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Bob Mackin 

A delay in sentencing two environmental protesters for their campaign of blockades on Vancouver Island.

Howard Breen (Save Old Growth/Instagram)

Extinction Rebellion Vancouver Island co-founder Howard Breen, 70, and Melanie Murray, 48, both failed in their bid to convince a judge that their criminal mischief was “morally involuntary.”

Provincial Court Judge Ronald Lamperson was scheduled to hear a joint submission from the prosecutor and Breen and Murray’s defence lawyer on July 19 in Nanaimo. 

The sentencing hearing was postponed because Crown lawyer Neal Bennet had a medical appointment impacted by the Crowdstrike/Microsoft internet outage. A new hearing date is to be determined. 

Bennet and defence lawyer Joey Doyle revealed in court that negotiations for a joint sentencing proposal fell through. Bennet indicated he would be asking the judge to sentence Breen to jail time of under two years less a day.

On May 3, Lamperson dismissed Breen and Murray’s application under the defence of necessity. They unsuccessfully argued that their crimes were excusable under Canadian criminal law because climate change “presents an imminent peril to all humanity.” 

“They do not take any issue with the facts underlying the charges, and acknowledge and admit that they intended to commit the acts giving rise to each charge,” said Lamperson’s verdict. 

Lamperson ruled against their application, because the defendants made choices to commit mischief. 

“They decided on which days and at which times they would engage in civil disobedience. They also decided what form their protest activity would take on particular days. All of their protests involved advance planning,” Lamperson decided. 

Breen chose to cause more interference on some days than others, such as gluing his hand to the roadway one day and using a bike lock to fasten his legs to another protester on another. One day, he simply sat on a roadway holding a banner. 

“Ms. Murray also freely made choices with respect to her protest activity, including whether she would put herself in an ‘arrestable position.’ The evidence demonstrates that on some days she did and on other days did not,” Lamperson wrote. 

Murray was charged with four offences, two for mischief by interfering with a public roadway and two for causing a disturbance.

Breen was charged with 11 Criminal Code offences and another another contrary to the Aeronautics Act. He also describes himself as a member of the Just Stop Oil and Last Generation protest groups. 

Lamperson’s May 3 judgment said Breen worked in the 1970s for the Liberal Party, but switched later that decade to the NDP and remained until 2015. He has also worked with environmental organizations Smart Change CA, Friends of the Earth, Wilderness Committee and Greenpeace.

In early 2020, Breen was part of an anti-pipeline protest outside then-NDP premier John Horgan’s house in Langford. Breen and two others saw their mischief charges stayed when they agreed to avoid Horgan’s neighbourhood for two years. 

In 2019, Breen was arrested for attempting a citizens’ arrest on federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna during the Liberal’s photo op in Oak Bay.

The July 19 hearing came, coincidentally, the day after Extinction Rebellion’s global co-founder Roger Hallam was jailed in the U.K. for five years for conspiring to organize 2022 protests that blocked the M25 freeway. Four others were sentenced to four years each.

Extinction Rebellion and its affiliates benefit from grants made by the California-based Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), which reported it disbursed $3.74 million to 34 organizations last year. 

In January 2022, Pakistani foreign student Muhammad Zain Ul-Haq and four others incorporated Eco-Mobilization Canada, a federal not-for-profit behind the B.C. Extinction Rebellion splinter group Save Old Growth. 

Ul-Haq boasted in August 2022 in a New York Times story that Save Old Growth received US$170,000 in grants from CEF. In July 2023, a judge sentenced him to jail for seven days for multiple criminal mischief counts and ordered 30 days of house arrest and 31 days of curfew. 

Ul-Haq’s criminal record meant he faced deportation for violating the terms and conditions of his visa to study at Simon Fraser University. That was put on hold in April after intervention from Liberal MP Joyce Murray. Last year, he was appointed to CEF’s advisory board.

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Bob Mackin  A delay in sentencing two environmental

Bob Mackin 

A Toronto socialite, who hosted political fundraisers for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is accused of misleading an insurance industry regulator about her academic credentials.

