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A. Brian Amadan A British Columbia success story

In April 2015, the Harper Conservative government threw its support behind the project, which was estimated to cost $100 million.

Lower Lynn, upper budget: scope creep doubles freeway fix

Bob Mackin

A North Vancouver highway project meant to alleviate traffic jams, and help federal and B.C. Liberals get re-elected, is scope creep central.

Jan. 28: $150 million

By early 2016, with the Trudeau Liberals in power, the cost rose to $150 million. A sign with that figure, but missing the federal government logo, was erected at the top of The Cut.

It was still standing on Jan. 28, the day after politicians — including the four North Shore Liberal MLAs — announced a fourth phase for the project and a new $198 million price tag.

That’s conveniently $2 million shy of $200 million.

For all intents and purposes, this fledgling project has doubled in cost. A new sign was spotted March 25, and it includes the Liberal-ordered, politically strategic message “600 new jobs.”

The scheduled completion date of 2021 is also strategic. That’s a B.C. election year.

March 25: $198 million

On March 31, workers were busy erecting another sign on the opposite side of the highway, touting more highway improvements.

No doubt, North Shore drivers deserve to be ignored no longer. The afternoon traffic jams to depart the North Shore for Vancouver and points east have become bigger than those in the morning. But North Shore residents also deserve transparent and fiscally responsible infrastructure projects that aren’t engineered for vote-buying.

Blacktop politics is a B.C. tradition and, in the spirit of Socred legend Flyin’ Phil Gaglardi, that’s what the BC Liberals hope can drive them to another sweep of the four North Shore ridings.

March 31, 2017

Bob Mackin A North Vancouver highway project meant

Awkward timing for developer’s BC Liberal donation and government land deal

Bob Mackin

Three days after the BC Liberal Party says it recorded $400,000 in donations from companies associated with Wall Financial Corp., president Bruno Wall signed over Chinatown land to BC Housing for almost $6.7 million.

BC Housing released documents on March 28 about the sale and development of an 11-storey, 172-unit project at 288 East Hastings. Rents will be as low as $375 a month for low-income residents of 104 units, but Wall will offer the other 68 for between $1,242 to $1,972 a month. NDP critic David Eby had challenged Housing Minister Rich Coleman to release the documents after tabling a leaked report about the project in the Legislature on March 9. Coleman had vowed to provide them by March 23.

Bruno Wall-signed land title transfer

The Liberals unaudited donors’ list for 2016 showed that the Walls gave the party $400,000 through three companies on Feb. 26, 2016: $200,000 from 2300 Kingsway Residences and $100,000 each from PWO Investments and BJW Investments. But a source told theBreaker the donations were connected to a Feb. 23, 2016 private dinner attended by Premier Christy Clark and Deputy Premier Rich Coleman.

Unlike other jurisdictions, B.C. has no laws regulating the size or source of donations to provincial or municipal political parties or candidates.

PWO and BJW were named in minutes of BC Housing’s Nov. 23, 2015 board meeting as the Wall companies that would provide development guarantees for the $39.5 million East Hastings and Gore project. The BC Housing board voted to spend $7.07 million to buy the land and loan Wall $35.93 million to develop the site, at an interest rate just under 1%. The Walls, in turn, hired builder ITC Construction.

Wall Financial founder Peter Wall gave $4,000 through the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel on Nov. 12, 2015. Wall Financial donated $12,000 on Dec. 31, 2015.

The board report said the property had a $3.9 million mortgage outstanding and BC Assessment valued the land at $4.792 million, “which is considered a low or conservative estimate of value versus formal appraisal.” The Wall-owned 292 East Hastings Holdings Ltd. bought the land in 2014 and proposed the private-public partnership to BC Housing in August 2015. Options to redevelop the land are limited by a City of Vancouver Downtown Eastside zoning bylaw that requires at least 60% of units to be non-market rentals.

The board spent four minutes on the matter and BC Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay left the room because of a conflict of interest. His wife, Janice Abbott, heads Atira Women’s Resource Society, the potential operator of the building.

