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Bob Mackin

Vancouver city hall is one step closer to the potential for Greenest City 2020 snow globes, Vancouver Salt Co. salt and pepper shakers and “My other car is a bait car” bumper stickers.

Could Vancouver city hall sell a bumper sticker like this?

Those are some of the more than 50 civic trademarks and Aug. 9 is the deadline for marketing and merchandising experts to express interest in launching official souvenirs. The city wants to “generate visibility and awareness, while producing positive revenues that can be reinvested into a number of Vancouver public services,” according to the tendering document.

“The goods would specifically utilize city brand and trademark for the purposes of preserving, commemorating and promoting the Vancouver experience and building local pride for the City of Vancouver.”

City hall says it is interested in collaborating with local artisans, designers and indigenous artists. 

The city says Vancouver is “one of the stronger brands when compared to the other municipalities in British Columbia,” that is “uniquely associated” with clean, green and environmental sustainability.  

The goals include “increase loyalty to City assets and attributes by preserving, commemorating, and championing consumer-based investment in City experiences” and to promote and support political politically driven initiatives, such as Greenest City 2020 Action Plan (GCAP), Zero Waste 2040, Urban Forest Strategy, Women’s Equity Strategy 2018-2028, and Healthy City Strategy.

The tendering document includes a list of 52 marks, plus the Vancouver Police Department, spanning 1982’s “Vancouver and design” to 2017’s Sport Hosting Vancouver. They include Greenest City 2020, Eco Density, Bikes We Share, By Sea, Land and Air We Prosper, Vancouver Salt Co., East Van and Cross Design, Stanley Park, Vancouver Green Capital and Bait Car. 

Also listed is the Vancouver Affordable Housing Society Ltd., but its trademark registration was abandoned, because it “missed the reg. fee payment deadline.” 

Words that rose to prominence under Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver since 2008, but are not yet trademarked, include: “F-in’ NPA hacks,” “Dude Chilling Park,” “robust,” “lame,” “bike lane trial,” “Stanley Cup riot 2011,” and “End street homelessness by 2015.”

In February, lame duck Vision Vancouver councillor Andrea Reimer successfully pitched city council on her idea of selling Vancouver-branded merchandise, after TransLink opened an online store last fall. 

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Bob Mackin Vancouver city hall is one step

Bob Mackin

In hindsight, the first sign that the Beijing 2008 Olympics weren’t going to translate to more basic freedoms for Chinese citizens was the pre-Games Internet clampdown. 

The Bird’s Nest on Aug. 8, 2008, as seen from the Huiyuan Media Village. (Bob Mackin)

The Chinese government had promised the International Olympic Committee that reporters from all nations would be able to surf the web, without any censorship, on the Olympic system. Reporters arrived at the main press centre and international broadcast centre to find various websites blocked, particularly those referring to Taiwan, Tibet and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

The IOC’s press commission protested and the filter was adjusted. We got over the Great Firewall of China, but search engines continued to warn that sites on the T-topics contained viruses. After the world’s media went home, it returned to normal. Westerners and daring Chinese relied on VPNs to get them around or over the Great Firewall.

China was opening up, but on its terms and not the way the world really hoped. The 29th Olympic Games led to greater two-way trade, tourism and technology. And, eventually 2022: The next Winter Games are coming to China’s capital and its mountainous outskirts.  

China is now a world leader in controlling news and online surveillance under President Xi Jinping, whose leader-for-life status was announced in time for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics closing ceremony. Prospects for basic freedoms by 2022 are dim and the censorship is likely to prevail again. Reporters Without Borders says more than 50 journalists and bloggers, that its knows of, are detained in China. Human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was arrested four months after the Games opened and died in 2017. His widow, Liu Xia, was finally allowed to leave for Germany in July Meanwhile, the Beijing studio of dissident artist Ai Weiwei — who helped design the Bird’s Nest stadium — was demolished last weekend. 

Chinese leader Hu Jintao is greets the Chinese team into the Olympics opening ceremony on Aug. 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Bob Mackin)

The Games opened Aug. 8, 2008, the most-unique and historic venue for a birthday I may ever have. My day began smoggy across the street at the Huiyuan Media Village, where the maid left a souvenir pin and panda toy on my pillow with a birthday greeting.

