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Bob Mackin

You won’t believe your eyes! 

Driver Carolus Chow certainly couldn’t believe his. 

Before 11:30 a.m. on April 25, he was driving on Lougheed Highway in Burnaby when he witnessed two westbound drivers deliberately run red lights — one of them did it at two intersections in a row. 

The dangerous acts were captured on a dashcam.

Drivers of a Toyota and Hyundai both failed to wait for the green light at Rosser. The Hyundai driver did the same at the Madison intersection. 

ICBC says running a red light at an intersection is a $167 fine plus two penalty points. 

If you see a red light runner, call the local police. 

Then send your dashcam footage to theBreaker.news

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Bob Mackin You won’t believe your eyes!  Driver Carolus

Bob Mackin

British Columbia’s Passenger Transportation Branch ordered the owners and drivers of 14 vehicles that were listed on a black market ride-hailing app to stop charging passengers for rides or face fines up to $5,000. 

None of the 14 was fined. Several ignored the cease and desist letters and no further action was taken, according to documents released to theBreaker under freedom of information.

Late last August, PTB sent registered mail letters, signed by registrar Kristin Vanderkuip, that threatened prosecution under section 23 of the Passenger Transportation Act. The law states that commercial passenger vehicles may only be operated by a person with a valid licence to do so. Penalties range from $1,000 to $5,000 for anyone operating a black market taxi or limo service.

Several BMWs were available to pick-up RaccoonGo app users, according to an investigation.

The letters were a result of an investigation during late-April to mid-May 2017 by a PTB inspector who found a variety of vehicles, some of them luxury imports, available for hire in Richmond on the RaccoonGo app, which is designed for Chinese drivers and passengers. RaccoonGo is one of seven companies that the PTB is aware of which compete in a black market while industry leaders Uber and Lyft lobby for ride-hailing to be legalized in B.C. The government targeted drivers, not the apps, because driving is regulated and the technology is not.

Five of the cars were BMW models, including a 2016 BMW 328i, and one was a 2017 Audi A4. 

In only one case of the 14 did police intervene. The owner of a 2014 BMW 435i received the order by registered mail on Aug. 30. The incident report shows that PTB inspector Douglas Pickering called the Coquitlam RCMP on Oct. 17. On the same day, Mounties served a four-month prohibition against driving from the superintendent of motor vehicles, for an unspecified unsatisfactory driving record.

A prepared statement sent to theBreaker by Danielle Pope, a representative of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, said the aim is information before enforcement. 

“We are confident that the information in the cease and desist orders regarding fines for operating without a licence as well as the information in the public advisories are a sufficient deterrent,” the statement said. “However, as this is an ongoing investigation we are unable to provide further comment related to enforcement actions.”  

A driver of a Toyota Corolla, whose car was listed on the app May 2, admitted in an Aug. 30 email that he had been on the RaccoonGo service, but was no longer. “I’m not using and I will not use my vehicle to work for RaccoonGo, and I have nothing to do with this company,” the driver wrote. 

A 2013 BMW X3 owner replied Sept. 12 in these five words, without disputing the PTB notice: “I got this letter, thanks.” 

Letters were sent to the lease companies for a 2017 Honda Accord and Mazda 3. PTB eventually received emails from drivers claiming: “I lent this car to someone else. But now I understand the Act, will comply with it.” 

A 2015 Porsche Cayenne lessor told PTB that the lessee denied operating the vehicle for commercial passengers and asked for proof on Aug. 30. A Sept. 10 handwritten letter of consent said: “I (name censored) can assure that the vehicle has not been used for commercial purpose recently; In response to the Passenger Transportation Act. I clearly understand and agree to comply with the Act with my earnest cooperation.” 

A 2012 BMW X5 owner claimed in a phone call with PTB that it was a mistake, that “somebody hacked his app.” 

A letter was sent to the lessor of a 2016 BMW 328i spotted April 26, but the letter was returned to sender. A registered letter to a 2016 Mazda 3 owner was signed for by the subject on Aug. 30, but no reply was received by PTB. The letter to the lessee of a Jeep Wrangler sent Sept. 19 was returned to sender. 

Passenger Transportation Branch registrar Kristin Vanderkuip (BC Gov)

The 2017 Audi A4 and 2014 Infiniti Q4 owners denied the violations. The owner of a 1997 Lexus ES300 replied by email on Sept. 2: “I want to clarify that my vehicle is only for family uses. Mainly for driving to work and shopping. Sometimes for my wife and son. So I don’t understand why I received that letter.” 