BC Housing board minutes, Nov. 23, 2015

BC Housing already owned the Orange Hall at the northwest corner of East Hastings and Gore and Vancouver Coastal Health has plans to redevelop the former Buddhist temple on the northeast corner. First United Church is on the southeast corner.

“Together this intersection, or the so-called four corners of the Hastings and Gore intersection, if viewed from a global context, can play an integral part in the fabric and services that are being offered to the local community and for BC Housing’s mandate to serve homeless and those at risk of homelessness,” the report said.

A BC Housing official conducted a not-for-attribution technical briefing for reporters on March 28. Reporters asked why the Crown corporation did not buy the land and seek competitive bids from other developers, who could have built more units for less cost to taxpayers.

“If Wall was interested in selling us that parcel and then exiting the deal, it could’ve proceeded on that basis,” the official said. “But that wasn’t what this deal was about. Wall wanted to be involved in it.”

Demolition began March 2016 and site work was underway last spring. BC Housing says it anticipates completion in February 2018.

Coleman did not attend the briefing and did not respond to theBreaker. Bruno Wall did not respond for comment.

No BC Housing officials answered a reporter’s question about why the site contains no signage identifying Wall as the developer or BC Housing as the funder.

Wall 288 E. Hastings BC Housing by BobMackin on Scribd

March 29, 2017

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Bob Mackin Three days after the BC Liberal

Social media sabotage or Facebook faux pas?

Bob Mackin

B.C. government Facebook, March 27

Did a real jihadist hijack the British Columbia government’s Facebook page on March 27 or was it the work of a premature April Fool’s Day prankster?

The site briefly featured images of fire, a person wearing military fatigues, and Arabic script meaning “we are the government.”

Awkward Tweets after account hacked

First, the B.C. government Tweeted that it was “vandalized” and later that it was “compromised.” On Tuesday, it used the latter word again.

“The B.C. government’s Facebook page was compromised but the issue has now been resolved,” said a prepared statement sent by Rodney Porter. “The province is in contact with Facebook to determine how best to mitigate or prevent incidents like this from occurring in the future. This was a matter related solely to Facebook. We worked with Facebook to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.”

Porter did not answer whether the government is investigating the incident internally or whether police had been contacted.

A representative of Facebook, who refused publication of their name, told theBreaker “their page got hacked, we were able to restore access after they filed a complaint.”

The Facebook representative recommended users pick a strong password, not share it with anyone, and read Facebook’s security features and security tips pages.

The B.C. election is May 9 and, like the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Facebook will be a battleground. The Liberals have produced Facebook video profiles of their candidates. NDP has two attack ads so far, the latest using the image of rotting strawberries as a metaphor for Liberal government corruption.

March 28, 2017

Bob Mackin [caption id="attachment_4332" align="alignright" width="415"] B.C. government

Bennett won’t step aside from Hydro while stumping for the Liberals

Bob Mackin

In 2013, he was on Premier Christy Clark’s much-maligned #DebtFreeBC bus. A British Columbia political celebrity, the grandson of Social Credit legend W.A.C. Bennett and son of Bill Bennett.

Except for Dave Barrett’s brief NDP interlude from 1972 to 1975, a Bennett was the B.C. premier between 1952 and 1986.

Bennett and Clark in 2013 (Twitter)

Kelowna’s Brad Bennett, the Clark-appointed BC Hydro chair since 2015, is going out on the campaign trail again, “from writ day to e-day.”

But will he temporarily step aside from his role atop the province’s biggest Crown corporation, which is building the $9 billion Site C dam?

No, he told theBreaker.

“Needless to say, the 28-day campaign is a very limited period of time, but it’s one I am prepared to give my attention,” Bennett said via email. “The BC Hydro board and its committees are not meeting during this period.

“As I’ve said before – I encourage all citizens to become involved in the democratic process in the way they are comfortable and able to participate.”