It ended in heat that I had not experienced before or since. By the end of the night, a pile of at least 10 empty plastic water bottles had formed under my seat in the Bird’s Nest. Manolo Romero, CEO of Beijing Olympic Broadcasting and managing director of Olympic Broadcasting Services, told me that thermometers at weather stations inside the National Stadium reached 50 degrees Celsius, a full 20 C hotter than outside the steel-framed structure. The host broadcaster was less worried about equipment overheating and more worried that a cameraman would expire. “That bowl is like a cooking vacuum,” Spaniard Romero remarked in an interview. 

On the eve of the opening ceremony, I stopped for drinks with a friend from Vancouver at a rooftop bar in the old embassy district near Tiananmen Square. As we left to get to the British Columbia-government hosted reception, a waitress asked if we were part of the Goldman Sachs party that had booked the joint. What would we have learned about the global economic shock to come had we stayed and downed drinks with the Wall Streeters? 

We arrived at the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall to learn that Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State, had earlier made a short visit to the lobby, but not the B.C. pavilion. It was a career milestone for the honorary IOC member, who was instrumental under U.S. President Richard Nixon for opening relations with China and then-leader Mao Zedong in the early 1970s. I never did find out whether Kissinger visited Mao’s mausoleum across the street at Tiananmen Square. 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn’t go. Predecessor Paul Martin skipped the opening of the 2004 Games in Athens; he was in Whitehorse, Yukon, instead. David Emerson, the Foreign minister known for crossing the floor from the Liberals to Conservatives, was at the B.C. government reception. Relations with China were improving, though the countries agreed to disagree on human rights. Emerson wasn’t about to say anything as newsworthy as U.S. President George Bush had already said. 

The scene inside the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics (Mackin).

“We’re no shrinking violet on that issue, but we don’t choose to use the Olympics as the venue to make the point,” said Emerson, who led a delegation that included federal sport secretary Helena Guergis. 

The People’s Liberation Army was stationed throughout the capital, never far from any of the venues.  Later in the Games, the PLA mysteriously parked a tank next to the north entrance of the Main Press Centre. Games organizers said they didn’t know why it was there, which was hard to believe because the Games was organized by an arm of the government. Was it a show of force or a show of farce? The vehicle became a popular meeting point for reporters, near a designated pin-trading zone outside the gate. 

I saw one reporter stand in front of it, attempting to recreate that iconic tank man moment from the Tiananmen Square Massacre of June 4, 1989. 

I will never know if the uniformed local volunteers were perplexed, because they didn’t know what it meant. Or if they were too scared to admit they did, because they were under the constant gaze of surveillance cameras. 

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Bob Mackin In hindsight, the first sign that

The Non-Partisan Association, Vancouver’s oldest political party, has finally settled on a city council slate.

Six newcomers were chosen behind closed doors by the party board and mayoral hopeful Ken Sim. 

Among them is Colleen Hardwick, a former Hollywood North film producer who founded PlaceSpeak.com, a digital platform to consult citizens.

She is putting her name forward for the second time, in the ultimate civic consultation: the October 20 Vancouver election. Hardwick fell 3,310 votes short of winning a seat on council for the NPA in 2005. 

You might say it is in her genes. Hardwick is the daughter of Walter Hardwick, the late University of B.C. geography professor and 1969 to 1974 city councillor with TEAM. 

In an interview with host Bob Mackin, she said the next government at 12th and Cambie needs to press pause and review where the city is, both  financially and socially. City hall needs to go back to basics and focus on its chief responsibilities, land use and taxation of the 115 square kilometres that lie west of Boundary Road.  

“Are we happy with the city as it has evolved over the last decade?” she asked. “You talk to the people who are lifelong Vancouverites, they feel they are not at home in their own hometown anymore. Simliarly, you talk to people that are new to the city, they feel alienated and disconnected.” 

Listen to the entire interview, the first of several with candidates from across the spectrum. 

Also: commentaries and headlines from around the Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest.

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The Non-Partisan Association, Vancouver’s oldest political party,

Sweden’s Unique Pyrotechnics lit up English Bay on Aug. 1, during the second of three nights in the 2018 Honda Celebration of Light. 

theBreakerVision was in Kitsilano Point to record the sights and sounds of Team Sweden’s display. 

South Korea ends this year’s festival, Vancouver’s biggest annual event, with a bang on Aug. 4. 