At the end of January, the government said over 20 cease and desist orders had been issued and 23 fines of $1,150 were levied against drivers operating without a licence. It warned that unlicensed ride hailing vehicles operate without government-approved safety checks, insurance for paying passengers and the drivers aren’t vetted by police. 

Lawyer Paul Doroshenko said the lax enforcement is a legacy of the previous BC Liberal government, which didn’t adequately fund or direct staff and officers to uphold laws. 

“Looking back at the last five years of the BC Liberal regime, it just seemed like the attorney general’s office and the solicitor general’s office might as well have been vacant, because nothing seems to have happened,” Doroshenko said. “It was like they were coming in for coffee or something.”

He noted the timing of the investigation was during and shortly after the election, when the government was operating in caretaker mode without oversight from politicians. 

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TRA 2018 81667 PTB TheBreaker by BobMackin on Scribd

Bob Mackin British Columbia’s Passenger Transportation Branch ordered

Bob Mackin

The two principals of the Victoria company linked to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica privacy breach scandal finally broke their silence on April 24. 

Zackary Massingham and Jeff Silvester might be wishing they stayed home, after several Members of Parliament accused them of being dishonest about various aspects of their company, AggregateIQ.  

AIQ’s roles in the Brexit campaign in 2016 and U.S. Presidential campaign in 2017 are under investigation by privacy authorities in Canada and the United Kingdom. In his opening statement, Massingham described AIQ as “an online advertising website and software development company” and Silvester likened it to the digital version of burma shaving for political candidates. 

Jeff Silvester (left) and Zackary Massingham during April 24 testimony at the House of Commons in Ottawa (ParlVu)

“We are not a big data company, we are not a data analytics company, we do not harvest or otherwise illegally obtain data,” Silvester said. “We never share information from one client to another, and we are not a practitioner of the so-called digital dark arts.”

Massingham and Silvester denied their company was a subsidiary of Cambridge Analytica or SCL Group, but members of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics didn’t buy it.

“I just would say, as the chair of this committee, I know we’re all saying the same thing and we’re all concerned: something doesn’t smell right here,” concluded chair Bob Zimmer (Conservative, Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies). “I would challenge AIQ to do the right thing.”

One by one, MPs took turns challenging AIQ’s credibility and doubting the sincerity of Massingham and Silvester. 

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Liberal, Beaches-East York) said he had just received a text message from Damian Collins, a member of a similar parliamentary committee in the U.K., who contradicted Silvester’s claims that the company is cooperating with the Information Commissioner’s Office in the U.K.

Collins’s text message quoted commissioner Elizabeth Denham, who said AIQ had refused to answer her questions. 

Silvester claimed that Denham wrote a letter to AIQ last May and they replied the next week, but didn’t hear from her again until the end of January this year. 

Said Frank Baylis (Liberal, Pierrefonds-Dollard): “You have purposely misled us, Mr. Silvester, you have just purposely misled us to the point that someone would contact us during your questioning, and say you refused. You did not say you refused. [Denham] said you refused.” 

“We answered the questions the best we could do,” Silvester said. “And that’s all we can do. Each time we’ve responded.” 

NDP’s Charlie Angus (NDP, Timmins—James Bay) challenged them to be transparent, because they were protected by parliamentary privilege. 

“You can’t be sued for what you say, Mr. Massingham, they can’t use it against you in court,” Angus said. “So I’m not sure why you expect us to believe that all these people are making stuff up about you when you could just explain to us why you were set up with SCL and what your direct role is with SCL and Cambridge Analytica. The idea that this is all a series of isolated companies that had nothing to do with each other, you didn’t know each other, but you just happened to be working on all the same projects and you were listed as SCL Canada. Why are you taking the fall for these guys?” 

“I can’t speak to what marketing materials they’ve put our or what they do with my contact information,” Massingham said. “But I can tell you we are not part of SCL or Cambridge Analytica.”

Christopher Wylie testifying to a U.K. Parliamentary committee on March 27.

Whistleblower Christopher Wylie, also from Victoria, called AIQ a Cambridge Analytica franchise when he testified March 27 in London. Wylie and Silvester had worked in the Liberal Party of Canada. Massingham’s past includes work on BC Liberal Mike de Jong’s first failed attempt at the leadership. Wylie alleged that AIQ was a “proxy money laundering vehicle” for the Vote Leave campaign in 2016. 

