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Bob Mackin

The bureaucrat from ex-Premier Christy Clark’s office who famously used Post-it notes to keep track of freedom of information requests is now a member of the Victoria and Esquimalt police board.

The Oct. 1 NDP cabinet order ratifying the appointment of Evan Southern was signed by Solicitor General Mike Farnworth and Attorney General David Eby.

Evan Southern (Twitter)

Southern is the director of communications for the Capital Regional District’s Wastewater Treatment Project who worked as the BC Liberal Party’s director of operations from December 2015 to July 2017. He went to party head office after acting as the director of issues management in the Office of the Premier. Southern had been given the FOI duty after only one hour of training and his FOI processing work was mentioned in Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham’s October 2015 investigation of triple deleting in cabinet offices.

“The Office of the Premier has put the FOI coordinator in a difficult situation,” Denham wrote. “I believe he is not adequately positioned to determine the Executive Branch’s access to information process. It is surprising that the Executive Branch of the Office of the Premier would conclude that not writing anything down about the processing of an access request, apart from a temporarily retained sticky note, is appropriate.”

Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins did not agree to an interview about Southern’s appointment. She was an unsuccessful BC Liberal candidate in 2017 when Southern was at party headquarters. She referred theBreaker to the township’s director of corporate services, Anja Nurvo.

Nurvo said council chose Southern at a June 11 closed-door meeting after four applicants were interviewed. The province was notified of the appointment on June 26. She said the township originally advertised the vacancy in the Victoria News last April, and on the township’s website and social media. But nobody applied.

“We contacted the province since they were also recruiting for a board appointee to represent Esquimalt at the same time. The province provided us with contact information for applicants who were residents of Esquimalt but were not selected as the provincial appointment to the board. We contacted those people and invited applications to be sent to the township directly.”

Southern did not respond for comment.

IntegrityBC’s Dermod Travis said Southern’s appointment was ill-advised. 

“That is absolutely way over the line, there is no reason that he should be sitting on the police board, given his political activities,” Travis said. “They’re not compatible.”

The Victoria and Esquimalt Police Board pays directors $264 per regular board or committee meeting and $527 if a meeting exceeds four hours.

When a municipal council in B.C. endorses the appointment of a candidate, the resolution is provided to the Police Services Branch of the Solicitor General’s ministry, which conducts supplemental conflict of interest and police record checks, then liaises with the Crown Agency and Board Resourcing Office and Office of the Legislative Counsel to draft an order in council for the minister’s signature.

Southern joined a police board that is emerging from the scandalous 2017 resignation of Victoria Police Chief Frank Eisner.

Eisner was found by two retired judges to have committed eight acts of misconduct related to exchanging personal and sexual messages with a subordinate’s wife via Twitter. He is now a cannabis security consultant.

Based on how Desjardins and Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps handled the file, police complaint commissioner Stan Lowe recommended to the provincial government that a retired judge oversee discipline of a municipal police chief or deputy chief, instead of a mayor.

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Bob Mackin The bureaucrat from ex-Premier Christy Clark’s

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Bob Mackin

A retired nurse who stayed two weeks at the aging Burnaby Hospital last summer said she was alarmed by a mousetrap in her washroom.

Joyce Moski, 81, said she was treated at the hospital’s Acute Care for the Elderly unit from Aug. 19 to Sept. 2. A photo of the patient washroom of room 523 that she provided to theBreaker shows a mousetrap and two pest control boxes that Moski said were in direct line of sight from the toilet.

“There’s a walk-in shower in that room,” Moski said. “There is absolutely no way I would’ve stepped into that shower in my bare feet. If there’s mice in the bathroom, why would I?”

Mousetrap photographed Aug. 22 in Burnaby Hospital’s elderly ward (Joyce Moski)

She said she complained to Fraser Health, but was told by a health inspector that the department only inspects kitchens. Moski also said a portion of the baseboard in the washroom was attached to the wall with multiple pieces of paper medical tape.

Fraser Health spokesman Dixon Tam said in a prepared statement that the authority was “sorry seeing a mousetrap was upsetting for our patient, but pest control is part of the regular year-round maintenance plan for Burnaby Hospital.”