Hong Wei (Winnie) Liao with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Respon)

Insurance Council of British Columbia executive director Janet Sinclair ordered cancellation of Hong Wei (Winnie) Liao’s life and accident and sickness insurance licence on May 29 after an investigation into a breach of the council’s rules and code of conduct. Sinclair’s order said Liao must wait three years before reapplying for a licence. 

Liao, president of Respon Wealth Management Corp. in Toronto and Richmond, requested a hearing to dispute the cancellation.  

The notice of the July 22-26 hearing says that, during the council’s November 2023 hearing, Liao “testified that she had a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Canada and in support of this testimony, she tendered a diploma and transcript purportedly from York University.”

The council alleges Liao breached the council’s code of conduct because she never attended York University, which never gave her a diploma or transcript. 

“The licensee received the York documents from an individual to whom the licensee paid money in exchange for them,” the order alleges. “The licensee never completed the courses listed in the York University transcript.”

The council will decide whether to confirm, revoke or vary the May 29 order. If the order is upheld, the council will decide whether to reprimand Liao, suspend or cancel her licence, fine her up to $25,000 or impose conditions on her licence. 

A 2018 advertorial in the Scarborough Mirror said Liao “has been devoted to the financial industry for almost 30 years” and that she gained master degrees in both China and Canada.

Liao has not responded for comment. Her lawyer, William Smart, did.

“The issue at the hearing will be whether she knew it was forged at the time she presented it or was herself a victim of someone else’s dishonesty,” Smart said by email.

Liao is a frequent speaker and/or sponsor at Metro Vancouver events for cultural and business associations that are aligned with the People’s Republic of China consulate. 

In October 2021, Liao attended a Vancouver promotion for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics during a series of local celebrations of 72 years of Communist Party rule in China. She was photographed in a group that included Chinese government diplomats, leaders of the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations, Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, Vancouver mayoral candidate Ken Sim and municipal councillors Alexa Loo (Richmond) and James Wang (Burnaby). 

In June 2024, Respon sponsored the Vancouver Chinese Amateur Golf Charity Invitational to benefit Unicef. In February, Respon hosted a Year of the Dragon Chinese Spring Festival Gala at the River Rock Casino’s show theatre in Richmond. Attendees included Liberal MP Shaun Chen (Scarborough North), B.C. NDP MLA Henry Yao (Richmond-South Centre), BC United MLA Teresa Wat (Richmond-North Centre) and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie. 

Respon’s corporate video, shown at the River Rock and elsewhere, features clips of Liao, her family, staff and various politicians, including Trudeau, who appears with Liao inside and outside a private residence. 

Elections Canada’s contributions database lists more than $28,000 in political donations from North York Ont.-resident Liao. Except for the $2,072 to two Conservative Party riding associations in 2014, the rest were made to the Liberal Party, including $1,000 to Trudeau’s Papineau riding association. 

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Bob Mackin  A Toronto socialite, who hosted political

Bob Mackin 

The arm of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure overseeing the Broadway Subway Project is refusing to say exactly how much it spent through January and it claimed to be within the original budget in May.

South Granville Station, from January 2024 report (TIC/FOI)

In February, this reporter asked the Transportation Investment Corporation (TIC) for the most-recent project status report including, among other things, the financial report and schedule status. The NDP government finally disclosed the freedom of information records on July 16, but they were heavily censored  to conceal key details about the megaproject that ends on the border of Premier David Eby’s Point Grey riding. The government relied on an exception to disclosure in order to withhold information that it believes could harm a public body’s financial or economic interests.

A summary of the cost and contingency report shows nearly $1.372 billion project-to-date, but the sum is incomplete because the costs for Indigenous relations and legal were censored. Other columns, which compare the budget with the true amount spent, were also censored. Despite that, the spreadsheet garnered a green rating, meaning insignificant or no concern. 

Another spreadsheet, a multiyear forecast, shows $1.08 billion in costs through 2022-2023. Likewise, line items for Indigenous relations and legal costs were censored. TIC also hid the gross and net project expenditure totals and forecasts through 2026-2027. 

