhile, BCLC’s vice-president of communications and social responsibility, Susan Dolinski, has departed.
Dolinski was paid $243,063 during the last fiscal year and filed claims for $34,642 in expenses. Dolinski was employed by the Crown corporation for more than 11 years. The reason for the split has not been disclosed, but sources say it was not amicable.
In an email, spokeswoman Sarah Morris confirmed Dolinski is no longer with BCLC and that her role is currently vacant. Morris would not comment on whether Dolinski received severance. “Remuneration information is publicly reported each fall in BCLC’s Financial Information Act report,” Morris said. “BCLC cannot provide you with the additional information you seek due to privacy rules under [the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act].”
Graham Ramsay (LinkedIn)
One of B.C. Place Stadium’s original employees has also departed. Senior director of business development Graham Ramsay left at the end of October. Ramsay started as a part-time team captain in 1983 when the stadium opened. Last year, he was paid $154,632 plus $19,741 in expenses.
“Although we normally don’t discuss personnel matters, we have stated to our staff and suppliers that Graham Ramsay has recently retired after more than 35 years service with PavCo, B.C. Place Stadium and the Vancouver Convention Centre and we wish Graham all the best in his retirement,” read a statement from PavCo spokeswoman Laura Ballance.
Ramsay’s LinkedIn profile does not say he is retired. Instead, it says he is an “experienced business director, specializing in venue/event management, public policy and communications.”
They’re building a court under Canada Place’s iconic five sails, for the first major sporting event at the Vancouver Convention Centre since Canada beat Brazil in a February 1990 Davis Cup tennis American zone quarterfinal.
The reason is the inaugural TCL Vancouver Showcase, a Nov. 18-24 NCAA Division 1 basketball men’s and women’s tournament.
“It checks every box,” said University of Washington Huskies head coach Mike Hopkins. “Challenging tournament, incredible city, close to home.”
University of Washington men’s basketball coach Mike Hopkins (UW)
The Huskies and Santa Clara Broncos, Hall of Famer Steve Nash’s alma mater, will be the first to tip-off in the temporary, 3,100-seat arena on Nov. 18 at 5 p.m., followed by Texas A&M Aggies and Minnesota Golden Gophers at 7:30 p.m.
Hopkins is preparing for his second season with the Dawgs, after a 21-13 overall record last year. He turned around a program that struggled at 9-22 in 2016-17. The Huskies were ranked 24th in the USA Today preseason coaches poll.
“We just keep reinforcing it’s just a number, the only thing that matters is what happens inside the lines,” Hopkins said. “You’ve got to be able to prove yourself with really good play. Being able to go up there and play in Vancouver in a quality tournament gives you the opportunity to show people if you’re a top 25 team or not.”
Hopkins came to Seattle after 22 years as an assistant at Syracuse to Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim. As a player, Hopkins starred for the Orange where one of his teammates was Lawrence Moten, a future Vancouver Grizzlies draft pick.
“Anybody that you talk about in the NBA, they loved going to Vancouver and Seattle. They said they were great sports cities, great NBA environments. When you have that, you’d love to see teams in those cities,” Hopkins said. “Maybe in the next four to five years, maybe we see NBA basketball come back to both Vancouver and Seattle.”
With the Key Arena renovation getting city hall’s green light, Seattle is first in line. For now, Vancouver has the chance to be the home of the top, early season college hoops meet. The teams entered hope Vancouver is their first stop on the road to the men’s Final Four in Minneapolis and women’s Final Four in Tampa.
“I don’t think there’s any other place in the country you’re going to see this kind of talent,” said Muffet McGraw, head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the defending women’s national champion. “We like to challenge ourselves and play outside the conference, and see what the best teams look like because you don’t want to wait until you get to the NCAA tournament. This is a mini-NCAA tournament here, it’s going to be great basketball.”
McGraw is entering her 32nd season as a coach with a career .777 winning percentage. Her team’s national championship last Easter Sunday came 17 years to the day after her first. Guard Arike Ogunbowale clinched the title with a basket at the buzzer.
Langley’s Louise Forsyth (Gonzaga/Instagram)
The Vancouver Showcase will be a homecoming for Gonzaga Bulldogs’ sophomore guard Louise Forsyth of Langley. Forsyth was a member of the Brookswood secondary team that won three straight AAA B.C. titles.
Her coach, Lisa Fortier, is eager to see Forsyth perform in front of friends and family.
“It’s fun for a coach to watch a player get excited, they play a little extra, they want it a little bit more, playing in their hometown,” said Fortier, whose Spokane, Wash.-based squad went 27-6 last season.
Forsyth played in 13 games last season, including three of the last five regular season games. Fortier is particularly impressed with Forsyth’s work ethic.