“Pests are a challenging situation, especially with a large, older building with many access points,” Tam said. “Our proactive strategy includes setting traps plus locating and sealing access points into the building. It’s not uncommon to see pests looking for warmth this time of year so we work to mitigate any issues.”

Said Moski: “I think our temperatures were pretty high, Aug. 19-Sept. 2, I don’t think [mice] were seeking refuge from the cold. I think they were well-established.”

Tam said Fraser Health did not have the costs associated with pest control because it is managed under contracted services.

Moski said she doesn’t blame the nursing staff.

“I understand the system, there are so many layers of management, middle management and senior management, there is no money left for care, there’s no money left for housekeeping, that’s why it’s all contracted out,” Moski said.

In 2012, Burnaby BC Liberal MLAs Richard Lee and Harry Bloy struck the Burnaby Hospital Community Consultation Committee. Documents obtained by the NDP said the committee’s purpose was to “deliver a new seat” and win two swing ridings for the party in Burnaby.

The condition of the 66-year-old hospital is of major concern to Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley, who vowed to lobby the NDP provincial government for a replacement. In his swearing-in speech, Hurley mentioned a Nov. 1 Burnaby Now story, in which three patients in hospital gowns were sent via taxi to Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster because Burnaby’s only CT scanner was down.

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Bob Mackin A retired nurse who stayed two

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Bob Mackin

Two things you don’t see every day.

Someone not named Derek Corrigan was sworn-in as Mayor of Burnaby and a punk rocker pledged allegiance to the Queen.

New mayor Mike Hurley took the oath of office in the Crystal Ballroom at the Hilton Metrotown on Nov. 5 and gave a brief address, promising more details on his four-year plan in the first meeting of 2019.

Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley (right) with councillors Pietro Calendino, Joe Keithley, Nick Volkow and Paul McDonnell (Mackin)

The retired Burnaby fire chief defeated Corrigan, the five-term mayor since 2002, in the Oct. 20 election. Housing and affordability were central to Hurley’s campaign platform. He has a big task to stop displacements of Metrotown apartment renters in favour of luxury condo owners. Unlike his predecessor, he vows to have a plan to deal with homelessness.

“It’s not acceptable to allow our citizens to sleep outside in freezing weather conditions,” Hurley said, to raucous applause.

Hurley also pinpointed the sorry state of the 66-year-old Burnaby General Hospital in his speech.

“The buildings are in a very run down state, we need to be champions for the redevelopment of this vitally important facility for our residents. We will push the provincial government to get on with this work, we are B.C.’s third-largest city and our hospital has been ignored for way too long.”

Many of Hurley’s supporters from the local firefighters’ union and the International Association of Firefighters were in attendance. Even the general-secretary of the Boston-based union, Ed Kelly, made the trip. Hurley said he would sit down with local RCMP officer in charge, Deanne Burleigh, to ascertain the force’s needs.

A Hurley-Burleigh meeting will be better than it sounds.

“Our police department has been not fully staffed for a long time,” Hurley said in an interview after his speech. “There are many issues to address with the police force, first I need to talk to the chief to see what she needs.”

By the time Hurley had taken his oath of office, Doug McCallum had reassumed the mayoralty of Surrey and his new council had already voted to dump the proposed light rail transit line in favour of building SkyTrain to Langley. Hurley said he has yet to decide whether to Surrey’s new direction when he assumes a seat on the TransLink Mayors’ Council.

“If that’s the case he really does have enough funds to do it, then he should be supported,” Hurley said. “The question is, if he doesn’t have the right amount of funds, where do they come from?”

Hurley takes over a council that looks a lot like the one Corrigan was voted-off. Seven of the eight councillors with the NDP-aligned Burnaby Citizens Association were returned. The only newcomer is Joe Keithley of the Burnaby Greens.

Burnaby Coun. Joe Keithley (right) and Mayor Mike Hurley (Mackin)

Keithley, the leader of pioneering hardcore punk band DOA, had intended to run for mayor, but stepped aside so that Hurley could run. 