On the latter point, Erskine-Smith asked Silvester if he found it strange that AIQ received £625,000 from Vote Leave to spend on behalf of the Beleave group during the referendum on the U.K.’s membership in the European Union. 

“Did you not think that was strange in the context that if they spent it on behalf of Vote Leave themselves they would have gone over the [legal] limit. Did this not raise any flags for you at the time?” 

Replied Silvester: “When they asked us to do the work we sent an invoice to Beleave, then they let us know it was going to be paid by Vote Leave. We then that was odd to us that Vote Leave was making a donation.”

Zimmer asked the last question, where AIQ had ever been “part of or involved in coordinating or organizing multiple clients’ ads for the same or similar campaign, yes or no?”

Silvester replied “No, I don’t believe so.” 

In the months before the scandal erupted, AIQ had been involved in the unsuccessful Todd Stone campaign for leadership of the BC Liberals. The Tyee also reported that AIQ worked on three BC Liberal riding campaigns for the May 2017 election, after a contract with the BC Greens in 2016.

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Bob Mackin The two principals of the Victoria

Bob Mackin

West Vancouver’s Yihao Wang will be sentenced May 10 in North Vancouver Provincial Court after pleading guilty April 24 to driving a supercar 150 kilometres-an-hour above the speed limit last summer. 

Wang’s lawyer, David Baker, asked the court for a Mandarin interpreter to be present for the sentencing. Wang had no problem understanding when Baker asked where his vehicle was outside the courthouse.

Wang had just emerged from the lobby wearing a black baseball cap, sunglasses and surgical mask. He strode briskly, in a pair of $1,000 Salvatore Ferragamo velvet gold-monogrammed loafers, to a parked white Porsche SUV after ignoring questions from reporters. Wang occupied the passenger seat, while another man, wearing a similar surgical mask, got behind the steering wheel. 

Ferrari supercar impounded July 4 (WVPD)

West Vancouver Police impounded Wang’s $300,000, 2015 Ferrari 458 on July 4, 2017, after he flew across the Lions Gate Bridge at 210 km-h. The posted speed limit is 60 km-h. He was banned from driving for 16 months. 

Outside the courthouse, Baker called that “the sentence prior to the verdict.” He said the guilty plea to avoid the trial “is favourable to my client and meets the Crown’s needs.” 

“He’s very sorry for what occurred, he regrets it, he’s been taken off the road for 16 months which is a significant penalty already and he’s taken responsibility by entering a plea today,” Baker told reporters. “Many other young people get tickets for speeding and they continue to speed. I expect now that he’s been sanctioned in this way, he’ll slow down significantly.”

Court files show that Wang, born in 1994, was found guilty of failing to produce a driver’s licence or insurance in 2013 and 2015. He did not dispute speeding tickets in 2015, 2016 and 2017, and was ticketed for using an electronic device while driving in 2017. In April 2017, Wang was caught driving 126 km-h over the same bridge behind the wheel of a Mercedes Benz CLS66. 

Fuerdai is the Mandarin term for “rich second generation” and Wang has all the trappings of being the scion of wealth. The Ferrari driver lives in a British Properties mansion that was assessed at $6.29 million and registered to Xinghui Wang. Yet, Baker refused to say whether Wang is a student or has a job. He would not comment on the source of Wang’s funds or whether he was returning from a casino when cops nabbed him. He said that Wang’s family is involved in a legitimate business, but declined to provide details.  

Yihao Wang (left) (Mackin)

“I have no idea where he was coming back from [on July 4], this case has absolutely nothing to do with casinos and money laundering,” he said. “This case is about a young person who drove too fast.” 

Const. Jeff Palmer said that West Vancouver Police have impounded 96 vehicles for excessive speed in 2018 so far, compared to 46 for the same period in 2017. Palmer said the increase is partly due to staffing, because traffic officers who were recovering from on-duty injuries in 2017 are back on the job with a similar shift rotation to patrol members. 

Only 11 of the drivers whose cars have been impounded in 2018 are West Vancouver residents, Palmer said. Approximately 60% of impounds were for excessive speed on the Upper Levels Highway, 30% on Cypress Bowl Road and only two so far on the Lions Gate Bridge. Of the 96 drivers, 77 were male, ranging from 19 to 55. 

The highest alleged speed this year is 187 km-h in a 90 km-h zone.

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Bob Mackin West Vancouver’s Yihao Wang will

Bob Mackin 

The much-anticipated expert report into money laundering at Lower Mainland casinos may not be published until the end of May. 