On May 24, however, NDP transportation minister Rob Fleming announced the Broadway Subway would not open until fall 2027. Fleming’s communications staff maintained that the total budget remained unchanged at $2.83 billion. Fleming, who represents Victoria-Swan Lake, is not running in the Oct. 19 provincial election. 

The 5.7 kilometre Millennium Line subway from VCC-Clark to Arbutus had previously been delayed from late 2025 to early 2026. Fleming blamed delays in tunnel boring, station excavation and relocating major utilities, along with the five-week concrete strike in 2022. 

Elsewhere in the January report, there are indications of a poor safety record that is only getting worse. 

The health and safety section was assigned a yellow dot for moderate concern. It showed a total 900 incidents during the life of the project, including 24 in December and 27 in January. Of the total, 552 were for first aid incidents, 110 near misses and 97 equipment/vehicle and property damage incidents. 

WorkSafeBC has made 59 inspections through January, but none to end 2023 or start 2024. 

The rolling 12-month lost time injury frequency per 100 workers was 2.92, but the 12-month rolling total of recordable injuries was 9.15 per 100 workers. 

Mount Pleasant Station, from January 2024 report (TIC/FOI)

A chart showed days lost to injury jumped from just seven in 2022 to 122 in 2023 — a whopping increase of more than 1,600%. The trend continued in January with 18 days lost to injury.

“[Broadway Subway Project Corp.] has reported a large increase in lost time injuries in 2023. BSPC has shared their documented action plan to improve their injury reporting and claims management processes,” the report said. 

There have been 26 alcohol and drug tests performed on workers, with failures by five workers attached to the main contractor and five with subcontractors. There have been 15 incidents of fire, 16 of violence, 34 incidents classified under public safety and 54 of property damage. 

The report also pointed to a large number of nonconformities, or items that deviate from specifications or fail to meet quality control standards. 

By the end of January, there was a total 370 nonconformities, of which 25 were still active. 

“The average number of days that it took a nonconformity to be resolved and closed was 48 days,” the report said. 

A heavily censored list of supervening events (or unscheduled interruptions) mentioned a “COVID-19-related health event” on Dec. 3, 2021, discovery of undisclosed utilities on July 5, 2021, acts and omissions by City of Vancouver on Nov. 19, 2021 and a “blockade or embargo falling short, protest action/force majeure event” on July 25, 2022.

BSPC is the design/build joint venture between Acciona of Spain and Ghella of Italy. Acciona is also working on the Site C dam and Pattullo Bridge projects. Metro Vancouver fired it from the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant in 2022, sparking an ongoing legal battle. The North Vancouver project is costing $3 billion more than originally budgeted and scheduled for 2030 completion — a decade late. 

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Bob Mackin  The arm of the Ministry of

Bob Mackin

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has thrown out a retired mining tycoon’s defamation lawsuit against a charity watchdog. 

Former HDI Mining executive Scott Cousens sued Vivian Krause over three letters she published on her Fair Questions blog in 2021. Krause cast doubt over Cousens’ $23 million in donations to the 2013-opened Fortius Sport Centre in Burnaby. Cousens laid claim to the single, largest philanthropic gift in Canadian sports history.

Vivian Krause (Fair Questions)

After Fortius announced it would close at the end of 2020, due to the effects of pandemic restrictions, City of Burnaby paid $25.8 million for the complex. It was renamed the Christine Sinclair Community Centre in September 2023 for the Burnaby-born, former Canadian national soccer team star. 

Krause claimed that Cousens “became the front man of an elaborate scheme that involved loans, not true gifts” in her letters to Cousens, charity lawyer Blake Bromley, B.C.’s Auditor General, RCMP and Burnaby civic officials. 

Through her research of public records, Krause claimed that the total amount of gifts from Cousens’ private foundation to Fortius totalled just $130,000. 