“It’s a very nice mix, we have a lot of experience, we have some new enthusiasm, Joe and I, I think it’s going to work out very well.”

Keithley said NDP and Green politicians have proven they can govern provincially, so the same should hold true on Burnaby city council. 

“There are going to be areas where we can come together on,” said Keithley, who didn’t bring his punk nickname “Shithead” into the political arena. “Part of being a Green is working with other people, it can’t be my way or the highway politics.”

Keithley lives by his motto “Talk-Action=0” and had sought public office municipally and provincially in elections throughout the last three decades. He vows to continue recording and touring with DOA, whose first album in 1980 was “Something Better Change,” but the band will take a backseat to his council duties.

Keithley said his priority is to help solve the housing crisis in Burnaby. He also wants to do his part to help musicians and artists who are also feeling the pinch from the overheated real estate market and to help underprivileged youth. He said he would like to reach out to new Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who was bassist in State of Mind in the early 1990s.

“You make friends for life from [music],” he said. “For a lot of kids that had a hard time being accepted, music can be that bridge. It’s a non-discriminatory bridge that just speaks to everybody.”

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Bob Mackin Two things you don’t see every

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Bob Mackin

Mayor Kennedy Stewart said that he will strive to make Vancouver a more globalist city, but he doesn’t plan on being a globetrotting mayor.

Stewart and the new city council, featuring just two incumbents, were sworn-in Nov. 5 at Creekside Community Centre in the Olympic Village. In his nearly nine-minute speech, Stewart cited his mentor, Simon Fraser University political science professor Patrick Smith, who suggested a city could either be globalized or globalist. Stewart said he chooses the latter.

Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Vancouver’s new city council on Nov. 5 (Mackin)

“People are in despair around the world about what’s happening, even in our own country there is division, there is hatred, but that’s not here in Vancouver,” Stewart told reporters. “This council can show the way forward and say not only are we not going to tolerate that in our city, we’re going to show you how it can be done. We’re going to show you you how we will spread goodwill and love rather than hatred.”

Stewart told the crowd in the gymnasium that the city’s single-greatest challenge facing the city and the new council is the lack of affordable housing. “It doesn’t matter who you are or where in the city go, the stress of affordability hangs over Vancouver, stifling our creativity, our energy, our promise of opportunity.”

Stewart takes over from Gregor Robertson, who was elected in 2008 and won two more majorities on city council with Vision Vancouver. Robertson spent the equivalent of a year of his mayoralty traveling outside Vancouver, including trips to speaking engagements at conferences in Singapore, South Africa, the Vatican City, White House and United Nations, and multiple trips to China.

As an NDP Member of Parliament for seven years, Stewart said he took only one work-related trip, to Washington, D.C. He said he paid for it himself.

“I know my work is right here, we have a housing crisis that we have to solve,” he said. “I don’t intend to go away unless it’s going to get us something, and it can’t just be discussion, it has to be something that is concrete, and I would discuss with my caucus colleagues before I did that.”

Mayor Kennedy Stewart signs the oath of office on Nov. 5 (MackIn)

In his speech, Stewart acknowledged mayoral opponents Ken Sim, Shauna Sylvester, Hector Bremner and Wai Young (though he omitted Fred Harding or David Chen). He said they presented bold ideas, but stayed away from divisive politics. He thanked Robertson and the previous council for tackling climate change and building the city’s international reputation. As an independent mayor, Stewart said he would be guided by the key word, respect.

“I pledge here today to put respect at the centre of my approach, to inform residents and council members of my intentions and to listen to your ideas before making decisions,” he said in the speech. “I will strive to foster an environment of openness and transparency with a goal of building trust right across the city, and I’ll do my best to live by these words.”

To that end, he said sought advice from ex-mayor Mike Harcourt, who was the city’s last independent mayor from 1981 to 1986.

In the speech, he acknowledged the record eight women elected to the 11-member council, but called the lack of Asian councillors in a city with large Chinese, Filipino and South Asian populations a “deep structural problem.”

“We really have to look at ourselves and say okay, what went wrong?” Stewart told reporters.

Ironically, had the NPA’s runner-up Sim tallied 958 more votes, Vancouver would have had its first ethnic Chinese mayor, instead of Nova Scotia-born Stewart.