So said Attorney General David Eby in an April 20 interview with theBreaker.

Eby received University of British Columbia law professor Peter German’s 250-page, 48-recommendation document at the end of March, which he called a “comprehensive report about the history of the issue in British Columbia casinos.”

“I’m hopeful to have it out by the end of the [spring] session; we’re doing some due diligence to make sure we’re not going to interfere with any law enforcement investigations by publicly releasing it and that we’re not unintentionally releasing anyone’s private information,” Eby said. “The goal is to get it out to the public as quickly as possible because that’s why we commissioned the report in the first place.”

B.C. Attorney General Eby in Ottawa, March 27. (ParlVu)

The spring session of the Legislature is scheduled to end May 31.

Eby appointed German late last September after releasing a 2016 consultant’s report that had been suppressed by the previous BC Liberal government. The MNP report said gamblers from China used underground banks to bring large volumes of potentially dirty money to play at River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, the flagship of Great Canadian Gaming Corp.

theBreaker was first to report that criminology professor John Langdale warned an Australian police intelligence conference last November about the “Vancouver model” of money laundering. Langdale told the conference that the “Vancouver model” involved transnational drug trafficking and capital flight from China that led to investment in Canadian real estate. Key to the scheme are B.C.’s Chinese sister province Guangdong, financial centre Hong Kong and gambling haven Macau.

River Rock and all other casinos in B.C. are operated in partnership with B.C. Lottery Corporation. Eby told theBreaker that the Crown corporation’s top officials have his vote of confidence.  

“If I had any reason to believe that someone had acted unlawfully or inappropriately to the extent that it compromised their ability to do their job, certainly those individuals would be removed,” Eby said. “Currently, I have total confidence in the ability of the BCLC executive to work with government in implementing the recommendations of the German report.”

BCLC CEO Jim Lightbody was the Crown corporation’s vice-president in charge of casinos from 2011 until 2014 when he was promoted to replace Mike Graydon, who quit to work for the company behind the Parq Casino beside B.C. Place Stadium. Brad Desmarais, a former senior police officer with the RCMP and Vancouver Police, joined BCLC in early 2013 as vice-president of corporate security and compliance. He took over the casino division in mid-2015. 

In the BCLC service plan released the same day as the BC Liberal government’s 2015 provincial budget, Lightbody reported: “The fastest growing segment of our revenue – high-limit table games in casinos – is heavily dependent on an international player base and is largely tied to the health of the tourism industry. The recent slowdown of international economies and currency restrictions presents risks for the growth of business.”

Great Canadian Gaming reported a 30% year-over-year increase in net revenue from table games during Chinese New Year in 2014.

theBreaker asked Eby specifically to comment on whether the jobs of Lightbody and Desmarais are safe.

Said Eby: “I’ve been working closely with the executive at BCLC throughout the German review and will continue to work closely with them as we work to implement the recommendations that he has put forward. Mr. German’s report will speak for itself, in terms of what exactly the issues were he identified in his review, and I look forward to releasing it as quickly as possible.” 

BCLC’s Jim Lightbody (left) and Brad Desmarais (LinkedIn)

According to the 2017-released compensation report, BCLC paid Lightbody $415,060 in pay and perks, while Desmarais’s package was $269,551. 

In 2007, BCLC’s board fired CEO Vic Poleschuk after a damning report by Ombudsperson Kim Carter into the unusually high rate of big lottery wins by retailers and retail employees. Carter found major gaps in BCLC prize payout procedures, lax enforcement and poor protection of consumers.

Poleschuk left with a $735,000 severance and became a consultant to Great Canadian Gaming, which hired him to run its Eastern Canada operations in 2010. Lightbody was BCLC’s vice-president of lotteries under Poleschuk. 

The BCLC board is down to four directors after the Dec. 31, 2017 expiry of appointments for BC Liberal-aligned auto dealer Moray Keith and tech entrepreneur Matthew Watson.

Chair Bud Smith, the former Social Credit attorney general, continues to serve with tech consultant Andrew Brown, ex-KPMG partner Robert Holden and hotelier Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia. Lisogar-Cocchia’s chain of Absolute Spas counts a location at River Rock. 

Eby said he asked German to make recommendations about changes to BCLC’s corporate structure, which could apply to the board. 

“I didn’t want to appoint any new board members until I had a sense about what was coming down the pipe. Now that I have an idea, we’re currently doing the work around identifying appropriate new board members who will assist us in any transition that we need to do,” Eby said. 