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Sweden's Unique Pyrotechnics lit up English Bay

Bob Mackin

A consultant’s report on the $3.3 billion Port Mann Bridge/Highway 1 project released with no fanfare said the final cost could have been nearly a third of a billion dollars higher. 

But the province got lucky. 

The Port Mann Bridge/Highway 1 Construction Review Summary Report said the total increase on the final cost of $323.78 million was “largely offset by a $50 million favourable variance in property acquisition costs and a $270 million favourable variance in interest costs.”

The 210-page report, obtained by theBreaker under the freedom of information law, was prepared for the Ministry of Finance by former B.C. government bureaucrat Peter Mills of Perrin, Thorau and Associates Public Policy Consultancy and civil engineer Charles Dwyer of AECOM Technical Services.

Mills, who has degrees in mineral engineering and economics, has been a Perrin, Thorau partner since 1999 and worked on launching the BC Liberal government’s carbon tax and Pacific Carbon Trust. Since 1999, the B.C. government has paid Perrin, Thorau $5.4 million. In April, Finance Minister Carole James announced the consultancy would review the operations of both the Real Estate Council of B.C. and Office of the Superintendent of Real Estate. 

Port Mann Bridge (TI Corp.)

Then-Premier Christy Clark opened the bridge in late 2012, almost $600 million over the original fixed-price contract with Kiewit-Flatiron. CBC reported last September that the BC Liberal government apparently overpaid for the project that was riddled with weak oversight of invoicing and scheduling. A key expert, Gary Webster, became a partner with a major BC Liberal donor firm that was involved in both the management and auditing of the project.

NDP Transport Minister Claire Trevena ordered a review, but she did not refer it to the Office of the Auditor General, as many had expected, or call a public inquiry, as the Green Party had wanted. Instead, Mills and his oft-contracted consultancy were hired to conduct a review.

The report said Kiewit-Flatiron’s initial fixed-price, design-build contract was worth $2.46 billion. After GST and HST recoveries were processed, Kiewit-Flatiron received $2.691 billion from Crown bridge agency TI Corp.. A chart in the Perrin, Thorau report said the final project cost was $3.367 billion, a $48 million increase on the 2009 approved budget. 

The report said the $64 million management reserve was insufficient, because the design-build agreement cost an extra $293 million and there was another $35 million in contracts with other construction companies. 

“Had interest rates not dropped as they did between 2009 and 2013, TI Corp. would have had to return to Treasury Board to seek authority to spend as much as an additional $260 million on the PMH1 Project,” the report said.

From the Summary Report on the PMH1 Project (BC Gov)

The consultant found “for the most part,” the execution of the project was conducted appropriately, but pinpointed two areas that were not best practices. 

During construction, the province was “unable to fully and critically analyze the schedule and cost submissions made by the constructor as they worked together to resolve problems.”

The report also said the province used an inferior approach to payments by calculating progress payments due to Kiewit-Flatiron by overseeing the entry of Kiewit-Flatiron costs into the project accounting system. The consultants said Kiewit-Flatiron was paid sooner in some cases, but it was not paid more than it was due. 

The report said there were $322 million of changes to the project. The biggest, $99 million, was for central segment acceleration. 

“Throughout its handling of these changes, we observed that the province was not able to analyze the schedule and cost submissions made by Kiewit-Flatiron to their full depth, nor were they able to counter Kiewit-Flatiron’s proposals with cost proposals of their own that were sufficiently fulsome to be worth of Kiewit-Flatiron’s attention.”

The province, the report said, “failed” to supply the quality and quantity of gravel that it hoped that it could, when it agreed to take on the supply from its own gravel pits. The province ended-up subsidizing the cost of gravel in the project.

The report said the $1 million contract to KPMG for business advisory services from 2002 to 2005 grew to $21 million by May 2015, because of a “chain of amendments and subsequent agreements, all flowing from the initial award and all awarded without competition.” 

KPMG was a major donor to the BC Liberal Party of more than $371,000, before the NDP government banned corporate donations in 2017. 

“There was also a lack of specificity in the deliverables expected from KPMG that limited the province’s ability to control costs under the KPMG contract.”

The firm was paid an average $750,000 per year from 2003 to 2009 for business advice. 

“In late 2009, the individual who was the owner’s representative for the PMH1 Project [Gary Webster] left their previous employer, CH2MHill, and joined KPMG. He was allowed to continue in his role as owner’s representative.”