“A lot of people will get in the gym and do their position work at one pace, and once you get into the game situation, you’re naturally set up and then you can’t make crisp passes, crisp reads, you can’t make shots because you’re going that much faster,” Fortier said. “That’s not something she struggles with at all, because she practices at full-speed all the time which we love about her. She’s as well conditioned an athlete as we’ve ever had.”
The Vancouver city hall housing executive who crossed the street to a civic contractor would not have been able to do the same, had he been employed by the provincial government.
Luke Harrison, the CEO of the Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency, has resigned from the $161,711-a-year job to join Horizon North Camp and Catering Partnership, the supplier of temporary modular housing to City of Vancouver.
Harrison was appointed the company’s vice-president of business development in late October. A Horizon North news release said Harrison will be responsible for growing business in the government and not-for-profit social housing sectors, including First Nations, seniors, students and affordable housing initiatives.
Luke Harrison (podium) with Gregor Robertson (Twitter)
Horizon North was paid $2.989,920 by the city last year. In October 2017, Horizon North announced a $66 million contract with City of Vancouver for 600 temporary modular housing units, to be funded by B.C. Housing.
The NDP government updated the post-employment restrictions for senior management in B.C.’s public service last May, preventing senior managers from registering to lobby the government for a year.
If a senior manager had “a substantial involvement in dealings with an outside entity at any time during the 12 months immediately preceding” his or her departure from government, he or she must not accept a job, contract or directorship with that outside entity for a year after the end of employment.
“Until one year after your employment ends, you must not act for an outside entity in connection with any ongoing proceedings, transaction, negotiation or case in which the outside entity and the government are involved,” the policy states.
No such rules exist at city hall. Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who was sworn-in Nov. 5, vowed in his election platform to tighten conflict of interest rules.
“Once elections are over, voters need to have confidence that city staff and politicians aren’t seen to be in any perceived conflicts of interest. That means staff that leave city hall one day, don’t start work with major developers the next, or politicians are no longer having undisclosed meetings,” Stewart’s platform said.
Dermod Travis of IntegrityBC said it is crucial that Stewart expedite reforms to preserve public trust.
“The mayor has a number of commitments that he has to see through in terms of transparency and ethics at city hall, he’d be well-advised to make that his number one priority,” Travis said. “It simply feeds the public cynicism that somebody must be on the take, whether they were or not it feeds that cynicism, that’s what the mayor has to prevent.”
Harrison joined VAHA in February 2017, succeeding Mukhtar Laktif, who was fired and given a $266,170 golden parachute. Harrison was promoted from the planning department, which he joined in 2015 after working as a real estate development manager with TransLink and development manager with Rize Alliance Properties.
In July, real estate general manager Bill Aujla announced his departure from city hall to the Aquilini Investment Group. Last February, former Vision Vancouver executive director Stepan Vdovine joined Amacon Developments as director of business development. Duncan Wlodarczak left Vision in May 2016 to become chief of staff for Onni.
British Columbia’s whistleblower law is incomplete, says a new report for the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association.
The report, by Kwantlen Polytechnic University criminology professor Caroll Anne Boydell, said whistleblowers in the public and private sectors need protection because they have been critical to detect corruption and disclose wrongdoing.
British Columbia was one of the last Canadian jurisdictions with such a law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which was enacted by the NDP government last May to protect provincial government employees. It does not go far enough, writes Boydell.
“Broader definitions of whistleblowers, such as private sector workers, and broader definitions of protected disclosures, such as those pertaining to interference with FOI requests, are needed,” said the report. “In addition, more provisions are required in the law to protect the identities of disclosers and afford them more access to information about outcomes of investigations.”
The report said it is critical that best practices inform new or amended whistleblower protection laws, “to ensure that all whistleblowers in Canada are protected with metal and not cardboard shields.”
The report cited Tim Duncan, who blew the whistle on a fellow staffer in the B.C. Transport Minister’s office for ordering him to delete email about the Highway of Tears rather than disclosing it to an FOI requester. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham found this was a routine practice in the BC Liberal government. In 2016, George Gretes pleaded guilty to wilfully misleading Denham’s investigation about triple-deleting.
“Duncan concluded his letter to OIPC stating that it is ‘[his] belief that the abuse of the Freedom of Information process is widespread and most likely systematic’. Since this case, the practice of triple deletion of emails has been banned by the government,” the report said. “Without Duncan’s disclosure of wrongdoing, this practice of interference with access to information requests by destroying email records may have been permitted to continue.”
Boydell’s report also mentioned the firing of Service Canada fraud investigator Sylvie Therrien, who told a Montreal newspaper that she and fellow workers were ordered to meet quotas to reduce employment insurance payments in a bid to save $485,000 a year. Therrien eventually filed for personal bankruptcy, but is contesting her wrongful termination in court, five years after her disclosure.