“My goal is to have some overlap between the current board members and incoming board members so that they can have a little bit of background about the organization and come up to speed on the current challenges at BCLC and any opportunities as well.” 

BCLC’s latest annual service plan contemplates a $55 million drop in net income for the casino division, partly due to the crackdown on casino money laundering. BCLC counted $1.34 billion in profits in fiscal 2016-2017. 

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Bob Mackin  The much-anticipated expert report into money

Calgary, the 1988 Winter Olympics host, is one of seven cities showing interest in bidding for the 2026 Games.

The International Olympic Committee will vote on the host city in September 2019. 

Last week, city council voted 9-6 against abandoning the bid. Now debate shifts to a plebiscite. 

On this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, host Bob Mackin interviews guest Tom Sindlinger of No Calgary Olympics.

Sindlinger says there must be a plebiscite, to let the people decide whether to back the bid. But it should be open to all Albertans, not just Calgarians.  

The economist and former member of Alberta’s legislature loves the Olympics, but not the five-ring circus’s massive public spending and debt. He points to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics as a cautionary tale: the British Columbia auditor general never did a final report and organizing committee board minutes and financial documents are out of the public’s reach until 2025.

Sindlinger also offers his take on Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s threat to use taxpayers’ money to buy a stake in the stalled Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. 

All that, plus regular commentaries and a look at news headlines in Cascadia and around the Pacific Rim. 

Listen by clicking below or go to iTunes and subscribe

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

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theBreaker.news Podcast: Will Canadians be stuck with bills for Alberta's pipeline and Olympics?
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Calgary, the 1988 Winter Olympics host, is

Bob Mackin

The Vision Vancouver cameraman who pretended to be a media worker during the 2014 election campaign received more than $50,000 in patronage contracts from Mayor Gregor Robertson’s office. 

The spending report for 2017, tabled at city council’s April 17 meeting, shows Mark Vonesch received two payments totalling $12,000 last year for video production. 

Mark Vonesch (left), Gregor Robertson and Justin Trudeau in 2015 (Twitter)

Vonesch was also paid $10,000 at the end of 2014, after Robertson’s re-election. He took in another $15,000 in 2015 and two more cheques totalling $14,400 in 2016.

In total, Vonesch has received $51,400 in payments from the city treasury. All of the lucre came after the 2014 civic election campaign, in which he collected footage for Vision attack ads at NPA mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe’s news conferences.  

One of his 2015 assignments was to capture Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s jubilant post-election visit to Vancouver city hall, an event that was covered by all major media outlets in the city. 

Vonesch boasted to the Vision-friendly Vancouver Observer in 2011 that he signed-up 100 volunteers to campaign for Robertson, “and a lot of them were under 35.” He heavily promoted Vision and the successful re-election campaign on his social media channels in 2014.

Vonesch is the co-founder of the Tides Canada-funded non-profit Reel Youth. Reel Youth was recently featured on CBC’s The National for helping youths near Toronto produce short documentaries about homeless seniors.

Neither Vonesch nor Robertson nor his chief of staff, Kevin Quinlan, responded for comment. 

Robertson’s staff spent more than $9,500 on communications supplies in 2017, including $3,000 on Facebook ads. City of Vancouver also has a communications department of more than 40 people, headed by Rena Kendall-Craden. She was paid $168,609 in 2017. 

Payments to Vonesch were part of the $116,451.68 that Robertson spent on consultants in 2017, up from $106,314.67 in 2016.

Claudia Kelly Li was the highest-paid consulting contractor. She invoiced for almost $50,000 as “community engagement consultant,” plus $4,500 from her Art of People company. Catherine Chan invoiced $30,000 for Chinese translation and Chinese media monitoring.

The Mayor’s Office spent $935,223.35 last year. The biggest line item, $640,479.05, was for salaries for political staff. 

Two of Robertson communication aides, Katie Robb and Sarah Zaharia, left 12th and Cambie in 2017 to join the NDP government. Zaharia’s former partner, Adrian Crook, is seeking the NPA’s nomination to run for city council on mayoral hopeful Coun. Hector Bremner’s slate. Crook volunteered for Vision during the 2014 campaign. 

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Bob Mackin The Vision Vancouver cameraman who pretended

Bob Mackin

His nickname is Mayor Moonbeam. But it really ought to be Mayor Sunwing, like the travel agency. 