KPMG’s Gary Webster (KPMG)

The report called Webster’s involvement a “good decision” because of his knowledge of the project and the contractor. However, the report called the transfer of the role “irregular,” because it included field audit and other responsibilities, the CH2MHill contract scope and value were not reduced consistent with the transfer, and KPMG was not pre-qualified for the same engineering services as CH2MHill. It said the arrangement “exposed the province to protest from fims that were prequalified through the procurement process.” 

The contract was replaced when it was assigned by the ministry to PartnershipsBC in 2004. “The replacement contract had, in our opinion, a perfunctory definition of scope and no deliverables.”

Dermod Travis of IntegrityBC has been watching the Port Mann scandal unfold for years. He said the report is a “mile wide and an inch deep.” He said just because the Port Mann was built and opened in 2012 doesn’t mean that British Columbians should not be concerned today.

“The same group of people, the same firms, all said Site C, $8.8 billion,” he said, referring to the BC Hydro dam that is now estimated to cost $10.7 billion and scheduled to be operating in six years.

Travis said it is clear to him that the government wanted to bury the report, which raises additional concerns.

“They may not have wanted to answer questions as to who chose this firm to conduct this review, who was interviewed in this review, who was cross examined, who was put on the hot seat to defend decisions made on the cost overruns, to a whole series of relationships that, at best, can be described as significant conflicts of interest,” Travis said in an interview. 

“One of the key steps that any firm mandated to conduct a review would automatically take, if you want to get to the bottom of it, is to find out who the whistleblowers are and talk to them. They didn’t. That demonstrates to me they wanted to satisfy the public as best as they could without going further.”

Perrin, Thorau and Associates was given a six-point terms of reference to consider project governance, oversight, budgetary control and due diligence from award to completion, whether TI Corp. followed government procurement rules, what led to the project acceleration and whether the flow of funds to the contractor was well-managed. 

A disclaimer said Perrin, Thorau did not conduct an audit, but instead relied on provincial offices to “provide us with their stories and sought documents to support those stories.” The consultant compared it with similar projects throughout North America and examined a sample of documents prepared by Kiewit-Flatiron, KPMG and other consultants hired by the province.  

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FIN-2018-82684-theBreaker.news.pdf by BobMackin on Scribd

Bob Mackin A consultant's report on the $3.3

Bob Mackin

The rookie Vancouver city councillor running for mayor was secretly fined $2,000 in February for breaking the Lobbyists Registration Act after failing to declare he had worked as an aide to powerful figures in the BC Liberal government. 

But the fine and the ruling were both overturned July 31 on a technicality. 

In a Feb. 13 report, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists’ investigator Tim Mots cited Hector Bremner for failing to disclose he had worked as an assistant to three cabinet ministers, including Deputy Premier, Natural Gas and Housing minister Rich Coleman, when he registered in February 2015 to represent Steelhead LNG. The investigation stemmed from a complaint by Glen Chernen, who lost to Ken Sim in the race for the NPA mayoral candidacy.

But, because Bremner asked for a reconsideration within the 30-day window, the ruling was not published until the reconsideration decision was made on July 31 by Registrar Michael McEvoy. 

Bremner and wife Virginia Grespan (far left) at a BC Liberal event in New Westminster with Rich Coleman (upper right).

McEvoy overturned Mots’s findings and ruled that Bremner did not need to disclose his previous job in government after all. 

McEvoy’s ruling said that that, apart from administrative staff, anyone formerly employed in the office of a former member of cabinet must declare being a former public office holder. 

“The meaning is clear. An individual who seeks to lobby, and who worked for a cabinet minister still in office, does not have to declare past government connections in the Lobbyists Registry,” McEvoy wrote. “An individual seeking to lobby, and who worked for a cabinet minister still in office, does not have to declare past government connections in the Lobbyists Registry.”

“This seems an odd result, given the fact that the consultant lobbyist was, at one point, registered as a lobbyist while working as an executive assistant,” McEvoy continued. “The Legislature may not have intended this result or this outcome. Perhaps the Legislature erred in using the word ‘former,’ but it is not my proper role, as a statutory decision-maker, to ignore the Legislature’s clear and unambiguous choice of language.”

McEvoy took the extraordinary step of writing an open letter to Attorney General David Eby, asking for the loophole to be closed. In the letter, he wrote that the outcome of the Bremner case was among several that “represent the very mischief the legislation was designed to eliminate; i.e. the potential for undue influence and the use of insider knowledge in lobbying.”

