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News

Bob Mackin

The BC Liberal government announced Feb. 14 that PharmaCare would finally fund Duodopa, the trade name for the levodopa/carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) to treat people with the most severe symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.

But the Liberals did not make the Valentine’s Day announcement out of the kindness of their hearts. The party that says it is all about “getting to yes” stubbornly said no, no, no to Parkinson’s patients for several years. 

Esteemed advocates for the 13,000 British Columbians living with the degenerative disease — which causes a loss of control of movements, body and emotions — tried repeatedly in vain to convince officials, all the way up to Health Minister Terry Lake, to fund the drug for the handful of people who need it.  

The announcement, hustled-out just hours before the last pre-election Throne Speech, came as a pre-emptive strike after potentially embarrassing documents were released to theBreaker under the Freedom of Information law on Feb. 9. 

A ski resort in Health Minister Terry Lake’s Kamloops riding got funds to build a hockey rink, before Parkinson’s patients got funding for life-saving medication.

The 77-page release shows how Lake, assistant deputy minister Barbara Walman, drug intelligence executive director Eric Lun and special authority director Susan Bouma thwarted efforts, since spring 2015, by Dr. Martin McKeown, the UBC Chair in Parkinson’s Research, and Jean Blake, the CEO of Parkinson Society B.C., to gain funding for about 10 B.C. patients needing the $60,000-a-year drug. 

“Given the fiscal pressures affecting PharmaCare and the broader health system, the program has limited capacity to expand coverage for new benefits and must be very selective in that regard,” Lun wrote to Blake on May 9, 2016. “Due to the extremely high cost of this product, coverage requests are not being considered, including exceptional cases.”

McKeown wrote to Bouma in June 2016, a year after writing to Lun on the same topic. “If our patient were a resident of Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec or Yukon, my patient would successfully gain public reimbursement for LCIG.”

Lake and his staff relied on a 2009 Canadian Expert Drug Advisory Committee recommendation against funding. New research, published in 2014 by the Lancet Neurology and supplied by Blake and McKeown to the ministry, was in favour of the drug. 

Bouma suggested maker AbbVie resubmit its research to federal officials for a new funding review. Blake said that was not feasible, because it would force the other provinces to stop coverage during the review, thus putting patients’ lives in jeopardy.

Blake even met with Lake last April 11, International Parkinson’s Awareness Day. She followed-up with a June 8 letter. Lake didn’t respond, but Walman did on June 30 with yet another rejection letter. 

At the end of November, Dr. Josh Greggain, Hope Medical Centre medical director, wrote Liberal MLA Laurie Throness (Chilliwack-Hope).  

“In receiving the Duodopa therapy, patients will experience considerable relief of pain, have better control over severe and dangerous balance issues; be removed from the fear of breathing and swallowing issues, and be provided with support with other non-movement (non-motor) problems,” Greggain wrote. “The payoff for the health care system will be fewer hospitaliztions, fewer emergency visits and avoidance of early admissions to long term care.”

NDP MLA Gary Holman (Saanich North and the Islands) added his voice in a Dec. 12 letter to Lake.

“As a matter of compassion and prudent management of a $17 billion health care budget, I urge you to immediately review this life changing therapy and the BC PharmaCare funding of it,” Holman wrote. 

The undated Lake response to Holman on government letterhead repeated many of the same words in the boilerplate responses by Walman, Bouma and Lun to McKeown, Blake and others.

Blake appealed yet again to Lun on Dec. 14.

“We ask you once again to consider reviewing the new 2014 evidence as your colleagues in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and the Yukon have done,” she wrote. “It is just not right that because these people live in B.C. they cannot receive this life saving therapy.”

Global TV reporter Nadia Stewart told viewers the story just before Christmas about Paddi Woods, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2008 and could not afford to buy Duodopa. Woods described her decline and daily battle bluntly: “It’s like living in hell.” 

Clark, Lake and others in the Liberal caucus returned from their Christmas and New Year’s vacations to continue their door-knocking and cash-for-access fundraising events and to continue to spend $15 million of taxpayers’ money on the controversial “Our Opportunity Is Here” propaganda  campaign. (Lame-duck Lake is campaigning for Kamloops Mayor Peter Milobar to succeed him as the Kamloops-North Thompson Liberal MLA.)

After making Parkinson’s patients wait through years of unneeded stress, they finally found time to announce the about-face on Duodopa funding.

With 84 days until the 2017 provincial election. 