Green Corn. Adriane Carr and NPA Coun. Melissa De Genova are the most-senior members of the new council. They flanked Stewart at the news conference and said there is hope for a less-political city council after the end of Vision Vancouver’s party discipline and domination. The NPA’s five members are one short of a majority. The Greens elected three councillors and OneCity and COPE one each.

“I think more than anything this election was about people feeling like they weren’t being listened to, that’s why there was change,” said Carr, who is starting her third term on city council after leading the ballot with 69,730 votes.

De Genova, along with other councillors elected Oct. 20, is optimistic about Stewart’s approach because she had been invited to meet with Stewart quickly after the election. De Genova said she was only invited to meet Robertson once, when he censured her after a media interview.

“All councillors here bring a lot of experience in different areas,” said second-term councillor De Genova. “I’d like to start by trying something new, something that Vision Vancouver never did, let’s be respectful, let’s take down that partisanship and see what we can get accomplished. We never had that opportunity.”

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Bob Mackin Mayor Kennedy Stewart said that he

Business, Miscellany

Bob Mackin

Large crowds on Labour Day weekend meant the PNE Fair’s 2018 attendance saw only a small dip from 2017.

PNE daily attendance for 2018.

This year’s 705,379 total was 17,000 fewer than last year and just 7,000 less than 2016.

Instead of rain, the traditional bane of the Fair, smoke from wildfires hampered the crowds on six days.

The fair averaged almost 32,000-a-day during the first week, but just over 58,000 in the second.

According to daily attendance figures provided to theBreaker, the second of two free Tuesday admission promotions, during 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Aug. 28, was the biggest day of the 2018 edition, with 76,247 turnstile clicks.

The smallest attendance was 31,376 on Aug. 25, one of just two days affected by rain.

Crowds progressively grew on the final weekend, from 54,558 on Aug. 31 to 67,068 on Labour Day.

The total remained significantly less than the 937,485 recorded at the 2010 centennial fair, but better than 2015, when 678,193 attended.

The 15-day fair was held between Aug. 18-Sept. 3.

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Bob Mackin Large crowds on Labour Day weekend

Business, News, Opinion

The Vision Vancouver era at city hall is over. What will the Kennedy Stewart era bring?

The former Burnaby South NDP MP will be sworn-in the 40th mayor in City of Vancouver history on Nov. 5 and has a big job ahead of him to deal with homelessness, the opioid crisis and a city hall needing a transparency and accountability overhaul. An overhaul that outgoing Mayor Gregor Robertson promised in 2008, but didn’t deliver.

In an exclusive interview near his False Creek North home, Stewart told theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin that a lobbyist registry would be one of his first priorities. 

“If we do it at the City of Vancouver then other municipalities might follow suit,” Stewart said. “It was my first promise, launching my campaign. I am already keen. It’s an easy first thing I can deliver to the city.”

Stewart, who won the Oct. 20 civic election with less than 1,000 votes over the NPA’s Ken Sim, said his advantage is being an independent. But it also means negotiating with the five NPA councillors, three Greens and one each from OneCity and COPE to find consensus and to avoid political deadlock. 

Also on this special edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, an encore presentation of Gregor Robertson in his own words and ResearchCo pollster Mario Canseco offers his take on the legacy of Robertson and Vision. Plus commentaries.

Click below or go to iTunes and subscribe. 

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

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The Vision Vancouver era at city hall

Business, News

Bob Mackin

The sign on the stage said Legacy Celebration.

But it was really the Vision Vancouver farewell party.

With only one candidate elected in the Oct. 20 election (Allan Wong to school board) and the retiring Mayor Gregor Robertson (an organic juiceman  beyond his best before date) passing the chain of office to Kennedy Stewart on Nov. 5, hundreds of Visionistas gathered at the Seaforth Armoury on Burrard Street on Nov. 2. A bittersweet soiree for a party that self-destructed.

Gregor Robertson (left) and Mike Magee (Mackin)

A small cluster of bicycles was parked outside by the purple-lit tented entrance. Food trucks were parked inside, with a concert-style stage at the opposite end.   