A statement by Eby said the Bremner decision “will have immediate and negative consequences for the regulation of lobbying activities in B.C.” 

The NDP enacted a new two-year ban on lobbying for former senior government officials and staff and is planning to table more reforms in the fall session of the Legislature. 

“I have instructed Ministry of Attorney General staff to include in those reforms an amendment to correct this long-standing drafting error and to conduct a comprehensive review to ensure the integrity of this important legislation,” Eby said.

Bremner was elected to city council with the NPA last October, but has remained as a vice-president at the lobbying and public relations firm Pace Group. The NPA board rejected his application to run for the party’s mayoral nomination due, in part, to his continued work for Pace. Two citizens also made formal complaints to Vancouver city hall, alleging that Bremner was in conflict of interest as a city councillor. An investigator was appointed to probe the complaints. 

In July, Bremner announced his new civic party, called Yes Vancouver. He has not responded for immediate comment. 

It is worth noting that McEvoy’s ruling stated, at line 23, that Bremner was “at one point, registered as a lobbyist while working as an executive assistant.” 

Before last fall’s by-election, theBreaker asked Bremner about a version of his LinkedIn resume that said he had worked from June 2013 to December 2015 in the BC Liberal government and that he started at the Pace Group in February 2015. At the time, Bremner said he had left the government in January 2015 and started at Pace the next month. He said he was “shocked” by what he called a “minor mistake” on LinkedIn. 

Update (Aug. 2): McEvoy contacted theBreaker to say that line 23 of his report had been removed and a new version published. He said Bremner’s order in council had not been rescinded by cabinet. His office contacted the Public Service Agency, following a query from theBreaker, and learned that Bremner’s government employment ended Jan. 31, 2015.

Bremner’s undertaking to lobby Finance Minister Mike de Jong and his staff for Steelhead LNG began Feb. 9, 2015, according to his Feb. 19, 2015 registration with the ORL.

In Mots’s report, he noted that Bremner claimed his non-disclosure as a former public office holder was a mistake made with no intention to mislead. Bremner pleaded for leniency because he claimed to be unaware of the law and believed the two-year-old matter should be considered minor or trivial by the lobbying regulator. 

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Bob Mackin The rookie Vancouver city councillor running

Bob Mackin

Almost two months after franchising entrepreneur Ken Sim was elected the NPA’s mayoral candidate for the Oct. 20 civic election, his team is taking shape behind closed doors. 

We know that Coun. Melissa de Genova is seeking another term and that Coun. Elizabeth Ball is on the fence. Park Board commissioner Sarah Kirby-Yung hopes to make the jump to city council. John Coupar, who tried to beat Kim in the leadership race, is stuck vying for another term on Park Board. School board by-election winner Lisa Dominato wants a city council seat. 

Who are the new faces that lined up to get the NPA board’s nod for a council run? 

Rebecca Bligh (LinkedIn)

Sources tell theBreaker to watch out for these names. 

East Vancouver Conservative and ex-paralegal Jojo Quimpo and Fraser Valley import/public relations exec Justin Goodrich. 

Ex-Coast Capital Savings COO Kathy McGarrigle. 

Absolute Energy co-founder David Grewal. 

PlaceSpeak.com founder and former Hollywood North producer Colleen Hardwick. Her late geography professor father Walter co-founded The Electors Action Movement and sat on city council from 1969 to 1974.

And, finally, Rebecca Bligh. A self-described “vision and goals coach” whose consultancy Blackpiin (yes, with the extra vowel) counts Sim mentor Chip Wilson’s Kit + Ace and Sim’s Rosemary Rocksalt Bagels as clients. 

NPA-supporting toy store. Arrr. (Mackin)

For a party with a history of infighting (hello, Sam Sullivan, Peter Ladner and Hector Bremner), Bligh’s name would be an ironic addition to the ticket.

Capt. William Bligh helmed the HMS Bounty in 1789 until the famous mutiny. NPA president Greg Baker runs a computer store next to a toy store where the awning reads “No Pirates Allowed.” 

Speaking of infighting. You won’t find a couple of 2014 council hopefuls on the 2018 NPA ticket. 

Rob McDowell, who scored almost 53,965 votes, wanted to run again for the NPA. Late July 30, he Tweeted that he would run as an independent: “After reflection, I’ve decided to run for Vancouver City Council as an independent. Working on the city’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee the past 4 years, following Council closely for 7, my background in diplomacy tells me we need strong independent voices. More to come.”