B.C. government Duodopa funding refusal by BobMackin on Scribd

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Bob Mackin The BC Liberal government announced Feb.

Opinion

Bob Mackin

More than 200 days have passed since the Legislature in B.C. sat for four days last July. What happened,  you say? 

theBreaker has compiled a list of milestones.  

SEPT. 19: Premier Christy Clark and Deputy Premier and Housing Minister Rich Coleman announced a $500 million plan for what he called affordable social housing, that he said was a Canadian provincial record. It took more than three months for the government to admit that it had no facts to back-up the claim that it was a record. 

SEPT. 22: Coleman boasted in front of party faithful that the campaign was “fully funded.” But the party continued its fundraising spree unabated. It even hosted more four-figure cash for access events. A reporter was kicked-out of the Wall Centre Hotel during Finance Minister Mike de Jong’s October cocktail party with donors. Clark hosted a $1,000-per-person cocktail party at the Century Plaza Hotel, across from the decaying St. Paul’s Hospital. They papered-over the windows to save Clark and her donors from embarrassment.

SEPT. 30: Haida Nation president Peter Lantin told Clark to stay home when the Royal Couple, Will and Kate, came to Haida Gwaii. The Royals went for a canoe ride with Haida members wearing attention-getting T-shirts emblazoned “No LNG.” 

NOV. 3: International Trade Minister Teresa Wat spent more than two months in China and didn’t tell her Richmond Centre constituents. It took a leak to a reporter from a Liberal source about Wat’s apparently broken hip to get the government talking. Wat did not respond to questions about how and where she suffered the injury. 

NOV. 4-6: The party held its annual convention at the Bayshore Hotel, sponsored by a drug company and others. Keynote speaker was Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign strategist (you win some) and Brexit Remain campaign strategist (you lose some). When he predicted a Hillary Clinton win, the room erupted in cheers. We know what happened on Nov. 8.

NOV. 4: The same day the convention began, Clark and Coleman and others held a photo op on the Woodfibre LNG site, claiming that the Indonesian billionaire who owns it was planning to build the export plant. Was it all just a PR stunt? The Liberals announced a new program called eDrive to subsidize electricity rates for LNG plants that use BC Hydro electricity. The government is refusing to show the business case and cost-benefit analysis for eDrive. 

NOV. 21: It was revealed that the person whose name is on the deed for Clark’s hush-hush house in Dunbar is a close business associate of Vancouver Whitecaps’ owner and Clark friend Greg Kerfoot. Clark’s name is on the deed of a $1.7 million house in Mount Pleasant. She does not own property in Kelowna and has not revealed where she stays on the rare occasions she visits her riding.DEC. 10

DEC. 7: The BC Liberals admit they’re going to double the advertising budget to $15 million, to flood B.C. airwaves and Internet with party-friendly “Our Opportunity Is Here” ads before the election period officially begins April 11. Did you know? Before the 2009 election, then-Premier Gordon Campbell issued a ban on all non-essential government advertising for the four months leading up to election day.

DEC. 10: The first of two features by Dan Levin of the New York Times that embarrassed the BC Liberals. Levin wrote that the Site C dam controversy was a “struggle between a public demanding greater rights and a government trying to push through large projects while avoiding scrutiny, at least in the eyes of critics.” Just over a month later, on Jan. 13, Levin delved into the murky world of B.C.’s political campaign financing. Levin wrote that “much of what is considered business as usual in British Columbia is illegal elsewhere in Canada” 

DEC. 15: Clark and Coleman announced a subsidized second mortgage scheme for first time home buyers. It was immediately panned by economists and likened to the subprime mortgages that led to the 2008 global recession. Like its other big ticket promises, the government is refusing to show the business case and cost-benefit analysis for the program. 

DEC. 22: Remember that “Our Opportunity Is Here” ad that claimed $20 billion had been invested in B.C.’s LNG industry? The Advertising Standards Council forced the BC Liberals to withdraw the ad after a complaint that it simply was not true. 

JAN. 20: Clark proclaimed that she would no longer take her $50,000-a-year bonus from the BC Liberal Party. Instead, she claimed, she would be reimbursed for expenses.

She once called the arrangement a car allowance, but Democracy Watch says it’s a glorified commission for attending party fundraisers and divides her loyalties between the public and party funders. The party is not covered by the Freedom of Information law. Is it time for B.C.’s premier to show the public her tax returns? 

JAN. 17: Liberal speaker and career politician Linda Reid dinged taxpayers $10,000 for a tropical getaway that she and two others took to Guyana, for a goodwill visit to meet with that country’s parliamentarians. 