It was a who’s who of the NDP/Liberal coalition, the COPE splinter group that drifted to the right. It was COPE stalwart Tim Louis that famously called Vision the “NPA, only with bike lanes.”

Michael Davis, the former NPA president who defected to Vision in the 2014 election was there. So was Bob Ransford, the NPA strategist who joined Vision during 2011’s campaign. Peter Ladner, the NPA councillor who lost to Robertson for the mayoralty in 2008, was featured in a retrospective video.

Also in attendance: Lobbyist Bill “No to Proportional Representation” Tieleman and NDP Advanced Education Minister Melanie “Don’t Know Proportional Representation” Mark; Stratcom pollster Bob Penner; Duncan Wlodarczak, the ex-Vision staffer who joined developer Onni as chief of staff; lobbyist and ex-Vision strategist Marcella Munro; ex-Vision and BC Liberals social media strategist Diamond Isinger (who recently quit the Prime Minister’s Office to join the B.C. Council of Forest Industries); columnist Sandy Garossino of the Vision organ National Observer; Reliance Properties president and Urban Development Institute chair Jon Stovell; Janice MacKenzie, the former city clerk who oversaw the 2014 civic election; Mike Magee, Robertson’s ex-chief of staff, was seen, sitting in the shadows, on the opposite side of the room from where Kevin Quinlan, his protege and current chief of staff, was standing; University of B.C. professor and Offsetters carbon credits salesman James Tansey; and PR agent Lesli Boldt.

Two videos by Hogan Millar Media, the Vision and BC Liberal ad agency, were exhibited. The first, heavy on comments from Robertson. The second, riddled with testimonials from folks that benefitted from Vision decisions.

David Suzuki called Robertson “goddamn handsome…”

Marcella Munro (left) and Michael Davis (Mackin)

Prime Minster Justin Trudeau: “You might deserve a break, but I’m confident your hard work will continue.”

Premier John Horgan: “He did a spectacular job, in holding fast to his principles and values despite the naysayers that come and go. He stuck with it. He did a tremendous job.”

Billionaire Jimmy Pattison: “In my opinion he has been a good mayor for Vancouver the last 10 years and certainly has raised the image of our city to a place that it’s never been before.”

Former police chief Jim Chu, now a vice-president with the Aquilini family: “The city is much safer because of your contributions.”

Longtime Vision bagman and Hollyhock honcho Joel Solomon: “The world needs politicians like you.”

Hootsuite boss Ryan Holmes, whose company worked on Vision campaigns and scored a lease in a city-owned building: “You’ve set an amazing foundation for the city.”

Then it was time for the man himself, who ad libbed his speech and feigned being uncomfortable in front of the adoring crowd. “First and foremost this is not about me, OK? This is about all of us.”

Then he took credit for leading the “most progressive government elected for the longest time in a major Canadian city.”

Clockwise, from left: Jim Pattison, Joel Solomon, David Suzuki, Ryan Holmes, Justin Trudeau and Jim Chu. (Vision Vancouver)

“Those 10,000 City of Vancouver staff owe us incredible gratitude,” he said. “We owe them incredible gratitude as well, we give them the jobs as taxpayers. They do an incredible job.”

Robertson implored supporters to “lift up the most vulnerable in our city, and stop the opioid epidemic and get people housed…

“We have so much going for us, so much wealth and privilege,” he said, also urging supporters to care for the planet.

“I just encourage you all to dig a little deeper going forward, keep the pressure on the new mayor and council to be even better, delivering more for this community. Let’s take it to the next level.”

Then Robertson, and Vision veterans Raymond Louie, Heather Deal, Patti Bacchus, Tim Stevenson, George Chow, were piped off the stage by a Seaforth soldier in a kilt.

The faithful began to leave. Some turned left toward the supercar sales showrooms on Burrard, passing by the 39 Brigade tank/Afghanistan war monument, where a man was found dead of an apparent overdose on a Friday evening in July.

Others turned right, walking past the Molson Brewery, now owned by luxury condo specialist Concord Pacific, and onward over the Burrard Bridge. The bridge that Vision gave a vehicle lane to cyclists before finally heeding engineers’ advice to reinforce the aging structure. 