Ken Low had 54,971 for the NPA in 2014. He, too, didn’t make the cut. 

The 2018 election is crucial for the history of Vancouver’s oldest party. NPA lost its majority and the mayoralty in 2008 to Vision Vancouver and Gregor Robertson. Robertson is not running for a fourth term and only one Vision incumbent, Heather Deal, will be on that party’s council ticket. 

More to come.

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Bob Mackin Almost two months after franchising entrepreneur

Bob Mackin

The North Vancouver townhouse owner embroiled in a dispute with her strata council and civic officials for operating an illegal hostel is also active in the Liberal Party of Canada. 

North Vancouver riding association chair Derrick Johnstone confirmed that Emily Yu is a member and the party is considering what, if anything, to do. 

“We are aware of the strata’s concerns and are consulting the B.C. office of the Liberal Party of Canada for guidance with respect to the rules pertaining to membership within an Electoral District Association,” Johnstone said. “That is all I am in a position to say at this time.”

North Vancouver townhouse hosteler Emily Yu (LinkedIn)

In May, Yu became a volunteer policy chair for the riding association and attended a donor appreciation event hosted by Navdeep Bains, the Innovation, Science and Economic Development minister, at the Eaglequest Coyote Creek Golf Club in Surrey.

She told theBreaker that Johnstone gave her an opportunity to resign, but she rejected the offer. “[The strata council dispute] has nothing to do with my political life,” she said.

Nobody from the office of Fisheries and Oceans minister Jonathan Wilkinson, the North Vancouver Liberal MP, has responded to theBreaker.

According to City of North Vancouver estimates from 2016, Yu’s $804,600, three-bedroom townhouse in The Beeches complex near North Vancouver city hall grosses an estimated $71,000 to $213,000 a year, not including cleaning revenue. In 2017, bylaw officers ordered her to cease and desist offering tourist accommodation. 

“Normally, the city is not concerned with a resident’s revenue,” said a report to city council from bylaw manager Guy Gusdal from March 2016. “However, in this situation staff raise the revenue issue because the revenue being generated at the expense of the quality of life of the other residents in Ms. Yu’s townhouse complex and at the expense of the safety of the public staying in her townhouse.” 

The Civil Resolution Tribunal agreed with the strata council in a decision last September. The tribunal’s vice-chair Shelley Lopez ordered Yu to pay more than $6,000 in fines, comply with the strata bylaws and stop operating her townhouse as an AirBnB unit or for any other short-term rental scheme under six months. 

Yu denies she has broken any law with her Oasis Hostel. “I offered this service 11 years before the strata changed the rule [in 2016]. According to the grandfathering clause, I am entitled to continue to do what I do and it is unreasonable for the strata to ask a fine from me.”

Yu’s LinkedIn profile says she was a financial advisor with CF Canada Financial Group from May 2011 to May 2012. 

Yu worked with Portfolio Strategies Corporation from 2012 to 2015 and is facing a public hearing with the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada, Nov. 12-14 at the B.C. Securities Commission. MFDA opened disciplinary proceedings against Yu over allegations of unauthorized discretionary trading and pre-signed account forms, falsifying client initials and signature, and making a false statement to the MFDA. Yu denies the allegations. 

“After the hearing is finished, my previous employer will owe me lots of money,” Yu said. “They accused me, they stole my business, they stole my commission.”

The hearing notice says Yu was registered in Alberta from April 2012 to December 2012 and in B.C. from April 2012 to December 2015, but worked in Vancouver.

The MFDA panel can issue a reprimand, suspend, revoke or prohibit someone from conducting securities-related business or issue fines. 

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Bob Mackin The North Vancouver townhouse owner embroiled

You could call it a NAFTA success story.

On July 22, Canada beat host Mexico 13-7 to win the world junior championship of American football in Mexico City’s Olympic Stadium, before almost 33,000 people.

Bowen Island, B.C. broadcaster Jim Mullin was there. 

Mullin is the voice of university and amateur football in Canada and called the play-by-play for Krown Countdown U on CBCSports.ca.

Football is a game in flux, dealing with challenges like demographic shifts in major cities and brain injuries suffered by players past and present. The game does have a future on the international scene, where the International Federation of American Football oversees four-down and flag tournaments. In a feature interview with host Bob Mackin, Mullin talks about gridiron in Mexico. 