JAN. 31: Democracy Watch filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court, to ask a judge to cancel the BC Liberal government’s Jan. 11-announced approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline twinning. Democracy Watch says that Clark, Environment Minister Mary Polak and Deputy Premier Rich Coleman were in conflict of interest because of Kinder Morgan’s $550,000 donations to the Liberals.

FEB. 6: The damning report about the preventable suicide of 18-year-old Alex Gervais at an Abbotsford motel. Since Clark took power in 2011, there have been 20 reports from the child protection watchdog all pointing at her government for failing its duty to care for B.C.’s most-vulnerable children and youths. 

FEB. 11: While Liberal cronies run the “Say Anything John” third-party attack campaign against NDP leader John Horgan, Clark demonstrated yet again that she is “Say Anything Christy.”

Clark was forced to apologize to Horgan after falsely claiming the NDP hacked the Liberal website — a scandal that took attention away from the report on Gervais. Independent MLA Vicki Huntington blew the whistle on Clark, calling her the “Diva of Deflection.” 

Clark left a voice mail apology for Horgan and told reporters about it on a speakerphone news conference. 

The photo op-loving career politician, nicknamed Premier Amor De Camera, evidently didn’t want the public to see her make a rare apology for one of her frequent falsehoods. 

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Bob Mackin More than 200 days have passed

News

Bob Mackin

The BC Liberal government opened the Port Mann toll bridge in 2012 without the required safety audit — a contravention of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s own guidelines.

That, according to the results of a Freedom of Information request filed by theBreaker before last Christmas while bridge crews grappled with a repeat of the 2012 ice bombs incident. 

Based on the ministry’s April 2004 Road Safety Audit Guidelines, road safety audits are “required to be carried out” in accordance with Transportation Association of Canada road safety standards.  

“A road safety audit is a formal and independent safety performance review of a road transportation project by an experienced team of safety specialists, addressing the safety for all road users,” says the 2004 policy manual. 

No Port Mann safety audit: FOI

A source familiar with major B.C. infrastructure projects — who declined to be named in print, for fear of retribution — contacted theBreaker and recommended an FOI request be filed regarding the $3.3 billion Port Mann/Highway 1 project for the independent safety audit that should have been completed prior to the bridge’s opening or its substantial completion. 

The transportation ministry transferred theBreaker’s Dec. 15 FOI request to the Transportation Investment Corporation. A response finally came Feb. 10 from the Crown corporation. 

“Please be advised that we have completed a thorough search of our records and have not located any records that are responsive to your request,” wrote Bev Hooper, TI Corp.’s access and privacy consultant on TI Corp. letterhead. 

On Dec. 1, 2012, with an election looming in five months, Premier Christy Clark and then-transport minister Mary Polak opened the bridge. Less than three weeks later, on Dec. 19, 2012, ice and snow that had accumulated on the bridge cables crashed onto vehicles below during a storm. There were 350 damage claims filed by drivers, costing Insurance Corporation of B.C. $400,000. At least one injury lawsuit was filed, alleging the government was negligent.

Documents released in 2013 showed the project’s 2008 design and construction requirements included a clause that the “cables and structure be designed to avoid ice-build up from falling into traffic.” The cables were later retrofitted with devices to clear snow and ice, but those were not properly deployed during snowstorms early last December. 

The Port Mann also opened in 2012 without a dedicated weather station. Before they installed a $100,000 setup, bridge operators were forced to rely on readings from far away ministry equipment in Horseshoe Bay and Abbotsford, as well as Vancouver International Airport.

The ministry’s 2004 road safety audit guidelines spell out four key reasons why a road safety audit must be conducted: 

  • minimize the frequency and severity of preventable collisions; 
  • consider the safety of all road users, including vulnerable road users; 
  • ensure that collision mitigation measures that may eliminate or reduce potential safety problems are considered fully; 
  • minimize potentially negative safety impacts both within and outside the project limits, i.e. to avoid introducing collisions elsewhere along the route or on the network.

The BC Liberal government designated TI Corp. as the agency in charge of building the $3.5 billion-plus, 10-lane toll bridge to replace the Massey Tunnel between Richmond and Delta. Late last year, Clark made Dan Doyle, her former chief of staff, the chair of the TI Corp. board. 

Retired Deputy Transportation minister Doyle was in charge of construction for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics before becoming chair of BC Hydro. 