After Cousens sued, Krause successfully applied for the case to be dismissed under the Protection of Public Participation Act, the formal name for B.C.’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) legislation. 

Justice Kevin Loo heard arguments on May 13 after the hearing was postponed in December and February due to a shortage of judges.

Loo’s July 15 written decision found that Cousens failed to demonstrate that Krause’s letters were not protected by the defences of justification and fair comment. Loo also rejected Cousens’ contention that Krause acted with malice.
“Proof of overzealous conduct does not establish malice,” Loo said.  

Krause alleged a “series of circular, self-cancelling transactions” took place involving $74.7 million gifted to Fortius by Bromley-created CHIMP and that the money was used to repay five other Bromley-created charities, which then made gifts back to CHIMP. Loo said it was beyond the scope of Krause’s application for him to decide the legitimacy of the transactions, but he noted that Cousens “does not appear to deny the basic facts underlying Ms. Krause’s allegations.”

Scott Cousens (Amarc)

Instead, Cousens accused Krause of misunderstanding because the Fortius funding model was based on accounting advice. 

Loo said Cousens deposed that his relationships with others had been affected by the publicity, but he did not provide specifics. Loo said he may be shunned for other reasons, such as a 2018 Globe and Mail exposé on Bromley that identified Cousens as a client.

“The harm Mr. Cousens likely suffered, or will likely suffer, as a result of Ms. Krause’s expression is not serious enough that the public interest in continuing the proceeding outweighs the public interest in protecting that expression,” Loo ruled.

Loo also pointed out the disparity between the plaintiff and defendant, and suggested that Cousens could have countered Krause’s allegations elsewhere.  

“Mr. Cousens acknowledges that he has substantial financial means at his disposal. He has sufficient resources to dispute Ms. Krause’s allegations in the ‘court of public opinion’ if he wishes to do so,” Loo wrote. “Although Ms. Krause has been raising funds for her defence through a ‘GoFundMe’ webpage, it is clear that she does not have the resources that Mr. Cousens has.” 

Krause raised more than $31,000 through GoFundMe and the judge awarded Krause some costs. She said that will not be enough to pay her lawyer, Dan Burnett, who she called wise and compassionate. 

“This is a wake-up call for the [Canada Revenue Agency] and for all British Columbians, all Canadians because the issue at the heart of this is the sad truth that some of the largest charitable donations in Canadian history are a sham,” Krause said. 

Cousens has not immediately responded for comment.

CRA revoked the Fortius Foundation’s charitable registration in July 2022. An audit found it was not operated exclusively for charitable purposes, and it failed to maintain adequate records, properly provide donation receipts or file an information return. 

A Federal Court of Appeal judge rejected the Fortius appeal in October 2022. In May 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Fortius’s application for an appeal. 

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Bob Mackin A B.C. Supreme Court judge has

For the week of July 14, 2024:

In the middle of spring break, on a Friday afternoon, Metro Vancouver revealed the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant would take another $3 billion and six years to complete. It was supposed to cost $500 million to $700 million and be ready in 2020. 

Seven local government politicians from around the Lower Mainland are demanding transparency, accountability and reform from the regional government. They want an audit and they want elections for directors in 2026. Two of the seven are Bob Mackin’s guests on this edition of thePodcast: New Westminster city councillor Daniel Fontaine and Richmond city councillor Kash Heed. 

Plus, this week’s Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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

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For the week of July 14, 2024:

Bob Mackin

An executive with Chinese-owned TikTok said he met with top Elections BC officials, in case any hostile actors use the popular short video app to sway voters in the Oct. 19 provincial election.

TikTok Canada’s Steve de Eyre (Mackin)

“That’s something we take super serious,” Steve de Eyre, the director of public policy and government affairs for TikTok Canada, said in Vancouver on July 10.

De Eyre said he met with chief electoral officer Anton Boegman and his staff “to make sure that they understand our processes, our rules, and we understand what their concerns are, and most importantly, that there’s a direct line of communication, that if there are content escalations, that they know, they have a backbone.”