Since leading Vision Vancouver to power in 2008, the tuba-playing Gregor Robertson has toured the world like a rockstar on civic business for the equivalent of almost an entire calendar year. 

Expense reports analyzed by theBreaker from 2009 (his first full year in office) through 2017 (his last full year in office) show Robertson spent 331 days traveling and visiting other cities, for a cost to taxpayers of $126,534.23. 

Robertson (2nd from left) with environment minister Catherine McKenna at a Loblaw’s promotion in Toronto. (Twitter)

Last year was Robertson’s most-expensive: 14 trips totalling 59 days at a cost of $27,554.11. The total discretionary travel expense in 2017 for the Office of the Mayor, including travel for Robertson’s aides, was $41,819.88. 

Vancouverites paid Robertson $168,055 in 2017. He traveled on civic business for almost two months during a year that deaths from opioid overdoses and the affordable housing crisis dominated headlines and caused his own supporters to turn against him. 

Robertson also billed for 59 days of travel in 2015, when he spent $22,038.85.

Six of the trips in 2017 were to advance Vision Vancouver’s green agenda, including the European Forum Alpbach in Germany ($2,057.11, Aug. 27-30) and Environmental Grantmakers Association Conference in Seattle ($739.99, Sept. 27).

Robertson has not shied away from flying to conventions around the world on polluting airliners, despite being one of Canada’s most-prominent climate change alarmists.  

theBreaker emailed Robertson, his chief of staff Kevin Quinlan and spokesman Tony Chen to ask for comment about the costs and reasons for all the non-essential travel. No one replied. 

The travel expenses report for city council was tabled at the April 17 meeting without discussion or debate. It indicates that Robertson visited Ottawa three times in the first half of the year — once to attend the Juno Awards and twice for the Big City Mayors’ Caucus.

The most-expensive trip charged to taxpayers for 2017 was $6,524.02 for Robertson’s May 3-7 junket to the New York Smart Cities Conference with Quinlan. Robertson was accompanied to Brussels by his operations director, Shea O’Neil, to the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy board meeting from June 22-28. That was more expensive at $6,690.77, but $5,918.80 was paid by a third-party that was not identified in the report to city council. 

Robertson also traveled to Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney and Chicago; he also made a second trip to New York in September.  

The China/Australia junket, which included aide Naveen Girn, cost $4,922.04. 

Vancouver’s mayor sandwiched by the ex-president and his ex-chief of staff.

Robertson’s staff did not issue a news release before he left for the September China trip, which was billed as a Vancouver Economic Commission trade mission. They only confirmed to media that he was in the Middle Kingdom on the day before his itinerary concluded in Shanghai.

The visit to China was his fourth as mayor. 

In Chicago, Robertson posed for a photograph with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and ex-President Barack Obama at a climate summit for mayors last December. In 2015, Robertson went all the way to the White House with ex-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but only met Secretary of State John Kerry. 

In August, Robertson charged taxpayers $518.01 to fly from Cortes Island, home of the Hollyhock new age retreat, to Vancouver for a speech outside city hall on Aug. 19. A fringe anti-Islam group from Alberta had planned to protest immigration policies, but the leader cancelled at the last minute. Images of Robertson speaking and glad-handing were among several thousand counter-protesters was captured for potential use in his 2018 re-election campaign. He flew back to Cortes to continue his vacation. 

In early January, Robertson revealed he would not seek a fourth term in office. Officially, Vision Vancouver is not planning to field a mayoral candidate for the Oct. 20 election. Shauna Sylvester, a former board member who is close to both Robertson and Vision bagman Joel Solomon, announced a run earlier this month as an independent. 

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Bob Mackin His nickname is Mayor Moonbeam. But

Bob Mackin

A proposal for federal funding obtained by theBreaker shows that the Victoria company at the centre of the Facebook data breach scandal contemplated “volume testing to 40 million voters” for the software it was developing. 

But AggregateIQ’s submission for National Research Council funding claimed no personal information would be compromised for its “Platform independent political campaign online reporting tool.” 

The $100,000 Industrial Research Assistance Program grant for the nine-month, 2017 project was intended to help AggregateIQ develop the system to predict voter turnout, candidate support and the outcome of a campaign communications strategy. AggregateIQ proposed to pay the remaining $150,000 from its 2015 profits and anticipated 2016 revenues. 

AggregateIQ co-founders Zack Massingham (left) and Jeff Silvester.

The Canadian Press was first to report on the NRC funding on April 6, the same day that Facebook announced it suspended AIQ for improper receipt of user data. theBreaker obtained copies of the partly censored proposal and agreement from the NRC’s access to information office on April 12. Those documents are published below.