B.C. Transportation Ministry Guidelines on Road Safety Audits by BobMackin on Scribd

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Bob Mackin The BC Liberal government opened the

Miscellany

Bob Mackin

The electioneering BC Liberal government is desperate for positive publicity, but keeps shooting itself in the foot. 

This week began with the child protection watchdog’s damning report about the preventable September 2015 suicide of 18-year-old Alex Gervais. The abused and neglected Metis teenager with a drugs and alcohol problem was left alone, unsupervised, in a Super 8 motel in Abbotsford.  Yet another failure by the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

So the same ministry scheduled a photo opportunity on Feb. 9 in North Vancouver with the four North Shore BC Liberal MLAs — Jane Thornthwaite, Naomi Yamamoto, Jordan Sturdy and Ralph Sultan — to announce a new Vancouver Coastal Health office for youth with addictions will be opening in May.  

The 9,000 square foot Foundry North Shore  is described on a VCH website as a “one-stop shop for youth needing easy access to mental health, drug and alcohol services and social services on the North Shore.” VCH has pledged $2.5 million-a-year to operate the facility.

Sounds like a step forward. Except the building next door is a liquor store.

A North Vancouver liquor store’s new neighbour will be a facility for youths trying to kick drugs and alcohol. (Google Streetview)

The proprietor of Sailor Hagar’s Liquor Store (and the longtime corner brew pub of the same name) questions the wisdom of opening a facility for vulnerable 16 to 24-year-olds beside an existing booze retailer. 

“I don’t think it’s fair to put them in that position when they go for their counselling, they’re right next to a [beer, wine and spirits] store,” Brian Riedlinger told theBreaker. “I’ve got my sandwich board sign out there out front of my store that says come in and buy some cold beer.

“If, for example, this facility had been located at this premises for a number of years, I don’t see how the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch or provincial government would ever allow a liquor store to move right next to them. And yet they’re opening up beside a liquor store!” 

Riedlinger said he was visited by Terry Bulych, VCH’s child and youth mental health and addictions team lead and clinical planner, to notify him that the photo opportunity would be happening and warn him that he may be approached by reporters. Riedlinger found out that the facility already has civic zoning approval, a long-term lease and is beginning leasehold improvements. 

“I don’t really know what I can do,” Riedlinger said. “I was totally blindsided by this. There was no public input.”

Nobody from the Ministry of Health or Ministry of Children and Family Development responded for comment. Yamamoto, the North Vancouver Lonsdale MLA, also did not respond.

Bulych refused to be interviewed, but VCH spokesman Gavin Wilson said there was no formal requirement to consult neighbours. He claimed officials met with various government, community, social and police groups and “no one raised the issue of that liquor store as a concern. This is the first time we’ve heard any concerns.”

Wilson said the site was chosen because it is a storefront and close to a Ministry of Children and Family Development office, Hollyburn family services, John Braithwaite community centre and the Lonsdale Quay SeaBus terminal. 

“We feel there are a lot of good reasons for siting the service where it is,” Wilson said. “No matter where you place it in a commercial area, there’s going to be pubs and liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries. We can’t control the environment to that extent.”

Riedlinger said it will make it harder for his store and pub to operate. “We work hard to make sure that we don’t serve people that shouldn’t be served alcohol and we make sure we don’t serve minors, it’s going to make our job more difficult,” Riedlinger said. “It’s not going to help our business in any way.”

Former children’s protection watchdog Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s May 2016 Review of Youth Substance Services in B.C.  said 68,000 youth and young adults in B.C. aged 15 to 24 had substance abuse disorders, including alcohol abuse and dependence. There were only 24 dedicated, publicly funded treatment beds across the province. 

Imagine B.C. Place Stadium at full capacity and an overflow crowd of another 14,000 at Rogers Arena. That’s what 68,000 looks like. 

Turpel-Lafond wrote that between 2001 and 2015, 183 deaths of children and youth were attributable to substance abuse. The number could be greater, because, the report explained “substance use often contributes to accidents or death but may not be classified as the primary cause of an injury or death.”

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Bob Mackin The electioneering BC Liberal government

News

Bob Mackin

Is the end near for the five years of on-again, off-again talks between volunteer community centre associations and the Vancouver Park Board and City Hall for a new joint operating agreement? 

Park Board is holding a special meeting Feb. 8 at the Morris J. Work Centre for Dialogue. Plenty of opposition to the latest iteration abounds. Will the sides reach common ground in time for the Feb. 16 vote or call the whole thing off? 