During the 2013 election campaign, Liberal candidates Peter Fassbender and Suzanne Anton remained on the B.C. Pavilion Corporation board, only resigning after they were elected. Fassbender even did an interview at his campaign office to oppose an NDP promise aimed at privatizing B.C. Place Stadium. Fassbender is the municipal affairs minister and Anton the attorney general, both running for re-election.

The code of conduct for provincial board appointees says: In general, a conflict of interest exists for directors who use their position at the organization to benefit themselves, friends or families. A director should not use his or her position with the organization to pursue or advance the director’s personal interests, the interests of a related person, the director’s business associate, corporation, union or partnership, or the interests of a person to whom the director owes an obligation.

BC Hydro has long provided positions of prominence to friends of the party in power. Premier Mike Harcourt appointed NDP-friendly lawyer John Laxton as chair in 1993. Laxton resigned in disgrace amid the 1996 “Hydrogate” scandal. Reporters David Baines and Jeff Lee discovered that Laxton was an investor in British Virgin Islands companies that held shares in a private subsidiary of BC Hydro that was developing a power project in Pakistan. Then NDP-premier Glen Clark turned to former Socred Attorney General Brian Smith to take over from Saxton in 1996.

Today’s Premier Clark is under fire for exempting the Site C project from a B.C. Utilities Commission review, costly BC Hydro contracts with run-of-river power projects, and rising electricity rates for British Columbians.

Clark represents a riding in Kelowna, but lives in a $3.7 million house in Dunbar registered to a business associate of part-time Kelowna resident, Greg Kerfoot. Clark has not disclosed where she stays in Kelowna, on the rare occasions that she does not fly home to Vancouver after daytime photo ops.

March 28, 2017

Bob Mackin In 2013, he was on Premier

B.C. wine store auction fails the transparency test

Bob Mackin

Whenever British Columbia’s government uses the word transparent, always take it with a grain of salt. Then ask questions.

Last Nov. 3, it said it pulled in more than $6.9 million after auctioning six special wine store licences. Bidding started at $125,000 per licence.

Minister Polak purchasing plonk at a Loblaw-owned store (BC Gov)

Grocery and pharmacy giant Loblaw Companies snagged all six via the government’s B.C. Auction agency from April 19 to May 5 last year. The government claimed the online auction was “evaluated by a third-party auditing firm to ensure the process was fair and transparent.”

theBreaker wanted to find out just how transparent the process was, and asked for reports on each auction and the evaluations by the third-party firm.

Via freedom of information, the government released a two-page, May 20 letter from Shane Troyer at Grant Thornton to the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch and a two-page May 25 report. Partially censored, of course. No information about the bidders or their bids was released at all.

Grant Thornton generally gave the process a thumbs up. Whatever problems that existed have been censored from the report that was released to theBreaker. Grant Thornton admits its procedures did not follow a standard Chartered Professional Accountants Handbook audit.

So was the process transparent?

No.

Another round of auctions was scheduled for December.

Sixteen B.C. grocery stores have opened B.C.-only wine departments since laws were changed in April 2015, 11 of which are Jim Pattison-owned Save-On-Foods. Loblaw-owned stores in Kelowna, Langford, Langley, Surrey and Vernon are the other five.

Grocery stores with aspirations to sell booze are hampered by the one-kilometre buffer zone to protect existing government and private liquor stores from competition. That explains why none are in Vancouver.

Speaking of competition, the protectionist, B.C.-only wine departments are the subject of the United States’ January complaint to the World Trade Organization.

Wine Store Licence Auction FOI by BobMackin on Scribd

March 27, 2017

Bob Mackin Whenever British Columbia's government uses the word

Who got a sneak peek of the BC Liberal housing plan last July?

Bob Mackin

An aide to Deputy Premier Rich Coleman may have given someone outside government a sneak peek into the BC Liberals’ plans to address housing affordability.

The government has refused to show who Coleman’s chief of staff, Tobie Myers, emailed the week before lawmakers reconvened in Victoria to regulate the real estate industry and impose a tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver.

