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Bob Mackin

B.C.’s Information and Privacy Commissioner gave the province’s biggest university, inside Premier David Eby’s Point Grey riding, a failing grade for routinely breaking the freedom of information law.

In a review of files from 2021 to 2024, Michael Harvey found the University of British Columbia broke the law when receiving freedom of information requests, searching for records and responding to applicants. Staff also notified the communications department whenever a request came from a reporter.

“This investigation found a non-compliance rate of 90% — the highest rate of non-compliance my office has seen in 10 years of reviewing public bodies’ duty to assist,” Harvey wrote in a Sept. 25 audit report.“This is concerning not only because of UBC’s important role in education and advancing knowledge in this province, but also because of the sheer scope and scale of the university’s operations.”

Premier David Eby at a housing funding announcement at UBC in August 2024. Eby is the area MLA and a resident of the University Neighbourhood Area. (BC Gov/Flickr)

Not just a university

Moreover, Harvey wrote, UBC functions like a municipality at its main Point Grey campus, overseeing housing, restaurants, health centres, stores, libraries, movie theatres, sports fields and concert venues.

Coincidentally, UBC’s Latin motto is “Tuum Est,” or “It is yours.”

Main problem areas

“Periods of stagnation or considerable delay in processing files was a common theme,” Harvey wrote.

  • UBC failed to comply with FIPPA time limits 90% of the time.
  • UBC responded to only 8% of sampled requests within the 30-business day benchmark FIPPA establishes as the timely expectation for response.
  • Overall, UBC took an average of 100 business days to respond to requests.
  • Where UBC failed to respond within legislated time limits, UBC took an average of 74 additional business days to respond.
  • The average time UBC’s FOI team spent between receiving records and finalizing its response fluctuated between 57 days and 61 days over the three-year period.
  • UBC shared certain applicants’ names and their requests with UBC personnel who review responses prior to release, which raised concern about applicant anonymity

Recommendations for UBC after a damning audit. (OIPC)

Room for improvement

Harvey said UBC took steps during the audit to improve operations, including a new file tracking system and other software, while beginning to clear the backlog of overdue requests. UBC, he said, is committed to implementing his recommendations.

Why it matters

If a university does not comply with the FOI law, Harvey wrote, it undermines “fundamental principles of transparency, accountability and empowering people with information for the benefit of society.”

Delayed access erodes trust in the public sector at a crucial time when disinformation and misinformation are rampant.

In the 2025-2026 budget, UBC reports $2.71 billion in net operating expenses.

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Bob Mackin B.C.’s Information and Privacy Commissioner gave

Bob Mackin

An Ottawa lawyer for BC Ferries told a House of Commons committee studying the deal to buy four Chinese built ferries that it was “acting outside of its constitutional authority.”

In an Aug. 29 covering letter to committee clerk Philip den Ouden, lawyer Kyle Morrow of the Fasken firm said that BC Ferries was complying with the Aug. 1 production order from the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities “voluntarily, in the interests of transparency.”

“Voluntary compliance in this instance does not waive any future constitutional argument based on interjurisdictional immunity,” Morrow wrote.

Artist’s rendering of one of the four new BC Ferries to be built in China. (BC Ferries)

Why it matters

The taxpayer-owned company announced the contract with China Merchants Industry Weihai Shipyards (CMI) on June 10. Unions and opposition Conservatives demanded the deal — backed by a $1 billion loan from the federal Liberal government — be scrapped due to national security concerns at a time when NDP Premier David Eby is urging citizens to buy Canadian.

Not transparent

Morrow’s letter said BC Ferries “provided unredacted documents and correspondence where possible. It has redacted commercially-sensitive information where necessary. Redundant information, such as previous drafts, and irrelevant information have not been included.”

One of the documents is the same eight-page, April internal decision paper the BC Ferries freedom of information office released in July to theBreaker.news. BC Ferries censored six full pages and parts of two others to hide the reasons for hiring CMI and the names of two losing bidders.