Underneath the bridge, some of the city’s homeless.

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Bob Mackin The sign on the stage

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Bob Mackin

The Gibsons town councillor who withdrew his mayoral candidacy after nominations closed has been charged with impaired driving.

The Sunshine Coast RCMP issued a news release in early afternoon Nov. 2, announcing that Silas David White had been charged Oct. 24 with impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm and care of control of a motor vehicle with blood alcohol over the legal limit, causing an accident resulting in bodily harm.

The news release does not explain why there was a delay in telling the public that a local politician had been charged.

The RCMP statement says that emergency crews attended a single-vehicle crash scene on Sept. 16 at 10:55 p.m. on Gower Point Road near 12th Street in Gibsons. There were three occupants of the vehicle who were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The driver was taken into custody under suspicion of impaired driving.

White’s first court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 21 in Sechelt Provincial Court. 

White, a book publisher, was elected to Gibsons council in 2014 and was appointed the town’s director on the Sunshine Coast Regional District board.

White announced his run for the mayoralty in July and was the only candidate for mayor when nominations closed Sept. 14. But he withdrew two days after the crash. At the time, White blamed the effects of a concussion from a July 1 cycling crash.

“Like many concussions, it did not seem serious at first, but as time went on, severe after-effects and other stress emerged,” according to White’s withdrawal statement. “My doctor has told me I should take a complete break from stressful activities to permit healing.”

In the statement, White said that he did not originally heed his doctor’s advice, “which only caused my condition to worsen and has led to a compounding series of problems and poor judgment.”

Minutes for the Gibsons town council meeting of Sept. 18 show that White was present. White announced his withdrawal on Sept. 18. Nominations were reopened Sept. 19-24. White was absent from the Oct. 2 and 16 meetings, however.

Bill Beamish was elected the new mayor of Gibsons in a landslide on Oct. 20.

Contacted by phone on Nov. 2, White mentioned the concussion and told theBreaker that he was working on a statement with this lawyer. “I don’t think I could handle an interview,” he said.

In the Nov. 2 statement, White called the last four months “an unimaginably dark time in my life.” 

White claimed in the new statement that he could not talk about the crash “for a number of reasons, including protecting the privacy of others involved.” 

“I am extremely grateful for the Gibsons and District Volunteer Fire Department and other first responders who attended the scene,” the statement reads. “I had not been charged with anything at that time, but the accident clearly illustrated to me and my loved ones that my judgment that evening was severely compromised by my brain injury. I felt I owed it to myself, my family and my community to concentrate on my ongoing recovery and medical treatment, and eventually face the consequences of the accident, as a private citizen rather than pressing on as a public official. This is also why shortly thereafter, I withdrew my name from the mayoral election.”

The statement said he received a court summons Nov. 1. “I have engaged legal counsel and hope to have these charges resolved as quickly as possible.”

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Bob Mackin The Gibsons town councillor who withdrew

Business, News

Bob Mackin

Just two days after Minister Melanie Mark’s embarrassing admission that she is clueless about proportional representation, help arrived in her office.

An Oct. 29 NDP cabinet order announced Mike Eso’s appointment to the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training through the end of February. Eso is the top B.C. Government and Service Employees Union official on Vancouver Island and president of the Victoria Labour Council.

Melanie Mark (left) at her 2016 swearing-in with Mike Eso (right). (Berson)

A representative of Mark’s ministry, who refused to allow his name to be published, said longtime NDP supporter Eso was seconded and will be paid up to $49,000.

“He will be providing additional capacity in the minister’s office as the government continues to work to deliver on its mandate,” according to a prepared statement. “His focus will be on coordination of cross-government priorities, and policy development and implementation.”

Eso is listed as a donor of $156,810 to the NDP, mainly through his VLC role.

During a proportional representation Yes campaign photo op in her Mount Pleasant riding on Oct. 27, Mark told reporters from Global BC and CBC  that “I do have a degree in political science, but I’m not an expert in electoral representation.” Mark, who is the minister responsible for universities and colleges, was unable to explain the choices British Columbians face in the mail-in referendum through Nov. 30.