The majority of the groups that operate Vancouver’s 22 recreation centres fear park board is ramming through the contract — a five-year deal with two consecutive five-year renewal options. The deal would be effective June 1. 

The 52-page agreement reached late last fall says that associations would be required to kick back 2% of gross annual revenue to a new community centre investment fund and community centres would only retain ownership of equipment and assets, leaving the park board owner of facilities and responsible for upkeep.

After a Jan. 28 meeting, a letter on behalf of 13 community associations (Champlain, False Creek, Hastings, Kerrisdale, Killarney, Kitsilano, Mount Pleasant, Renfrew, Roundhouse, Thunderbird, Trout Lake, West End, and West Point Grey) said the latest proposal was unacceptable.

“This proposed agreement makes no long term commitment to the CCA model which has served Vancouver well for more than 70 years. The document provides numerous opportunities for Park Board to terminate the CCA, with little recourse. We will not sign a document that creates such a threatening environment for us,” wrote Kathleen Bigsby on Jan. 31. “This proposed agreement undermines the authority of the CCA to determine how, where and when money, raised by the community and the Association, is to be spent. 

Vancouver parks G.M. Malcolm Bromley

“This proposed agreement provides a dispute resolution mechanism that requires Parks Board to be the arbitrator of conflicts it is involved in and/or policies it has created.

“Legal opinions we have received caution that if we were to sign this document, our capacity for independent decision-making would be significantly inhibited undermined in numerous ways. This would inhibit our ability to represent the interests of our communities at our community centres.”

According to a leaked recording, that Jan. 28 meeting included a key moment when park board general manager Malcolm Bromley shocked attendees by telling them that the joint operating agreement was not a partnership. 

Question: “It seems to be a lot more weighted on your side than ours, instead of 51-49, it feels a lot higher than that at times.”

Bromley: “…the game changed when we moved into a legal construct that says that… I received a letter as of like two months ago from a CCA reasserting their claim to half ownership of a community centre…

“It’s very important to the public interest, on our side, the civil service, to say that, being partners, what is it? You could make a claim to half a building, that you have all kinds of rights and privileges that, it’s our opinion, you do not have. That you’re essential and you’re critical for the provision of programming, that’s what you do, that’s your job and you contribute money to the centre and buy things. But it doesn’t mean we are partners.”

Meanwhile, the Kensington board told park board vice-chair Erin Shum in a Jan. 21 letter that it wanted the status quo. It voted at a Jan. 18 board meeting to ask the board to adjourn all JOA negotiations until after the 2018 election and cancel all scheduled meetings about the JOA. 

“The board of directors believe that the current JOA is satisfactory and should remain for the foreseeable future,” said the letter from Kensington president Milan Kljajic. “This decision was made after the board of directors reviewed the document and decided that the proposed JOA would bankrupt the Association within the first five years of the agreement.” 

The JOA saga. It’s not over yet.

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Bob Mackin Is the end near for the five

News

Bob Mackin

British Columbia’s public-owned vehicle licensing and basic insurance monopoly isn’t saying much about the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C. investigation of a 2011-fired employee.

Candy Elaine Rheaume, a 44-year-old New Westminster woman, was charged Feb. 2, 2017 in connection with the firebombing spree that terrorized innocent people connected to the Justice Institute of B.C. 

Rheaume is accused of fraudulent and unauthorized access of the Insurance Corporation of B.C. database. Her first court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 15. 

There were 19 arsons and four shootings in nine municipalities between January 2011 and April 2012 targeting the houses and vehicles of people connected to the Justice Institute. Last July, Langley heroin addict Vincent Eric Gia-Hwa Cheung pleaded guilty to 18 of 23 charges and was jailed for 13-and-a-half years. Time-served credits mean he will be free in 12 years. 

CFSEU said it “established that a then-ICBC employee had queried the 15 victims’ licence plates and accessed their personal information. That information was ultimately used by the orchestrator to facilitate the brazen attacks.”

A source told theBreaker that Rheaume was an adjuster in the New Westminster claims centre. ICBC’s Adam Grossman refused to comment when contacted by theBreaker. 

One of her co-workers  was Jonathan X. Cote, who was elected mayor of New Westminster in 2014. 

“Everyone in the office was shocked when she was fired and felt bad as she was a single mom,” Cote told theBreaker in a text message. “None of us had any idea what had happened and have basically found out in subsequent media articles.”

Cote said he didn’t really know Rheaume and had little else to say. 