On Sept. 4, the day after China’s Xi Jinping hosted Russian ally Vladimir Putin for a Beijing military parade, BC Ferries rejected a freedom of information request from theBreaker.news for a copy of its contract with CMI.

theBreaker.news filed complaints with the B.C. Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

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Bob Mackin An Ottawa lawyer for BC Ferries

Bob Mackin

During a joint investigation by four Canadian privacy commissioners, TikTok admitted that various affiliate companies and their employees in China can access personal information for business purposes.

“TikTok advised that to gain access to the personal information of individuals located outside of China, China-based employees must go through an internal approvals process overseen by individuals outside of China,” said a Sept. 23-released report. “Access may then be audited to ensure that the use of information is consistent with the purposes for which access was approved and that the access is still required for those purposes.”

Magnet for children

(TikTok/Douyin)

Federal privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne and commissioners in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec found TikTok failed to keep Canadian children off its platform and collected vast amounts of personal information, including information considered sensitive.

“The investigation uncovered that TikTok removes approximately 500,000 underage users from the platform each year,” said the report. “Where these children were engaging with the platform before being removed, TikTok was already collecting, inferring and using information about them to serve them targeted ads and recommend tailored content to them.”

Face, voice recognition

TikTok was caught using biometric information via facial and vocal analytics. It did not adequately explain to users that their data would be used to infer age and gender for the delivery of tailored ads and recommended content.

Privacy gaps

The investigation also found the company’s privacy policy was deficient.

“While TikTok requires users to expressly accept its terms and conditions and privacy policy during account sign-up, we found that such consent — vis-à-vis TikTok’s practices related to tracking, profiling, targeting and content personalization — was not valid or meaningful.”

Recommendations

The report said TikTok agreed to beef-up its age assurance and privacy policy, cease allowing advertisers to target users under-18, publish a plain language privacy summary for teens and enhance communications about use of biometrics and data processing in China.

In November 2024, the federal cabinet ordered TikTok to wind-up Canadian operations for national security reasons. However, the app was not banned from Canada and TikTok has applied for a judicial review in Federal Court.

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Bob Mackin During a joint investigation by

Bob Mackin

The Vancouver-based international coordinator of a group that Canada and U.S. designated a terrorist entity was arrested in Greece, held overnight and deported.

That according to the left-wing International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), of which Samidoun’s Charlotte Kates is also the deputy secretary general.

IADL said Kates was refused entry at Athens International Airport on Sept. 22 under a German-imposed ban that applies across the 29 European countries in the Schengen open borders treaty.

Charlotte Kates of Samidoun on May 29 (CASI)

IADL condemned Kates’s “arbitrary detention and deportation” and called it an affront to her liberty, security and right to travel freely.

Who is Kates

Kates, originally from New Jersey, was arrested in Vancouver in 2024 for appearing at a downtown pro-Palestine rally where she praised Hamas and Hezbollah as “heroic and brave.” The B.C. Prosecution Service did not charge Kates for inciting or promoting hatred.

Also in 2024, Kates travelled to Iran, which sponsors Hamas and Hezbollah, to accept a human rights award.

What is Samidoun

Samidoun has organized, promoted and/or supported most major anti-Israel protests in Metro Vancouver since the day after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 spree of killings, rapes and kidnappings of Israeli citizens.

The U.S. government described Samidoun as a “sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization.”

Despite the terror designation, Samidoun has remained a federally registered not-for-profit. On Sept. 11, Industry Minister Melanie Joly directed officials to “look at any and all” options to dissolve Samidoun.

Foreign interference?

Samidoun co-sponsored a petition in early 2024 to oust B.C. Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills Selina Robinson, who is Jewish, from the NDP cabinet.

Robinson called pre-1948 Israel a “crappy piece of land,” but apologized and promised to make amends with the Muslim community. Eby bowed to protests and fired Robinson from cabinet.

More trouble for Kates

In August, OneBC party leader Dallas Brodie, the MLA for Vancouver Quilchena, filed a private prosecution in B.C. Provincial Court, accusing Kates of terrorism-related offences under the Criminal Code. A hearing date is to be determined in October.