De Eyre said the company’s policies do not allow false or misleading content about election processes and results or promotion of illegal activities, including intimidation of voters, election workers or observers. He said TikTok has a network of 15 global fact checkers who are informed about the main actors and potential misinformation and disinformation themes in each election. 

“We defined harmful mis- and disinformation to include that that can undermine electoral processes or civic processes. So, you know, false outcomes of elections,” de Eyre said.

“It’s something we’re focused on at the provincial level, at the federal level, and again, ensuring that we’re taking it from an independent, objective standpoint.”

TikTok parent ByteDance’s operations are headquartered in Beijing, where it also runs the Douyin video app targeted at the Chinese market. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared in Vancouver in April 2023 at the TED Conference, where he called questions about whether the Chinese government could use TikTok to interfere in a U.S. election “highly hypothetical.”

The U.S. presidential election is Nov. 5 — 17 days after B.C.’s next legislature is decided. 

Chew said that, with the help of third-party monitoring, he was confident that “we can reduce this risk to as low as zero, as possible.”

Elections BC spokesperson Andrew Watson said his agency is in direct contact with several social media companies, including TikTok. 

“These meetings are being held to ensure platforms are aware of the prohibitions against false statements and misrepresentation that were added to B.C.’s Election Act in 2023,” Watson said.

The Act threatens fines up to $20,000 for false statements about candidate withdrawals, elections officials, voting administration and the results, but it does not cover parody and satire. 

Boegman has the power to order individuals or organizations to stop their false and misleading activities. Fines are up to $50,000 per day, for every day a violator fails to comply. The Act does not regulate political debates or all claims that might be considered disinformation by some.

(Elections BC)

“We have staff who are trained in social media monitoring to help us spot trends in the information environment, including TikTok. Our investigations team has capacity to conduct investigations related to potential contraventions of the Election Act on social media,” Watson said. 

“In addition to monitoring, we rely on voters and political participants to let us know if they see something online that may constitute a contravention of the Act.”

Watson said Elections BC has networked with regulators in other provinces, as well as Australia, Sweden, Estonia, Singapore and U.S. on this topic. Officials also met with representatives of the Doublethink Lab from Taiwan during the Canadian Network on Information and Security conference held in Banff in 2024.   

Academic doubtful

Benjamin Fung is a professor on data mining for cybersecurity at McGill University’s school of information studies. He is skeptical about TikTok’s co-operation with Elections BC and its approach to elections in general.

“TikTok is trying to put itself in an innocent position, claiming that the interference, if any, is coming from the users. However, the problem here is that we do not trust there is no bias on its recommender system, as illustrated in many previous political topics,” Fung said. “We are not talking about whether or not TikTok will report evidence of interference.”

The recommender system is the machine learning algorithm that helps decide what the user sees. Fung describes it as the “most-powerful and valuable component” of TikTok. It may never recommend sensitive videos, “even though they are sitting on TikTok,” he said.

The B.C. government banned its workers from using TikTok on government devices in February 2023 for privacy and security reasons. 

TikTok is under even greater scrutiny in the U.S. President Joe Biden signed a law in April that required ByteDance to sell TikTok within nine months or the app be banned in the U.S. U.S. officials are concerned with the Chinese government’s strict laws that allow it to access data inside private companies in China and require those companies to each maintain a Communist Party committee.

Prof. Benjamin Fung (McGill/YouTube)

De Eyre said that TikTok user data is stored in the U.S., Singapore and Malaysia and denied it takes orders from the Chinese government. 

“We’ve never removed content at the behest of the Chinese government or any one government,” he said.

The U.S. divestiture edict followed the annual threat assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which said China is becoming more sophisticated with its foreign influence techniques, including use of generative artificial intelligence. 

“TikTok accounts run by a People’s Republic of China propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022,” the report said.

Research by the Brookings Institution think tank said the DPP, the party led by Taiwan’s January-elected president Lai Ching-te, struggled to communicate with the public due to the heavy use of TikTok, especially among younger voters. The report cited the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center, which said pre-election surveys in 2023 found TikTok users “tend to believe pro-China narratives that oppose pro-U.S. policies and support closer cross-strait ties.” 

The Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University in New Jersey analyzed hashtag data on topics sensitive to China’s government and its geopolitical objectives, such as the Ukraine-Russia War, Kashmir independence and the Israel-Hamas war. 

“The conclusions of our research are clear: Whether content is promoted or muted on TikTok appears to depend on whether it is aligned or opposed to the interests of the Chinese government,” the study said.  

Meanwhile, TikTok, Meta, Snap and X (formerly Twitter) are co-operating with the B.C. government on the “online safety action table” after the NDP government paused Bill 12, the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery law proposed during the spring session. 

TikTok held a briefing session July 10 for Vancouver media about its programs and features to limit platform access for children and teenagers. 

De Eyre said the companies have held one full meeting with the government and individual meetings. Another is planned for next week. There have been no “finalized solutions or plans” yet, he said.

“These are global platforms, and we’re looking at British Columbia, a subnational jurisdiction,” he said. “What is it that we can do that’s going to make a difference in British Columbia, that we, as platforms, can bring our resources towards aligning with government priorities?” 

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Bob Mackin An executive with Chinese-owned TikTok said

Bob Mackin

Four citizens with Save Stanley Park are hoping a judge will halt the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation from cutting down any more trees in Stanley Park. 

In a negligence lawsuit filed July 11 in B.C. Supreme Court, software developer Michael Robert Cadiz and homemaker Katherine Caditz, holistic health educator and coach Anita Hansen and schoolteacher Jillian Maguire named City of Vancouver, the Park Board, urban forestry manager Joe McLeod and contractor B.A. Blackwell and Associates as defendants.

Stanley Park entrance on West Georgia (Mackin)

Between October and March, crews logged more than 7,200 trees in Stanley Park, a fraction of the 160,000 that the Park Board said would be removed due to the Hemlock looper moth infestation and wildfire fears. The Park Board is spending almost $7 million on the operation.

“If defendants continue the logging operation to its stated conclusion, then almost one third of the trees in Stanley Park will be cut down,” said the court filing. “Many healthy trees, including red cedar and Douglas fir trees, have already been cut down, including a 150-year-old fir. Further, much of the logging is implemented as patch cutting, which results in cutting healthy trees which happen to be situated in the patch, but leaving defoliated trees which happen to be situated outside of the patch.”

The plaintiffs claim the tree removal operation has resulted in muddy trails, previously secluded or shaded areas being subject to sunlight and heat and increased traffic noise and exposure to roadways. Also, the sights and sounds of heavy machinery that emit diesel exhaust. 

The result, the four plaintiffs claim, is that the logging has harmed their mental health and caused physical discomfort. 

Top city hall bureaucrats approved the first phase last August behind closed doors and recommended the emergency, no-bid contract with North Vancouver’s Blackwell while city council and park board politicians were on summer holiday. 

The lack of public debate is a major issue in the lawsuit. The plaintiffs say there was never a motion at a public Park Board meeting to direct staff to remove trees from Stanley Park nor was there a motion approve any contract with Blackwell to hire logging subcontractors. 

Crews load logged Stanley Park trees at a makeshift yard in the Prospect Point Picnic Area (Bob Mackin photo)

By comparison, the Park Board, dominated by Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC party until last December, decided at open meetings to repair the storm-damaged Jericho Beach Park Pier, explore new revenue generating activities, lift the moratorium on commercial event applications and remove the Stanley Park Drive bike lane and return it to pre-pandemic condition.

“Plaintiffs find no evidence in the Park Board meeting summaries and minutes from January 2021 through July 2024 that a motion was presented or approved by resolution at a public (or any) meeting,” the court filing says. “Had such public hearing transpired, then experts with alternate recommendations and any conflicting scientific evidence would have had an opportunity to be heard.” 

They also claim the contractor is in conflict of interest. Blackwell was the consultant that assessed the looper moth impact and became the general contractor of the mitigation work it eventually recommended, thus standing to profit from a markup on the logging operation. 