As Rheaume’s case moves through the courts, the public will learn more about how ICBC collects  and is supposed to guard the personal information of millions of British Columbians. 

Is the Crown corporation living up to its branding? One citizen says no.

ICBC’s vast database includes personal information of more than 3.4 million licensed drivers and the owners/operators of more than 3.5 million registered vehicles. The province’s total population is 4.75 million. 

ICBC’s dirty secret?

One way that personal information gets out of ICBC’s database is the so-called Secure Police Line, which is operated by designated employees at the Surrey Claims Contact Centre. 

To operate the police line, ICBC relies on a section of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act that allows public bodies to share personal information with other public bodies or law enforcement agencies, “to assist a specific investigation that is undertaken with a view to a law enforcement proceeding, or from which a law enforcement proceeding is likely to result.”

Officially, the police line is intended to be a way for police to access information on the fly, when there is a threat of homicide or abduction, Amber alert or hostage-taking.

But it can also be used for non-emergency situations, such as when the Canadian Police Information Centre database is down. 

One citizen says it should be shut down because it lacks judicial oversight and is open to abuse.

In 2006, Daryl Cook disputed a speeding ticket and found that ICBC had disclosed his unlisted phone number to a member of the Burnaby RCMP. He cross-examined the cop who confirmed that the police line did, in fact, exist. All officers need to do when they call-in is give a badge number. The operator then provides them access to information about individuals’ drivers’ licences and insurance policies. The phone number is changed every six months.

Cook says it is alarming how easy law enforcement agencies, including those from the United States, are routinely accessing British Columbians’ personal information from ICBC’s police line. They are doing so without any consent from a justice of the peace and infringing upon Canadians’ civil rights, Cook says. 

Below are 582 pages of ICBC police line call logs from January 2015 to June 2015 that show the dates and times of calls, the names of ICBC employees who answered them, the various law enforcement organizations and detachments, police file numbers, identification supplied by police, the call types and types of personal information about B.C. drivers given to police.

It took a lengthy battle with ICBC’s Freedom of Information office to obtain these censored documents. 

UPDATE: Major development! Acting Information and Privacy Commissioner Drew McArthur announced Feb. 23 that he would audit information-sharing agreements between ICBC and various public bodies and private sector organizations. A timeline for the project and publication date are to be determined. 

F246724r ICBC Police Line by BobMackin on Scribd

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Bob Mackin British Columbia’s public-owned vehicle licensing and

Miscellany

Bob Mackin

Conservative leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary is coming to Vancouver for a fundraiser on Feb. 9, and guess who is hosting it? 

None other than Vancouver Canucks’ owner Francesco Aquilini, a major donor to the BC Liberal Party who describes Shark Tank and Dragons’ Den TV star O’Leary as a “good friend.” 

O’Leary, who is of Lebanese-Irish descent, calls Boston home and has made no secret of his love of the Bruins. 

The man who called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “surfer dude” and Mayor Gregor Robertson a “bozo” was in Vancouver at Aquilini-owned Rogers Arena the night the Bruins beat the Aquilini-owned Canucks in game seven of the 2011 Stanley Cup final. A riot ensued. See O’Leary’s Tweets below. 

For a $1,550 donation, you can rub shoulders with both “Trump Lite” O’Leary and Aquilini at the posh Terminal City Club on Feb. 9. The event is organized by Erinn Broshko, who was the Conservative candidate in Vancouver-Granville in 2015. Jody Wilson-Raybould won the new seat for the Liberals and became Justice Minister. 

UPDATE (Feb. 11): Aquilini did not respond for comment until the day after the event. In a Feb. 10 email to theBreaker, he stated: “Kevin is a personal friend that I have known for many years. I wanted to help him in his bid to be leader.”

 

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Bob Mackin Conservative leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary

Opinion

Bob Mackin

From time-to-time, theBreaker will show you how the sausage is made.

Warning, it will make you sick to your stomach how your government functions. 

Case in point, a timeline of how records about the Medal of Good Citizenship, the Clark government’s latest photo op scheme, were kept away from theBreaker until after one of the recipients, a party insider, died of cancer. 

April 29, 2016: Mike de Jong, Minister of Finance (who also oversees the government’s Freedom of Information office, Information Access Operations) hosts a ceremony in Abbotsford to present philanthropist Dave Holmberg the Medal of Good Citizenship. 

The news release makes no mention that Holmberg donated almost $65,000 (including $7,000 in February 2016) to the BC Liberal Party and was de Jong’s campaign manager. 