AIQ claimed in the proposal that it had 10 employees, including eight technical staff under directors Zackary Massingham and Jeff Silvester. But the entire first paragraph under the heading “Ownership and Management” was censored. British Columbia does not yet have a law requiring the beneficial owners of a company be disclosed in public filings. 

“Our team is made up of engineers, computer scientists and software developers,” the proposal reads. “They are all experienced at programming for political related software solutions in the context of the changing political and technological landscape.”

Functions of the project included ad network and server data processing and data matching/normalizing algorithm and data analysis algorithms design and refining. 

“With no personal data and no data that could be matched back to an individual, we believe that this project meets all ethical requirements and does not require further ethical review,” according to the proposal.

Massingham and NRC advisor Olga Kargina signed the funding deal for January through September 2017. Kargina, coincidentally, was an assistant professor of chemistry at Russia’s Kazan State University from 1986 to 1990. 

Neither Massingham nor Silvester responded to theBreaker for comment. In a short statement on its website, AIQ claims it did no wrong and followed applicable laws. 

Victoria’s Christopher Wylie, the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, testified at a U.K. House of Commons hearing last month that AIQ was a “franchise” of Cambridge Analytica, which habitually disregarded the law. AIQ is under investigation by privacy watchdogs in Canada and the U.K.

The proposal pointed to the shortcomings of traditional polling companies that failed to accurately predict the 2016 U.K. referendum on European Union membership and the 2017 U.S. presidential election. Political decision makers, it said, were turning to “internal data analytics to decide where to spend money, allocate resources and ultimately find out if they are going to win.”

AIQ said its customers include political parties, candidates, independent issue based organizations, campaigns and similar minded organizations, while all of its competitors are U.S.-based: Targeted Victory, Nation Builder, i360, NGP Van, and Campaign Solutions. AIQ stressed that it had customers ready to use the program, “so our sales cycle is essentially zero.” 

It was also recruiting co-op students and offering relocation costs to lure experienced talent from Vancouver to Victoria in search of lower housing costs, shorter commutes and a slightly lower key city. 

“This will make our consulting business able to handle more clients and open a new line of revenue in sales and support of a much needed tool in the campaign space.”

The proposal to the NRC lists the address of AIQ’s registered office, which is the Cox Taylor law firm. One of the law firm’s partners is Frank Carson, constitutional advisor to the BC Liberals and husband of ex-BC Liberal caucus executive director Primrose Carson. 

Silvester and Wylie both know each other through their work for the Liberal Party of Canada. In 2016, Wylie briefly worked on a project to set-up social media monitoring for the Liberal research bureau.

Christopher Wylie testifying to a U.K. Parliamentary committee on March 27.

Unlike NRC, B.C.’s Jobs, Trade and Technology and Advanced Education, Skills and Training ministries said they had not made any grants to AIQ. 

During the period of the NRC-funded project, AIQ also worked on three BC Liberal election campaigns, for Doug Clovechok (Columbia River-Revelstoke), Dave Calder (Saanich South) and Mike de Jong (Abbotsford West), The Tyee reported. Clovechok and de Jong won their ridings, but Calder, who worked in the BC Liberal government from 2006 to 2014, didn’t. 

AIQ also made a proposal to the BC Liberals early last summer, in anticipation of a snap election that didn’t happen. Earlier this year, AIQ worked on ex-transportation minister Todd Stone’s failed leadership campaign, but was caught creating email addresses for 1,400 members recruited in Surrey’s South Asian community and Richmond’s Chinese community. In 2016, AIQ was contracted by the BC Greens to build a voter database.

More than 620,000 Facebook users in Canada and 87 million worldwide were victims of the Cambridge Analytica data breach. 

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Copy of NRC A2017-0009 AIQ TheBreaker by BobMackin on Scribd

Bob Mackin A proposal for federal funding obtained

Bob Mackin

John Langdale isn’t a household name in British Columbia. 

But two words from the Sydney professor’s speech last autumn are famous. 

Langdale is an expert on transnational crime and financial crime at Macquarie University’s Department of Security Studies and Criminology. He gave a lecture to the New South Wales Police Force’s intelligence conference last Nov. 2, that was titled “Impact of Chinese Transnational Crime on Australia: Intelligence Perspectives.”

In his presentation, Langdale warned of various tactics employed by criminal gangs in Guangdong, China, to enable the export of money, drugs and counterfeit goods from China. 