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Bob Mackin The Vancouver-based international coordinator of a

For the week of Sept. 21, 2025:

Is Canada immune from the political violence in the United States that claimed the lives of Melissa Hortman and Charlie Kirk?

History says the answer is: no. 

On this edition of thePodcast, Bob Mackin’s guest is University of Toronto history professor David A. Wilson. 

Prof. Wilson is the foremost expert on the life and times of Thomas D’Arcy McGee. 

McGee was the revolutionary immigrant from Ireland who became a moderate, a Father of Confederation and a Member of Parliament. An assassin took his life in Ottawa, 157 years ago. 

As usual, Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.

CLICK BELOW to listen. Or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

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thePodcast: Canada's ugly, early political violence: the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
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For the week of Sept. 21, 2025:

Bob Mackin

The Denver Nuggets are coming to Vancouver’s Rogers Arena Oct. 6 to meet the Toronto Raptors in an NBA exhibition game.

Will the 2023 champion’s billionaire owner, Stan Kroenke, join them?

Stan Kroenke (Denver Nuggets)

Kroenke, whose sports portfolio also includes the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, NFL’s L.A. Rams and EPL’s Arsenal, is B.C.’s largest private landowner through Douglas Lake Cattle Co. (DLCC). Canada’s largest working ranch, east of Merritt, came under B.C. Forest Practices Board scrutiny for treatment of the vulnerable Great Basin spadefoot toad.

What the board found

On Sept. 16, the board released the results of its audit, finding three areas of “significant non-compliance.”

  • Some 6.7 kilometres of riparian areas around nine wetlands were not-functional due to cattle and horse grazing;
  • A wetland inside a designated wildlife habitat area for the toad suffered “extensive damage” from cattle and horses;
  • Additionally, the company was not in full compliance with rules to protect riparian area and aquatic habitat for the toad in two pastures.

Otherwise, according to director of audits Francis Njenga, Douglas Lake Ranch’s range planning and practices complied with the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Range Planning and Practices Regulation.

Map of Forest Practices audit area. (FPB)

Why Douglas Lake

The board “randomly selected” the Cascades Natural Resource District for a full-scale compliance audit in 2024. Douglas Lake Ranch includes the Nicola watershed and falls partly or fully within land claimed by 19 indigenous tribes.

Kroenke originally bought 500,000 acres in 2003 from Bernard Ebbers, the Edmonton-born WorldCom tycoon. In 2021, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled that the Trespass Act permits DLCC to prohibit the public from crossing its property, “including its land under water.” Specifically, Crown-owned Minnie and Stoney fishing lakes.

In the same year, the White Rock Lake wildfire burned more than 53,000 acres.

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Bob Mackin The Denver Nuggets are coming to

Bob Mackin

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is proposing that city hall annually publish a sunshine list showing itemized payments to city council members who sit on municipal, regional, provincial or federal boards.

Sim’s motion, “Strengthening Public Trust and Transparency Through Full Disclosure of Total Council Compensation,” goes to council’s Policy and Strategic Priorities committee on Sept. 17.

But Sim’s ABC party-ruled city hall is trying to keep secret the amounts paid to the department planning for the FIFA World Cup 26.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim (left), NDP B.C. sport minister Lana Popham and Liberal sport minister Carla Qualtrough (BC Gov)

In July, theBreaker.news asked the freedom of information office for a list of individual payments — for the two most-recent pay periods — to employees and contractors in the FWC26 Secretariat.

City hall demanded a $135 payment.

Hefty bill

It claimed it would take seven-and-a-half hours to locate, retrieve, produce and prepare the records. The first three hours are free, under the law, so the city sent an invoice seeking payment for four-and-a-half hours.

theBreaker.news asked for the fee to be rescinded due to self-evident public interest, but nobody at the FOI office responded.

By comparison

In 2023, the NDP government did not charge any additional fee for monthly payroll reports showing names of all Office of the Premier personnel and contractors, their titles and the gross amounts paid.

Why it matters

In July, theBreaker.news reported that Jessie Adcock, the head of the city’s World Cup department, invoiced city taxpayers $469,804 through her Adcock Capital and Advisory Services company in 2024.