None of the allegations has been tested in court. The defendants have yet to file their replies. 

The Park Board said planting of 25,000 seedlings took place in March and April, including western red cedar, Douglas fir, grand fir, Sitka spruce and red alder. Removal of logs felled across six hectares was deferred to fall 2024, which also delays replanting in those areas.

Park Board general manager Steve Jackson’s internal memo said crews will continue to deal with hazard trees during the summer months and the city was considering bids on the next phase of work.

“The scope will address priority treatments in forest areas at the Aquarium, Brockton Point, Chickadee Trail, and a portion of the seawall west of Lion’s Gate Bridge,” the memo said. 

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Bob Mackin Four citizens with Save Stanley Park

Bob Mackin

Telus confirmed July 11 that it is closing its Barrie contact centre. 

But a source told theBreaker.news that one of its Burnaby offices is also affected.

NDP Health Minister Adrian Dix and Telus CEO Darren Entwistle in 2012 (Mackin)

Brandi Merker, Telus’s senior communications manager, said by email that, following a review of the company’s real estate portfolio, it decided to close the office in Barrie, more than 100 kilometres north of Toronto, affecting 150 employees. Merker said they were given three options: relocate with financial support, seek another job within Telus or take a buyout package. 

“While we hope our team is excited to evolve and grow with us, we know this is a change to the way we work today, and in particular, represents a significant personal decision for our Ontario-based team members,” Merker said. 

Employees in Burnaby were informed July 10 about the Ontario decision and told one of the departments located at the Canada Way and Willingdon complex would be shut. The source, who is not authorized to speak publicly, said the 1,000 workers across Canada, including B.C., who are working from home and want to remain in the company, must work in the office at least three days a week or take a buyout package. 

On the work-from-home issue, Merker said the move is about “training, reskilling and new tools that modernize our capabilities.” 

“To support this, we’re asking our frontline agents and their leaders to come into a contact centre office three days per week for ongoing learning and collaboration to meet our customers’ evolving needs, beginning this September,” she said. 

Merker said Telus ultimately wants to decrease call volumes so that when customers call with “more complex situations, their issue is resolved the first time, every time.”

In August 2023, Telus announced it would cut 6,000 jobs, including 4,000 centrally and 2,000 at its international operations. Telus reported more than 108,000 employees last year, of which nearly 35,000 were in Canada. The remainder are spread across the globe, including India, Philippines, South Africa, Morocco, Guatemala and Brazil.

For 2024’s first quarter, Telus reported a 0.6% drop in operating revenues and other income, year-over-year, to $4.9 billion. That, despite what it called a record first quarter with 209,000 more customers, 46,000 better than a year earlier. 

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Bob Mackin Telus confirmed July 11 that it

Bob Mackin 

A shakeup inside BC United, as Kevin Falcon’s party hired a new campaign manager on July 10.

Mark Werner, who oversaw Ellis Ross’s BC Liberal leadership bid in 2022, has taken over, with 14 weeks until the Oct. 19 election.

Werner told theBreaker.news that campaign operations director Kelly Reichert, strategic advisor Hamish Marshall and executive director Lindsay Coté will report to him.

Mark Werner (left) and Ellis Ross in 2022 (Werner)

“Caucus is very happy and the mood and the tone is changing,” Werner said.  

Werner will oversee all facets of the central campaign and also guide the local campaigns for Kamloops incumbents Todd Stone and Peter Milobar. 

The former president of the B.C. Guide Outfitters Association was a northern B.C. grassroots organizer for the BC Liberals under Christy Clark. He managed Ross’s runner-up campaign in 2022, a contest marred by accusations from Falcon’s six challengers that the former multi-portfolio cabinet minister’s team violated the party’s rules about membership sales and spending. 

Under the weighted voting system, Falcon eventually defeated Ross on the fifth ballot 52.19% to 33.65%. Michael Lee finished third with 14.14%. Just over a year later, in April 2023, Falcon rebranded the party as BC United. 