May 16: theBreaker applied to the Office of the Premier, where the government’s Honours and Awards secretariat is housed, for various records about the Medal of Good Citizenship program. 

Mike de Jong (left) awards donor/campaign manager Dave Holmberg the Medal of Good Citizenship (BC Gov)

Such as, documents about the planning and cost for the Holmberg ceremony and news release; agendas and minutes for the MGC selection committee (chaired by Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training Minister Shirley Bond); nomination forms for MGC recipients; and records about the design and purchase of the medals, ribbons and certificates. 

May 17: Government replied and set June 29 as its due date. 

June 29: Deadline day came and went, no word from the government. (The law says government has 30 business days to provide documents or invoke delays for third-party consultation or a transfer to another public body.)

Aug. 3: Finally, a denial letter from the Office of the Premier, saying that the Medal of Good Citizenship was now its own public body, under Schedule 2 of the Act. A July 11 ministerial order had been signed by de Jong, but nobody cared to tell theBreaker until almost a month later. (The order was actually signed July 8 by deJong). 

Funny thing: MGC was actually already subject to the FOI law, as per the disclaimer on the nomination form. Instead of notifying theBreaker earlier or transferring the request, as it must do, the government stubbornly played a legal shell game and told theBreaker to file new requests to MGC. 

Sept. 9: Because the government would not relent, new requests were filed.

Sept. 14: MGC replied, setting Oct. 24 as the deadline for it to respond to various files. 

Oct. 24: Deadline day came and went, no word from the MGC. 

Jan. 22, 2017: Holmberg, 75, dies of cancer. 

Jan. 25: Various files about MGC finally sent. 

The records show that staff of the Honours and Awards Secretariat inside the Premier’s office as well as the Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training ministry were actively involved, day-to-day, on the program. 

As reported by theBreaker, this award program cost almost $100,000 to set-up, including 275 medals. Only two dozen were awarded last year, so around 250 are waiting to be awarded.

The government created a script for politicians to answer, should any nosy journalist ever have the audacity to suggest that this program is about getting positive attention (read: votes) for BC Liberal caucus members.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Liberals have so shamelessly congratulated their own. 

Remember the public outcry in 2011 when ex-Premier Gordon Campbell and his longtime right-hand man Ken Dobell were given the Order of B.C.?

Remember how Burnaby MLA Harry Bloy (Clark’s only 2011 supporter from caucus) in 2012 gifted riding association president Pamela Gardner, Liberal field operations director Mark Robertson and ex-Bloy campaign manager Brian Bonney with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal?  

Wait and see what campaign 2017 brings. 

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Bob Mackin From time-to-time, theBreaker will show you

Miscellany

Bob Mackin

Governments love to use superlatives, hoping they can pull a fast one on the public. It gets worse when an election is rapidly approaching.

Take British Columbia’s Liberal government, for instance.

On Sept. 19, 2016, it trumpeted this:

“The Government of B.C. is committing $500 million to ensure more British Columbian families have access to affordable rental housing, the largest housing investment in a single year by any province in Canada.”

theBreaker wondered. How does the BC Liberal government define “affordable”? Whose record did British Columbia break for single-year housing investments? 

Deputy Premier Rich Coleman’s Natural Gas Development and Housing Ministry failed to answer that question when theBreaker asked under Freedom of Information. But it did include an email by Coleman spokeswoman Christine Ash to four other public-paid political staffers on Sept. 15, 2016, offering a clue of where to go next. 

“Confirmed by Shane Ramsey (sic) at BC Housing, and we can say this: This is the largest housing investment in a single year by any Province in Canada.”

So theBreaker went straight to the horse’s mouth: Ramsay’s FOI office. 

On Feb. 1, theBreaker got a reply from Ramsay himself. (He signs all FOI disclosures from BC Housing). 

“With regard to your request for “correspondence and reports evaluating and approving… the definition of the word affordable, please find attached a copy of the Investment in Housing Innovation Program Framework. We do not have further records evaluating and approving the definition of affordable for the purpose of this program.”

The closest this eight-page document gets to defining “affordable” is a footnote that says:

“The CMHC market average rent based on the CMHC, Rental Market Report — BC Highlights (Fall (Row/Townhouse and Apartment), or as determined by BC Housing from time to time.” 

The CMHC report showed the Vancouver one-bedroom average in 2016 was $1,120 (forecast to be $1,180 by 2018). On the other end of the scale, Prince George had the lowest one-bedroom average of $667 (forecast to be $710 by 2018). 