Adcock’s pay in 2024 was nearly $100,000 more than city manager Paul Mochrie.

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Bob Mackin Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is proposing

Bob Mackin

Two B.C. NDP cabinet ministers attended the Prime Minister’s Aug. 3 Liberal Party fundraiser in Vancouver.

Billed as “An Evening with Mark Carney” — it actually took place at 2:30 p.m. — Minister of Finance Brenda Bailey and Minister of Jobs and Economic Growth Ravi Kahlon were among the 45 attendees.

Prime Minister Mark Carney (Liberal/YouTube)

Kahlon was in his first month as jobs minister after Premier David Eby shuffled him out of the housing ministry. Kahlon’s public relations representative, Scott McKenzie, said he attended to “advocate for increased investments in British Columbia and to champion the province’s tech, life sciences, AI and quantum technology sectors.”

Admission for the event at The Modern Vancouver was $0 to $1,750, according to the Elections Canada disclosure. McKenzie said “there were no costs to government,” but said Kahlon paid $100 “personally” to attend.

Similarly for Bailey, her representative, Buzz Lanthier-Rogers, said “there were no costs to government.” Lanthier-Rogers did not say what, if anything, Bailey paid.

Carney earlier met with Eby and then marched part of the route of the Pride Parade.

Another politician on the list, ABC Vancouver Coun. Lenny Zhou, was invited by Duncan Wlodarczak, the Liberal Party’s B.C. president and chief of staff at developer Onni.

Party insiders

Liberal Party B.C. vice-president and Global Public Affairs vice-president Nicole Brassard, former Sustainable Development Technology Canada director Steve Kukucha and Bruce Young of Earnscliffe Strategies.

First Nations politicians

Ian Campbell and Wilson Williams (Squamish), Steven Stark (Tsawwassen), Chief Robert Louie (Westbank) and Phyllis Webstad, founder of the Orange Shirt Society.

Other attendees

Phantom Creek Estates winery owner Richter Bai Jiping, Sunnylife Health Enterprises CEO David Tan and immigration consultant Sophie Yan — affiliates of the Canadian Community Service Association, which helps the People’s Republic of China consulate to promote China. .

During an election debate, Carney replied “China” when asked about Canada’s biggest security threat. On June 5, Carney spoke with China’s Premier Li Qiang, the week before BC Ferries announced the federally backed contract with China state-owned CMI Weihai shipyard to build four new ferries.

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Bob Mackin Two B.C. NDP cabinet ministers attended

For the week of Sept. 14, 2025:

At the Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute’s annual conference in June, legal experts from Canada, U.S., U.K. and Ireland discussed ways and means of taking away cash, cars and real estate from criminals.

theBreaker.news was there.

Speakers at the June 18, 2025 Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute conference. (Mackin)

On this edition, hear the climax of the conference, with VACI advisory board chair Peter German, civll forfeiture directors Melinda Murray of Manitoba and Phil Tawtel, of British Columbia, former Ontario civil forfeiture director Jeffrey Simser, former U.S. Department of Justice asset forfeiture and money laundering deputy chief Stefan Cassella and Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime chair Barry Rider. 

As usual, Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.

CLICK BELOW to listen. Or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

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thePodcast: Experts discuss how to separate criminals from their ill-gotten gains
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For the week of Sept. 14, 2025:

For the week of Sept. 7, 2025:

Ahead of the 45th annual Terry Fox Run on Sept. 14, highlights of Bob Mackin’s 2023 interview with the late Bill Vigars, the campaign manager during Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope in 1980. 

In his memoir, “Terry & Me,” Vigars wrote about going on the road with Terry on his quest to run across Canada and raise money to end cancer. Vigars recounts the highs, the lows and the legacy of the most-important and heroic road trip in Canadian history. 

As usual, Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.

CLICK BELOW to listen. Or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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

NEW: Subscribe to theBreaker.news on Substack. Find out how: Click here.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
thePodcast: Terry Fox's legacy, 45 years later
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For the week of Sept. 7, 2025: