Mubin Shaikh knows more than the average Canadian about political and religious violence.
The former teenage jihadist became a Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent who exposed a terrorist plot.
Shaikh teaches at universities and speaks at conferences, such as the 2025 Vancouver International Security Summit. That is where he sat down with host Bob Mackin to discuss trends in extremism and his deradicalization work with Parents For Peace.
As usual, Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.
Premier David Eby marked Nov. 20 as the Transgender Day of Remembrance, with a statement sent to media that said “we remember, mourn and honour transgender, gender-diverse, non-binary and Two-Spirit people who have been killed in acts of targeted violence.”
But NDP government communications staff could not tell theBreaker.news how many transgender, gender-diverse, non-binary or Two-Spirit people have been murdered in British Columbia during the last 12 months or historically.
Premier David Eby’s Nov. 20, 2025 statement on Instagram.
Initially, the government communications office responded with a link to Statistics Canada data on police-reported hate crimes in Canada for 2023. That report is based on confirmed and suspected complaints to police. Alleged hate crimes targeting a gender identity or expression increased by 37% to 123 incidents in 2023.
theBreaker.news pressed the government again for evidence to back-up the quote from Eby, who was B.C.’s Attorney General from 2017 to 2022.
It provided none.
Instead, a representative for the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity sent a statement attributed to Jennifer Blatherwick that said “across the world, transgender and gender diverse people continue to face stigma and discrimination, which puts people at risk for much higher rates of violence, poverty, mental health issues and other complex challenges.”
Seven years ago on Nov. 20, 2018, the last time Craig James and Gary Lenz were seen inside the chamber at the Parliament Buildings in Victoria.
NDP Government House Leader Mike Farnworth, who was also the Solicitor General, rose at 11:06 a.m. on Nov. 20, 2018 in the Legislature after Question Period, to interrupt the start of a committee hearing.
Farnworth’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.
Craig James (standing left) and Gary Lenz (back to camera) minutes before their suspension was announced in the B.C. Legislature (Hansard TV)
“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,” Farnworth said.
No one objected. The motion passed unanimously.
Farnworth had waited until both James and Lenz had left the chamber. 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 a day earlier and had spoken to Opposition Leader Andrew Wilkinson. He claimed to know very little about the investigation.
Feigned ignorance
James, carrying personal belongings, told reporters that neither he nor Lenz knew what was going on and they were equally shocked. TV cameras showed him being escorted out of the building. James left in a silver Buick sedan driven by Lenz.
Later, during the noon hour, the chief of staff to Speaker Darryl Plecas, Alan Mullen, announced that there was a police investigation into an unprecedented criminal matter. A special prosecutor had been appointed.
James and Lenz claimed innocence and demanded their jobs back.
Innocence claimed
James and Lenz later retired in disgrace in 2019 without reimbursing taxpayers.
In May of that year, James was found to have committed four types of misconduct. Lenz quit five months later to avoid discipline under the Police Act for breaching his oath.
Only James was charged under the Criminal Code in late 2020.
Guilty as charged
On July 8, 2022 in B.C. Supreme Court, James was sentenced to one month house arrest in his Saanich residence and two months of 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.
Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes found James guilty May 19 of fraud and breach of public trust. He was sentenced only for breach of public trust, because of rulings against multiple convictions for the same circumstances.
Holmes ordered James to repay $1,886.72 for the cost of the custom shirts and suit that he illegally bought for himself with public funds. She also assessed a $200 victim fine surcharge.
Speaker Darryl Plecas (left) and chief of staff Alan Mullen (Mackin)
Broken promise
Farnworth ceased being Solicitor General before the 2024 election. He is back as the Government House Leader, but still has not fulfilled a longstanding promise.
In early 2019, Farnworth vowed that the Legislature would finally come under the 1993 Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
A hint of economic disruption when FIFA World Cup 26 comes to Vancouver next June and July.
It is buried near the end of an 11-page letter from Vancouver city hall’s development, buildings and licensing department to the architect of a small project at 5788 Willow Street, near Oakridge.
Maps of street closures due to FIFA World Cup 26. (City of Vancouver)
“Please note that as the City of Vancouver prepares for the FIFA World Cup 26, street use for public and private construction during and around the event period will be limited so additional consideration should be given to planning for and requesting street use where required,” the Aug. 27 letter said.
The project is comprised of two, three-storey townhouses containing a total of nine strata units over one level of underground parking. It is 7 kilometres south of B.C. Place Stadium.
Blanket street closures are scheduled around B.C. Place Stadium before and during the tournament. Lanes on major streets between downtown and Vancouver International Airport will be restricted to FIFA-only vehicles.
The city hall letter lists Vancouver’s match days: June 13, 18, 21, 24, 26 and July 2 and 7 and encourages questions to streetusereview@vancouver.ca.
Limo drivers wanted
Meanwhile, in October, the Vancouver city hall buying department issued a request for information seeking companies to “provide trained, licensed and professional chauffeurs and drivers for VIP and [sponsor] fleet vehicles [to] deliver reliable, punctual and discreet transport for FIFA executives, VIPs, teams, referees and staff.”
Licensed drivers must be 25 and older with a minimum five-to-seven years of professional experience, a clean driving and criminal record, and speak of both of Canada’s official languages, English and French.
Is it the beginning of the end for private property in British Columbia?
After a decade-long B.C. Supreme Court battle, the Cowichan First Nation won title to 800 acres of Richmond farm and industrial land in August.
In September, the court confirmed aboriginal title on Haida Gwaii.
Both decisions sparked questions about the NDP government’s handling of Indigenous land claims and its adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Guest Geoffrey Moyse spent 31 years as a lawyer with the B.C. Attorney General’s department and advised six B.C. governments on aboriginal law. He joins Bob Mackin on this edition of thePodcast.
As usual, Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.
Premier David Eby’s cabinet includes a Minister of Environment and Parks and two other ministers whose titles include the word “climate.”
But none will attend the United Nations annual climate change conference in Brazil, theBreaker.news has confirmed.
NDP ministers Adrian Dix (left), Tamara Davidson and Kelly Greene. (BC Gov)
The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP 30) began Nov. 10 in Belem and runs through Nov. 21 in the Hangar Convention and Fair Centre of the Amazon.
NDP not at COP
Peter Lonergan, a senior public affairs officer in the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions communications office, confirmed that “the province is not sending any representatives to COP 30 this year.”
Lonergan has not provided a reason.
Eby’s cabinet includes Kelly Greene, Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, Adrian Dix, Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions and Minister responsible for Francophone Affairs and Tamara Davidson, Minister of Environment and Parks.
Also on the agenda
The biennial NDP convention is Nov. 14-16 in Victoria. The Legislative Assembly reopens Nov. 17. Despite the fractured Conservative opposition and the NDP’s deal with the two-member Green caucus, Eby’s party still has a slim, 47-seat edge in the 93-seat Legislature.
Controversy
A new four-lane highway was cut through the Amazon for the conference.
Previously
George Heyman, who was the NDP Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy before the 2024 election, attended UN conferences.
Heyman posted photos on X showing meetings with officials from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, governments of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador and California, and students from B.C.’s two biggest universities.
At the Egypt conference in 2022, Heyman and two others charged taxpayers more than $18,000 for transportation costs. Heyman got authorization to spend more than $9,000 on lodging and $1,700 for meals.
In 2021, Heyman’s administrative coordinator, Alyssa Hrenyk, arranged for a car at the cost of $450 to take Heyman, Hewitt and an aide to a train station about 75 minutes out of Glasgow, to see a ScotRail electric train containing hydrogen fuel cell modules supplied by Burnaby’s Ballard Power.
“Canada strong” is the theme of the Liberal minority government’s first post-Trudeau budget. The editor of the Substack Shipping News, which analyzes trade and shipping trends on the West Coast, says the Mark Carney government’s most successful nation-building project is the national debt.
Timothy Renshaw joins host Bob Mackin to look beyond the slogans at the former Bank of Canada and Bank of England’s first budget and the bottom line: a $78.3 billion deficit.
As usual, Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.
FIFA World Cup 26 is scoring another $100 million from Canadian taxpayers “to bolster federal activities that will support the hosting,” according to the Carney Liberal government’s Nov. 4 budget.
Last year, the feds gave Vancouver $116 million and Toronto $104 million.
The new funding is split $57 million through March and $43 million April onward.
It will be spread around to the Department of Canadian Heritage, RCMP, Canada Border Services Agency, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Like the rest of the budget, it is subject to House of Commons approval.
Prime Minister Mark Carney (left) and Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne. (PMO/X)
Is it enough?
The Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, under the NDP’s Anne Kang, is responsible for hosting in B.C. theBreaker.news asked for comment at 1:22 p.m. A manager in the ministry’s communications office asked a minute later for the deadline and theBreaker.news responded immediately: “4:30 p.m.”
But, at 3:09 p.m., communications director Jill Nessel emailed: “Given the budget has just been tabled it is too soon for the province to comment. Can you circle back at a later date please?”