“He’s the leader, so I’m going to support him,” Werner said. 

After the spring session of the Legislature, BC United suffered defections of caucus chair Lorne Doerkson (Cariboo-Chilcotin) and mental health and addiction critic Elenore Sturko (Surrey South) to the Conservative Party of B.C. The party led by former BC United MLA John Rustad (Nechako Lakes) is riding high in public opinion polls as a likely heir to BC United as the opposition party in the next version of the Legislature. Former BC Greens leader Andrew Weaver suggested the Conservatives could even upset the David Eby-led NDP and form government.

BC United reported $672,000 in donations in the April to June quarter, compared to $1.1 million for the Conservatives and $2.2 million for the NDP. 

Does Werner think he can turn it around? 

“I can and will. Things are not as bad as people think they are.

“The polls don’t reflect what people think, once people get to know John [Rustad],” Werner said. “I don’t think people know Kevin, either.”

To that end, Werner plans to produce a short video on Falcon’s life and family, refine the party’s brand and logo and put together an operations team. 

“I do see a path to victory,” Werner said. 

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Bob Mackin  A shakeup inside BC United, as

Bob Mackin

Could Alan Mullen return to the B.C. Legislature as an MLA? 

The former chief of staff to Darryl Plecas, the speaker from 2017 to 2020, confirms he is being courted by more than one party to run in the Oct. 19 provincial election.

Darryl Plecas (left) and Alan Mullen in Abbotsford (Mackin)

“I’m considering it, I’m having the discussions, I’ve certainly not committed one way or another,” Mullen said, adding he was approached for interim discussions about running in the Lower Mainland.

He declined to say which parties are showing interest, except to say that BC United, the former BC Liberal Party, is not one of them. Plecas was ejected from the party when he was chosen speaker in 2017, early in the Green-supported NDP minority government. 

Mullen rose to prominence by helping Plecas expose corruption in the Legislature, where clerk Craig James and sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz both resigned in disgrace in 2019. James was later convicted in 2022 of breach of public trust. 

“I think some people, certainly in the back rooms of political parties, are scratching their heads thinking, why would you be asking him, a little bit controversial, and he basically calls a spade a spade,’ Mullen said. “Well, yeah, I wish every politician would call a spade a spade.”

Mullen said he has never been a card-carrying member of any provincial or federal party and is not an ideologue. Instead, “in my capacity as chief of staff, it was always all about doing the right thing… it was about protecting the taxpayer, was always about looking after British Columbians.”

Among the work he did while in Plecas’s office was a 2020 report recommending cost-saving measures in Legislature security. It took until July 2023 for the Legislative Assembly Management Committee to adopt recommendations from “Review of the Sergeant-at-Arms Department and Proposals for Reform.” That is when the all-party committee heard that the first group of 10 unarmed safety officers began orientation and training. 

Mullen’s report recommended that Legislative Assembly Protective Services become a security department with unarmed officers in order to save more than $1 million a year. He found that the force protecting just 5.9 hectares was costing taxpayers $5 million a year and had become more expensive than the police forces in Victoria suburbs Oak Bay and Central Saanich. 

The B.C. Legislature should be a “glass house” where transparency is the priority, Mullen said.

“It’s the people’s house doesn’t belong to any political party, it doesn’t belong to any politician. They’re simply they’re doing the people’s work.”

After Plecas chose not run in the 2020 election, Mullen became head of investigations for a provincial regulator. He said he would mull the offers to run for office during the next three weeks. 

“I haven’t said no, and I certainly haven’t said yes, I’ve taken any call, any conversation. I’ve had the meetings, and I will continue to do so, and I’ll have some more this week,” said the Burnaby resident. “But at the end of the day, it’s not about necessarily me. It’s not about stepping back into the limelight. it’s not even about the political party. It’s about, is this the best time to do it, and is it the best thing for the province? If I feel overwhelmingly then, yes, that’s the answer, then I would obviously accept that and throw my hat in the ring.”

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Bob Mackin Could Alan Mullen return to the