Then Ramsay continued: 

“With regard to your request for the ‘research and methodology relied upon to make the claim that the $500 million pledge housing investment in a single year by any province in Canada,” BC Housing has no records.”

So Coleman and Premier Christy Clark have been trumpeting an alleged record without any facts to back it up from the Crown corporation head their public-paid spinners relied on to supply the facts.

(This is the same government that got caught with its pants down in December for falsely claiming $20 billion had been invested in British Columbia’s liquefied natural gas industry. It was forced to pull an ad after a citizen’s complaint to Advertising Standards Canada.)

BC Housing is also running the Liberals’ controversial second mortgage scheme for first-time home buyers. Ramsay wrote in a separate letter that he doesn’t have the business case or cost-benefit analysis for the $700 million-plus election year program.

30-10216 Response by BobMackin on Scribd

 

30-10116 Response by BobMackin on Scribd

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Bob Mackin Governments love to use superlatives, hoping

Miscellany

Bob Mackin 

The B.C. Liberal government planned to spend almost $100,000 to launch Premier Christy Clark’s Medal of Good Citizenship program, theBreaker has learned. 

But the ruling party knew that doling out the badges and diplomas would be seen by an increasingly skeptical public for what it really is: yet another photo opportunity to build the image of non-stop-campaigning government politicians, like cabinet ministers Shirley Bond, Michele Stilwell, Todd Stone, Amrik Virk, Peter Fassbender, Steve Thomson, Norm Letnick and Clark herself.

Medalists flank Clark, who was joined by cabinet ministers Thomson (far left) and Letnick. (BC Gov)

An April 4, 2016 Question and Answer script, obtained by theBreaker, included a script of anticipated questions and recommended responses. 

“This looks like a political exercise to give government MLAs a photo opportunity in their community,” said one of the questions.

The recommended reply was: “Medals are being given to recipients who live in all parts of the province and regardless of what party holds the riding. They are being presented by the premier and in many instances it is cost effective to delegate the presentation to another representative in the province.”

Another question: “How much are you spending on these ceremonies?

Another answer: “Government is balancing the need to manage costs while honouring the contributions of these individuals. The community celebrations limit the travel costs and other costs associated with a big gala.”

If pressed, politicians and public relations representatives were told to say: “The full cost of the all the celebrations will be fully calculated when all the medals have been presented.”

According to the freedom of information documents, the program’s first year budget was $95,182. The report mentioned that government communications photographer Don Craig could be used at “no cost.” Craig is officially a graphic designer who was paid $71,997 for the year ended March 31, 2016.

The budget included $21,231 for travel and hospitality for staff and the committee (for both meetings and ceremonies), and $65,500 for the 275 sets of medals, lapel pins, ribbons, boxes and framed certificates.

The suppliers were B.C.-based, except the ribbons came from Toye, Kenning and Spencer Ltd. in Bedworth, England, for $351.25. Pressed Metal Products of Vancouver charged $87.50 each for the full-sized silver medals.

Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training Minister Shirley Bond chairs the 2015-appointed selection committee, which includes Clark friend and BC Liberal campaign strategist Jatinder Rai. Bond’s ministry initially forked out $51,162.25 for the medals from Pressed Metal Products and one of her public relations staffers helped coordinate ceremonies. Bond’s appointment lasts until October 2017, which is presumptuous because of the May 9 election. 

Bond’s committee met initially on Nov. 25, 2015 and Jan. 7, 2016 at the cabinet office in Vancouver. Clark’s chief protocol officer Lucy Lobmeier and members of the government Honours and Awards office were in attendance. 

The Nov. 25 meeting included a portion during which nominees were shortlisted and no minutes were taken. No minutes were disclosed for the Jan. 7 meeting. The committee decided at its first meeting that groups would be eligible for the award in exceptional circumstances and that the medal could be awarded for acts of bravery. 

In its first year, there were 22 individuals and groups recognized, including Dave Holmberg, the late ex-campaign manager of Finance Minister Mike de Jong. Abbotsford philanthropist Holmberg, 75, died Jan. 22 of cancer. He donated almost $60,000 to the BC Liberals through 2016.

Honourees are allowed to wear the lapel pin on the right (not the left, like the Order of B.C. or Order of Canada). They can also order additional lapel pins or miniature medals and place M.G.C. after their name. 

 

MGC-2016-63634 by BobMackin on Scribd

MGC-2016-63636 by BobMackin on Scribd

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Bob Mackin  The B.C. Liberal government planned to

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