On July 19, 2016 at 9:32 a.m., Myers sent an email to someone whose name the government censored. It claims disclosure of the recipient would harm the government’s finances.

Coleman (BC Gov)

“Following up on this one that we sent over to PVO [Premier’s Vancouver Office] last week – did you have any concerns?” Myers wrote. “We are expecting to see a draft [treasury board submission] based on this doc in fairly short order.”

The heavily redacted Summary of Provincial Housing Affordability Proposals was dated July 7 and released under the freedom of information law. Only one proposal, enhanced partnership with the federal government, is visible.

Those four pages were among the 26 heavily redacted pages released to theBreaker, which applied for a copy of the cost-benefit analysis and business case for the controversial BC HOME Partnership down payment assistance program for first-time homebuyers.

The documents indicate that a submission was prepared in September 2016 for Treasury Board, but the submission was not released to theBreaker, nor was any document containing a cost-benefit analysis or business case. B.C. Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay claimed that he has no copy of the cost-benefit analysis or business case.

The Premier’s office missed its own March 15 deadline to release documents it holds. In January, the finance ministry said it would release records, but only if $1,140 was paid. theBreaker refused and complained to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

theBreaker asked separately for a report about the methodology behind the already-disclosed numbers for the three-year, $703 million program. In a letter sent March 27 to theBreaker, the government claimed it needs to consult an unnamed third party or public body and set May 10 as the new deadline. The provincial election is May 9.

Last week, the government said 831 BC HOME applicants were approved since Jan. 16. By theBreaker’s analysis, that is 12.4 per day and it would be 2026 before Coleman’s stated target of 42,000 loans is reached.

Meanwhile, NDP housing critic David Eby continues to wait for Coleman to release documents about $80 million in spending on two B.C. Housing downtown Vancouver projects involving party insiders. Coleman pledged March 23 in the Legislature that they would be released within a week. theBreaker reported March 10 about how Wall Financial sold a $6.7 million Chinatown property to B.C. Housing the week after Peter and Bruno Wall donated $400,000 to the BC Liberals in 2016.

The BC Liberals promised in their 2001 platform that the party would make B.C.’s government the most open, accountable and democratic in Canada.

HOU-2016-65165 by BobMackin on Scribd

HOU-2017-70825 delay to May 10 by BobMackin on Scribd

March 27, 2017

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Bob Mackin An aide to Deputy Premier Rich

Exclusive video: Why did Vancouver’s mayor meet a party donor on a Saturday in May 2015?

Bob Mackin

What was the Mayor of Vancouver doing at the office tower of a prominent developer and party donor on a Saturday afternoon in late May 2015?

Saturday, May 23, 2015, to be precise.

Cell phone video given to theBreaker shows Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Westbank Projects president Ian Gillespie at the Shaw Tower. Westbank developed the once-tallest tower in Vancouver and it remains the company’s headquarters.

The video shows Robertson entering the main floor at 3:09 p.m. with Gillespie, where a bag was deposited at the security desk. They were also photographed at 4:48 p.m. near the street.

A developer visiting city hall on a business day would fall within the realm of dog-bites-man. But a mayor visiting a developer and major party supporter on a Saturday, at the developer’s office building, meets the man-bites-dog test of newsworthiness in real-estate mad Vancouver.

Why were they meeting?
What was discussed?
What was the outcome?
Robertson and Gillespie, May 23, 2015

Nothing improper is implied, but those are the three simple questions that readers of theBreaker deserve to know. Neither Robertson, Gillespie nor their representatives responded to repeated queries from theBreaker.

In November 2014, Robertson won his third term as mayor and Vision Vancouver retained its city council majority, with help from Gillespie. Winter and spring 2015 were especially busy on several fronts for Gillespie, downtown Vancouver’s titan of tall towers.

Were they discussing items on the agenda for the May 26, 2015 city council meeting?

That was when Robertson and the Vision Vancouver-dominated city council voted to send the proposal for a video screen on the west facade of Westbank’s Telus Garden tower to public hearing.