BCGEU’s Component 7 includes locals that represent workers at the B.C. Institute of Technology and Justice Institute of B.C., both institutions that are regulated and funded by Mark’s ministry.

Mark’s office directory shows Liam Iliffe is her senior ministerial assistant, Michael Snoddon her ministerial assistant and Christina Rzepa her executive assistant. She also has an administrative coordinator and administrative assistant.

Iliffe’s wife, Sheena McConnell, is Premier John Horgan’s press secretary. Snoddon is one of B.C.’s two representatives on the NDP’s federal executive. Rzepa is a cellist and president of the Vancouver Mount Pleasant riding association.

Lecia Stewart (left) and Layne Clark (The Stewart Group)

Meanwhile, the daughter of ex-Premier Glen Clark is now working for a transit infrastructure lobbyist.

Layne Clark spent almost a year as Horgan’s director of liaison and coordination. She quit in July to join The Stewart Group, a company headed by Lecia Stewart, the ex-journalist and B.C. Transit bureaucrat who Glen Clark picked in 1997 to oversee what became SkyTrain’s Millennium Line.

Stewart was fired with a $402,000 golden parachute in 2001 after Gordon Campbell led the BC Liberals into power. The Stewart Group describes itself as a “boutique consulting firm offering strategic advisory services in transportation, with a particular focus on urban rail projects.” It specializes in “bid and pursuit strategies, procurement support, and advocacy development.”

Stewart was involved in the SNC-Lavalin-involved bid to build the $2.1 billion Ottawa Confederation Line LRT extension. Her firm also held six-figure contracts with City of Edmonton and City of Surrey’s LRT offices.

In 2013, she scored an $80,000 no-bid TransLink contract to consult on the agency’s regional transportation and long-term funding plan.

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Bob Mackin Just two days after Minister Melanie

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Bob Mackin

Add Vancouver developer Rob Macdonald to the anti-proportional representation campaign.

Macdonald says in a two-page commentary making the rounds that Canada is blessed with the first past the post system of elections and British Columbia would be foolish to switch.

“We could actually have a situation where the Saltspring Island Nut Job Party holds the balance of controlling power in our government, and we should ask ourselves if that is a prospect that is appealing,” Macdonald wrote.

Macdonald was the biggest backer of No Proportional Representation B.C. Society director Suzanne Anton when she ran for mayor in 2011. He donated a whopping $900,000 to the NPA campaign.

Developer Rob Macdonald

Macdonald has not responded to theBreaker. The commentary sent to Macdonald’s business associates urges them to pass it on and to vote against electoral reform in the NDP government’s mail-in referendum.

Macdonald’s note said PR breeds bigger government deficits, debts, taxes and “more pigs at the public trough.” Smaller, fringe parties would get pet projects and pay-offs to join a coalition.

“Do we really want to operate like Italy or Greece which are dysfunctional basket cases?”

Macdonald wrote that PR wouldn’t improve the country. Governments are known immediately after a first past the post election. Under PR, coalitions can take weeks and months to form. Under first past the post, he wrote, local people are directly elected. Under PR, those who would normally be unelectable could get into government on party lists submitted by party bosses. 

Ultimately, Macdonald says the debate is really between the pursuit of power and good government. PR would create “a tyranny of a minority of people that could never win a majority government on their own and that we would probably not consider hiring to run a peanut stand.”

The left wing, he said, believes that PR would allow “them and their fringy friends to implant B.C. with their socialist agenda forevermore.”

“The leftists of this province are selling (PR) like it is the best thing since sliced bread, but as my father would say — they are selling us a big bucket of shit while trying to get us to believe it is tasty beef stew with black bean sauce.”

Boosters of proportional representation argue that the winner of a B.C. election tends to get all the power with only 40% of the popular vote. 

Ballots are being delivered province-wide. The mail-in referendum runs through Nov. 30.

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Bob Mackin Add Vancouver developer Rob Macdonald to

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theBreaker.news and theBreaker.news Podcast: your source for news, opinion and analysis about British Columbia issues, institutions and influencers.

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