The speech described what he called the “Vancouver model.” 

Macquarie University’s John Langdale.

Almost a month later, on Dec. 1, 2017 at the University of British Columbia law school, Attorney General David Eby told a Transparency International conference that he was advised “at least one international intelligence community” had called the particular style of money laundering unique to B.C. casinos the “Vancouver model.” 

Eby did not identify the source, but a copy of Langdale’s presentation was emailed to him on Nov. 27 by Eby’s aide, George Smith. It was released last week to theBreaker under the freedom of information law. 

In his 38-slide presentation, Langdale delivered four case studies to outline the threat to Australia, focusing on historic alliances between Chinese criminal gangs and Latin American and European criminals and a possible alliance between North Korea and Chinese criminal gangs. 

The final case study was what Langdale called the Vancouver model, which is comprised of “complex networks of criminal alliances.” 

“Chinese underground banks are at the heart of Chinese criminal activity. Money [is] laundered from Vancouver into/out of China and to other locations (Mexico, Colombia),” reads a slide from Langdale’s presentation.

He further described how North American illegal drug networks are supplied by Chinese and Latin American gangs; the Chinese specialize in methamphetamines and precursor chemicals, while the Latin Americans are in the cocaine trade. 

Capital flight from China, he wrote, is facilitated by high rollers using Canadian casinos, with help from junket operators, resulting in investment in Canadian real estate. 

In an interview with theBreaker, Langdale said there is a lucrative industry for gambling tour operator companies to Macau, Philippines and Vancouver. Some of the companies are even listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. 

“I think of [junket operators] as a finance company, essentially, that will provide transport, services and accommodation, but ultimately they provide the money,” Langdale said. “So when the high roller shows up at the casino, the money is there to gamble. The junket operators use underground banks.”

If a gambler loses $1 million on the trip, he said, the only recourse for the operator is to send a criminal gang to collect the debt when the gambler returns home to China. 

The July 2016 report to the BC Liberal government by MNP, which was finally released by the NDP government last September, described how high rollers visiting from China were using underground banks to access cash in bulk for gambling at River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond. 

Langdale’s research focused on Guangdong, which is in a state of flux. The province of 100 million grew rapidly using low-wage migrant labour, but the region has shifted into high tech products and services, resulting in a rise in cybercrime. 

British Columbia’s sister province in China is an epicentre of Pacific Rim crime, rife with trafficking in illegal drugs and counterfeit goods. It has a deep pool of both skilled labour and unskilled migrants and benefits from world class logistics networks, strong links to global Chinese diaspora, and proximity to the key centres of Hong Kong and Macau. 

Hong Kong is a global banking and business hub where shell companies help wealthy and politically connected Chinese shield their fortunes. Macau boasts the world’s largest casino turnover, with a history of facilitating crime, money laundering and capital flight. 

Langdale said the Vancouver model of 2017 is guaranteed to evolve, as authorities play catch-up with improved intelligence, and stronger laws and enforcement. 

“What I talk about in the Vancouver model today might not be the same in a couple years time, they’ll move on to a different way of doing things,” he said. “By being flexible, they’re opportunistic, they’ll respond to opportunities like new markets, obviously illegal drugs are a key way. If regulations tighten up, as I’m sure they will in Vancouver, they’ll have to use other means to launder the money.”

UBC law professor and anti-money laundering expert Peter German tendered his review of money laundering in Metro Vancouver casinos to Eby on March 31. Its public release is imminent.

Some of German’s preliminary recommendations for better compliance and enforcement may have had an impact already. Eby told a House of Commons committee last month that there was only $200,000 in suspicious transactions in B.C. casinos in February, compared to $20 million in July 2015. German’s next task is to review money laundering in the Metro Vancouver real estate market. He has already recommended luxury auto dealers be required to file reports to authorities when customers make large cash payments for supercars. 

One unknown is the impact on B.C., and the rest of the Pacific Rim, of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s indefinite rule, after the Chinese Communist Party recently scrapped term limits. 

“He will try to keep the corruption crackdown going,” Langdale said. “He’s got huge problems, there is a lot of corruption in China. At the local government areas, some provinces are more corrupt than others, Guangdong would be among the more corrupt, it’s where the money is. There is an old Chinese adage, the mountains are high and the emperor is far away. It still applies. 

“If you’re far away from Beijing, you can get away with quite a bit.”

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Bob Mackin John Langdale isn’t a household name