Also: commentaries and headlines from around the Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest.

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You could call it a NAFTA success

Bob Mackin

The NDP and Vision Vancouver consulting firm behind the failed TransLink tax plebiscite is involved in the Yes campaign for this fall’s proportional representation referendum.

But nobody from Strategic Communications or Vote PR BC wanted to talk about it.

Stratcom boss Bob Penner and a Vision campaign sign (Penner)

Vote PR BC is receiving $500,000 in public funds from Elections BC for the campaign. It can raise up to $200,000 more in donations from individuals. Spending is capped at $700,000. The same subsidy and same rules apply to the No B.C. Proportional Representation Society.

The robocall, telephone town hall and polling specialist that is also known as Stratcom was paid $1,056,153 by TransLink for voter contact on the losing Yes campaign in the transit expansion plebiscite in 2015.

Last week, a robocall survey about proportional representation was conducted by a company calling itself Strategic Research, aka Stratresearch. Nobody from the toll-free hotline or email address on the robocall recording or Stratresearch website responded to theBreaker.

Stratcom CEO Bob Penner did not respond to an interview request. theBreaker asked Stratcom president Matt Smith about his company’s involvement in the Vote PR BC campaign and whether Stratresearch is owned by or otherwise affiliated with Stratcom.

A Stratcom toll-free number is recycled by the Yes campaign in the B.C. proportional representation referendum.

“We don’t comment publicly on our work,” said an email from Smith, who is based at the Toronto Stratcom office.

The phone number listed on the privacy page of Vote PR BC’s website was previously used by Stratcom when it conducted a vote for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union in early 2017. 

theBreaker also wanted to know who commissioned the Stratresearch robocall survey.

Vote PR BC’s Maria Dobrinskaya and Lesli Boldt did not respond to questions about the survey or Vote PR BC’s relationship with Stratcom and Stratresearch.

Dobrinskaya and Boldt are veterans of Vision Vancouver and NDP campaigns. The Boldt Communications office was once co-located with Stratcom and Vision Vancouver in a building owned by Lululemon founder Chip Wilson.

Antony Hodgson is the president of the Make Every Vote Count Society and Fair Voting BC. The University of B.C. professor responded, but did not deny his campaign’s use of Stratcom or that it commissioned the survey by Stratresearch.

“We are using the services of a number of firms and contractors over the course of the campaign – from designers to Internet service providers,” Hodgson wrote in an email. “As a matter of course, we don’t make a practice of talking about the mechanics of our campaign, though, of course, we will be filing all required documents and disclosures in due course.”

Make Every Vote Count’s Dobrinskaya (left), Boldt and Hodgson (Twitter)

Hodgson did not respond to follow-up questions. Fair Voting BC’s website states the group supports “improvements in operating practices of elected bodies aimed at making government more representative, inclusive, transparent and accountable…”

Stratcom is on the NDP government’s preferred suppliers’ list for polling assignments. Robb Gibbs, the assistant deputy minister of government communications, denied his office commissioned the survey by Stratresearch.

Stratcom’s early investors included Vision Vancouver bagman Joel Solomon and Working Enterprises. 

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission fined Stratcom $10,000 in 2013 after the company made unsolicited phone calls using an auto-dialling device in January 2012 without providing the name and address of the person on whose behalf the call was made in the messages.

During the 2015 federal election, The Province found Stratcom was paying Punjabi-speakers $13-an-hour to make phone calls on behalf of the NDP, instead of the $17 rate offered to English speaking applicants. After the newspaper found out, Penner pledged to pay the Punjabi speakers the same rate as English speakers. 

Coincidentally, NDP-aligned lobbyist Bill Tieleman rents office space from Stratcom. Tieleman, one of the three co-founders of the No B.C. Proportional Representation Society, told theBreaker that the No campaign is looking for office space for the fall. 

“Strategic Communications has absolutely nothing to do with our No campaign, directly or indirectly, nor its subsidiaries, goods or services, nor from any employee or contractor of the firm,” Tieleman said. 

The referendum campaign period began July 1. Mail-in voting on whether to change from first-past-the-post provincial elections in B.C. runs from Oct. 22 to Nov. 30.

  • Click the player below to listen to the Stratresearch robocall survey. 

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Bob Mackin The NDP and Vision Vancouver consulting