At the public hearing on the same day, Robertson and city council voted to remove the restriction on office uses on the ground floor of Telus Garden, and allow a “retail use continuity agreement.”

Were they discussing the city council-granted neighourhood energy monopoly for Gillespie’s Creative Energy?

City hall inked a memorandum of agreement with Creative (formerly Central Heat Distribution) on Nov. 29, 2013 and voted to amend the enabling Northeast False Creek and Chinatown bylaw on April 28, 2015.

Last September, however, the B.C. Utilities Commission sent city hall and Gillespie back to the drawing board when it rejected the proposed monopoly.

Were they talking about the rezoning of Gillespie’s property at 1754-1772 Pendrell Street for a 21-storey tower?

Westbank filed an application on Jan. 26, 2015 and city council gave the rezoning on Sept. 15, 2015. It withstood a court challenge in Feb. 2016.

Were they talking about party fundraising?

Gillespie was a Vision Vancouver bagman during the 2011 election and threw a big fundraising party on Oct. 25 that year at the Westbank-developed Fairmont Pacific Rim tower. That just so happened to be a week after city council approved in principle Telus Garden, the new headquarters for B.C.’s biggest private sector company.

Post-election filings show that Westbank gave $11,705.70 in 2011 and $15,000 in 2014.

Westbank donated just shy of $150,000 through 2015 to provincial parties ($121,000 to the BC Liberals and $28,574.88 to the NDP). But we do not know how much Westbank (or any other company, for that matter) gave to Vision Vancouver (or any other municipal party).

That is because the law does not require municipal parties and politicians in B.C. to disclose donations they receive in non-election years.

Similar to provincial parties and politicians, there is no limit to the dollar value or source of donations to local government parties and politicians in B.C.

Westbank launched sales of its next Vancouver tower project, called Alberni, on March 18 in Singapore.

theBreaker will let you know if Robertson or Gillespie break their silence about what they were doing at Shaw Tower on May 23, 2015.

March 24, 2017

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Bob Mackin What was the Mayor of Vancouver

Mr. Fingerbanger Goes to Victoria

Bob Mackin

You never know who you’re going to see in Victoria.

Fort St. John court clerk Frederick Garrow got a business trip to the capital because of a staff shortage at the Victoria Provincial Court.

The Victoria Times Colonist reported March 18 that three clerks were seconded from elsewhere in the province to cover for sick or retired staff.

That’s not the only staffing shortage in the capital city’s courthouse. Last month, two accused drug dealers walked free when judges wouldn’t tolerate further delays. In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the Jordan case, set 18 months as the maximum for charge-to-trial in Provincial Court cases.

Fun-loving Garrow’s Facebook and Instagram’s posts indicate he is having a grand time, staying at hotels like the Chateau Victoria and the Marriott Inner Harbour and enjoying refreshments at the Sticky Wicket.

The friend of Education Minister Mike Bernier also captured images of what may have been Speaker Linda Reid’s last exit from the Legislature on March 16 and even got to rub elbows with Attorney General Suzanne Anton and Premier Christy Clark.

You can find those images (and more) on Garrow’s safe-for-work Instagram account, under the not-safe-for-work handle (ahem), FreddyFingerbanger.

Meanwhile, Mitch Bellamy, a badminton-playing entrepreneur/executive coach, showed what it’s like inside a Helijet flight taking-off from Victoria en route to Vancouver.

The passenger to his right on the flight? None other than Clark. See the video from March 16 on his Instagram page.

The smiling passenger to his left appears to be one of Clark’s RCMP bodyguards. The occupant of the opposite window seat is Clark’s press secretary Stephen Smart, who did not respond for comment.

Clark is a frequent Helijet flier. She prefers to commute between Victoria and Vancouver, where she lives in a $3.7 million Dunbar house registered to Vancouver Whitecaps’ owner Greg Kerfoot’s close associate Nevin Sangha.

March 23, 2017

Bob Mackin You never know who you’re going