“Legal protections for whistleblowers are clearly needed to prevent what can be severe reprisals for disclosure of wrongdoing and, as a result, remove any fear that someone with knowledge of wrongdoing might have that prevents them from disclosing it. Such protections increase the likelihood of openness and accountability in both public and private sector workplaces and entrench the right of citizens to disclose wrongdoing, which benefits society.”
It is an offence under the Criminal Code to prevent or punish an employee for disclosing information to law enforcement that an employer, fellow worker, or corporate director has committed a criminal act. B.C.’s FOI law does prohibit a public body employer from engaging in reprisals against an employee who discloses offences related to the act or refuses to engage in actions to break the act.
“There are still some disclosures of wrongdoing that may remain unprotected, such as interference with freedom of information requests. Some issues were also found related to transparency of decisions made about investigations into disclosures of wrongdoing and complaints of reprisal against whistleblowers, as well as about the accountability of government agencies in protecting whistleblowers.”
“I think you have to have all the information. To put a question to people without proper information and real costs and real data — I can’t imagine that you’d put that to the voters and think that that’s acceptable.”
That is what John Furlong, the CEO of Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics organizing committee (VANOC), told the Calgary Herald in March. Will Nov. 13 plebiscite voters find it acceptable that they really don’t have all the information?
John Furlong (second from left) at the last VANOC news conference in December 2010 (Mackin)
The Yes campaign did publish cost estimates in September that it revised at the end of October, but none of the governments behind Calgary 2026 has agreed to cover cost overruns. Unlike Vancouver voters in 2003, Calgarians won’t see the bid book until January and the athletes village site is unknown.
The athletes village is the most troublesome venue to finance, build, operate and hand over. Taxpayers bailed-out Vancouver’s $1.1 billion Southeast False Creek complex when the Great Recession hit in 2008 and the Wall Street financier withdrew. Post-Games condo sales tanked and lawsuits were filed over shoddy workmanship. The village went into receivership in late 2010. The owners of the Vancouver Canucks scooped the remaining luxury condos for a tax loss in early 2014.
Calgary bidders pared the 2026 security budget just below half-a-billion dollars. It was $900 million in 2010, after Vancouver’s post-9/11 bid book suggested a lowball $175 million. The second word is eternally true in the Olympic motto (“citius, altius, fortius”); Games costs go higher.
Meanwhile, facts and data become harder to access.
How can Calgarians trust the $5.1 billion price tag for 2026 when British Columbians don’t really know how much the 2010 Games cost? B.C.’s Auditor General never did a final report.
Vancouver Archives, where Vancouver Olympic board minutes and financial books are sealed until 2025 (Mackin)
The $7 billion ballpark estimate includes the Canada Line airport-to-downtown train, Sea-to-Sky Highway to Whistler and Vancouver Convention Centre. The latter was built for $885 million, 78% higher than the original budget. The organizing committee took an extra two years, until summer 2014, to claim it balanced a $1.9 billion operating budget — $600 million more than the 2003 bid book said.
VANOC was incorporated as a private entity, beyond the freedom of information law. The government-appointed board never met in public. Reporters relied on leaked documents and confidential sources to learn what was really going on behind the scenes.
Don’t be fooled by Joe Ceci’s Oct. 12 letter to federal sport minister Kirsty Duncan and Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi. The Alberta finance minister’s vague words about subjecting Calgary 2026 “to provincial transparency and freedom of information laws, or other equivalent rules or regulations” only sound nice in theory.
Alberta charges $25 for each FOI request, five times more than a federal access to information request. In B.C., there is no application fee.
The FOI law contains loopholes that allow bureaucrats to censor, delay, deny and charge additional fees. Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner Jill Clayton said two years ago that “access to information is fast approaching a crisis situation.”
Clayton complained of government offices applying for time extensions, failing to meet disclosure deadlines, refusing to provide records to her investigators, and going to court to challenge her authority to access records for investigations. Under the Notley NDP government, she wrote, there had been “no concrete action to update and modernize Alberta’s access to information legislation.”
Cover of Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics (Mackin)
Furlong and the rest of VANOC were in no hurry to show the public how they put the 2010 Games together. VANOC transferred its files to the Vancouver city archives, on the condition that the public won’t see board minutes, correspondence, procurement and payroll before the fall of 2025, around the time that the Calgary 2026 Olympic flame would be lit. That is, if Yes wins Nov. 13 and the International Olympic Committee picks Calgary on June 23.
So it was fitting that bid boosters brought 1988 underdog ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards back to Calgary.
Voters are being asked to take a leap of faith. At least Edwards had glasses to see where he was going.