Last June, when it revised hosting costs upward to as much as $624 million, the province acknowledged the projections were incomplete.
“The province and its partners anticipate that the federal government will be a full partner in helping to manage and fund extraordinary risks that materialize for the FIFA World Cup 26 event, such as potential global economic downturns, natural disasters like fires and floods and increasing threat levels from rising geopolitical tensions.”
More to come?
At October’s Vancouver International Security Summit, B.C. RCMP Asst. Comm. John Brewer told theBreaker.news that the Mounties are waiting to set a budget after December’s announcement of Vancouver-bound national teams. Canada is scheduled to play in two of the seven B.C. Place Stadium matches.
“What I don’t want is to say to the various levels of governments, ‘here’s the budget we need,’ to find out that we’re too low or even too high. I don’t want sticker shock either,” Brewer said.
Sticker shock history
The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics security budget was $175 million until a year before the Games, when it ballooned to $900 million.
Looking south
In the U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Oct. 28 that it will provide US$625 million in grants to the 11 American host cities for “critical security preparations and activities like training and exercises, staff background checks and cybersecurity defence, as well as increased police and emergency response for FIFA venues, hotels and transportation hubs.”
Under a separate program, Department of Homeland Security is granting US$250 million to nine states and the national capital region to combat illegal drone use during World Cup and national America 250 events.
Both programs were established under Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Leaders of City of Vancouver’s three unions say 400 jobs will be axed under Mayor Ken Sim’s draft budget.
Two thirds of the job cuts are anticipated to be from the unionized ranks, said a late afternoon memo to union members on Nov. 5 from acting CUPE Local 15 president Santino Scardillo, CUPE Local 1040 administrator Rob Limongelli and CUPE Local 391 president Amir Abbey.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim at the June 11 one-year countdown to FIFA 26. (Mackin)
“At this stage, we don’t know exactly what these potential job cuts would look like or how they might be implemented,” said the memo. “It is not clear whether the positions would be eliminated or reduced through attrition (leaving vacancies unfilled as people move on or retire).
City of Vancouver employs 11,000 people or 9,600 full-time equivalents.
Timeline
City council has scheduled a Nov. 12 public hearing on the budget and expects to pass the $2.39 billion operating plan two weeks later on Nov. 26.
“This proposed budget would not only have a serious impact on workers, but it will also likely have far reaching consequences for public services throughout Vancouver’s communities and neighbourhoods,” said the CUPE memo.
What does zero really mean?
Sim is running for re-election on a “zero means zero” property tax increase. But Vancouverites will be dinged 4.2% more for utilities, 2-5% more for recreation user fees and 4.5% more for business licences and permits.
Police ($525.3 million) and fire ($215 million) are getting increases under the ABC budget.
In an Oct. 16 all-staff meeting, city manager Donny van Dyk and deputy city manager Karen Levitt said FIFA World Cup 26 and the civic election are other programs protected from budget cuts.
“So we have no wiggle room in terms of delivering what we need to deliver. It’s a contractual obligation [to FIFA],” Levitt said.
Government secrecy and spin are damaging democracy, say information commissioners and ombudspersons from across Canada.
In a 16-point call to action issued Nov. 5, the watchdogs called for governments to adopt a suite of measures to enhance transparency and accountability at public institutions and combat rampant misinformation.
“When public institutions are not transparent, or when they communicate in a way that is misleading, this too can undermine trust and allow misinformation to flourish,” said the declaration. “Citizens may try to fill the void otherwise, by drawing their own conclusions based on incomplete or inaccurate information. This can fuel conspiracy theories and prevent citizens from meaningfully holding their governments to account based on facts rather than fiction.”
Highlights
Federal, provincial and territorial information commissioners at their 2025 meeting in Banff. (Credit: Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta)
The joint resolution on “Trust, transparency, and democracy in an era of misinformation” was agreed at the federal, provincial and territorial watchdogs’ annual meeting in Banff on Oct. 10, but published the day after the federal budget.
It urges governments to enact duty to document laws and set minimum standards for proactive disclosure; properly fund access and transparency programs in public institutions; support media and civil society promotion of the public’s right to know; and regulate online platforms for greater transparency.
“The regulators also commit to improving their own transparency practices, collaborating with other oversight bodies, and reducing delays in access to information processes.”
Failure to investigate
British Columbia’s signatory is Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael Harvey, an import from Newfoundland and Labrador. Harvey was appointed in April 2024 to a six-year term after the recommendation of a majority NDP committee of the Legislature.
At least twice in the last year, Harvey’s office has refused to investigate deletion of records in the Office of the Premier and at the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation.