Multimedia journalist Bob Mackin was the Sun Media Vancouver 2010 beat reporter and authored the e-book, Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics. He has covered five Olympic Games.
The first time that I was so close to Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzman Loera was in the high-security Federal Jail in Almoloya de Juarez, Mexico. I was part of a group of press reporters that got authorization to access inside the jail. We covered Raul Salinas de Gortari’s trial, and during a break, I crossed the hallway to the next room, where “Shorty” Guzman was.
The judge and Mexican government never authorized press reporters to watch the first trial of Guzmán. But in the United States that would be very different: it was an historic opportunity for press reporters to be in the gallery forGuzman’s trial, to know about his associates, about his illegal business, about bribes that he ordered to pay to politicians and government officers in several countries, and maybe know some anecdotes.
(DEA)
Many answers will come in the courtroom in New York, when Guzman’s blockbuster trial begins Nov. 13.
In Mexico, Guzman’s first trial was inside of the number 1, high-security federal jail, originally built without courtrooms.
But with Guzman and other kingpins in jail, and with a high risk to move them to a courthouse, the Mexican government adapted part of the jail and separated the gallery by glass from the prisoners.
I covered, for El Financiero newspaper, thetrials of suspects in the murder of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the former presidential candidate, and Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the former general secretary of the PRI political party. They were killed in March and September of 1994, respectively.
Sometimes I covered news about Gulf Cartel members, and learned about the way of life for prisoners inside that federal jail, all of them high-ranking members of organized crime.
Reporters only accessed the inside of federal jail if the Ministry of Interior (aka Gobernacion) granted authorization. So, every day reporters arrived outside of the federal jail and wrote their names on a sheet, to show their interest in covering those trials.
We gave that list to the external security chief of the federal jail. With clearance, we used to walk a couple of miles to the main entrance with just a paper notebook and transparent plastic pen.
After strict security screening, sometimes with dogs, security officers took us to the courtroom.
From time to time, press reporters got authorization to watch the Othon Cortes trial or Raul Salinas trial, and very rarely, in the next room, the trials of drug trafficking kingpins.
One day in 1995, I took time to be in Guzman’s gallery.
I was in my mid-20s.I remember that older reporters told me about the man in the next room.
“It’s ‘Shorty’ Guzman, the drug dealer captured in Guatemala,” they said.
So, I remembered that in June of 1993, Guatemalan authorities captured Guzman with a woman, his girlfriend, and later put them in the custody of Mexican authorities.
On June 18, in an open yard of the high-security Almoloya federal jail, Mexican authorities presented Guzman to press reporters. It was a very rainy day.
Suddenly, photographers asked him to get out of his light brown jail uniform. He did it, and meanwhile, somebody asked him: ”What do you do for a living?”
With a very calm voice, he answered: “I’m a farmer.”
The Mexican government never granted authorization to press reporters to watch Guzmán’s court appearances.Not officially. One day in a break of the Raúl Salinas case, I watched Guzman’s court appearance. In the left corner of the section of prisoners, two men in federal prisoners uniforms were very close to each other, and around three feet apart. To the right it was Guzman.
A federal jail security guard close to me said: “those two guys were lieutenants of Guzman, and it’s probablethey’regoing to die because in the last 30 minutes they declared against him. And you, please, move out.”
I asked him to let me stay a little moment, and he agreed.
Then the judge ordered Guzman to answer to the accusations.
Guzman turned his head to the former lieutenants and just said: “Really?” The former drug traffickers were terrified and said: “No, no. We are wrong. We want to change our statement.”
Mexican fiscal attorneys could not believe how, with just a phrase, Guzman changed everything. Meanwhile, I just thought: Why are they so afraid? Guzman turned his head to us and then reporters were removed from the room.
Then, Macario Lozano, another reporter told me: “‘Shorty’ Guzman is terrible.”
Why? Because, Macario said, they were afraid of the way he looked at them.
I saw Guzman other times, and I learned about his life inside the jail.
And I remember something strange: after many years without maintenance, suddenly the rural road that crossed the land of the federal jail was rebuilt in a couple of months.
The plan was to connect a rural road with the highway. But on Nov. 22, 1995, when Mexican authorities transferred Guzman to the federal jail in Jalisco, work stopped. Ten years later, he used that highway to run away.
On Jan. 19, 2001, Joaquin Guzman Loera escaped from Jalisco federal jail. On Feb. 22, 2014, he was recaptured and transferred to the federal jail in Almoloya. On July 11, 2015, he escaped again.
On Jan. 8, 2016 Mexican authorities recaptured him and, on Jan. 19, 2017, they extradited him to the United States.
Joaquin Guzman Loera was public enemy number 1. Now he is in the United States and his trial will offer many answers.
That is why it is so important that press reporters will be inside of the courtroom, to know those answers.
