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Business, News

Bob Mackin 

The law firm retained to defend ex-Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum in his public mischief trial billed Surrey taxpayers almost $317,000. 

That is according to the statement of financial information for 2022, which was quietly published June 19. 

Doug McCallum on Sept. 4, 2021 (Provincial Court exhibit)

The precise total billed by Peck and Company Barristers is $316,663.50, according to the statutory annual sunshine list. 

Brenda Locke, who defeated McCallum in the Oct. 15 civic election, came to power promising transparency and vowed to pursue repayment.  

A Provincial Court judge ruled McCallum not guilty on Nov. 21 of the charge that he made a false report to police about a Keep the RCMP in Surrey protester driving over his left foot on Labour Day weekend in 2021.

During the five-day trial, McCallum was represented by three lawyers and an assistant, including Richard Peck and Eric Gottardi from the team that defended Huawei executive Meng Wenzhou against extradition to the U.S. 

McCallum did not testify. 

City of Surrey chose to temporarily withhold the total dollar figure paid to Peck and Company for 2022 in response to a March 28 freedom of information application. 

When city hall responded May 11, after the law’s 30-workday deadline, it cited a clause that allows a public body to refuse disclosure of information that must be published under another law. In this case, the Financial Information Act, which requires Surrey city hall to release the list of payments to suppliers and staff in the annual statement of financial information by June 30 every year. 

In a campaign video published last September on Surrey Connect’s Facebook page, Locke warned McCallum. 

“So Doug, you better be very careful with every minute you spend with your lawyer because we are coming after you for every dime you spend,” Locke said on the video, which remains visible. 

Richard Peck (Peck and Co.)

In an interview after her victory speech, Locke reiterated her stance. “We’ll be asking our city legal [department] to figure out a way to get that money back and to make Mr. McCallum pay for his legal bills.”

City of Surrey’s indemnity bylaw still contains a clause that states it will shield municipal officials against payment of costs to defend a prosecution in connection with “the performance or intended performance of the person’s duties.” 

Keep the RCMP in Surrey members were outside the Southpoint Save-on-Foods on Sept. 4, 2021, collecting signatures for a petition they hoped would trigger a referendum on McCallum’s program to replace the RCMP with the Surrey Police Service (SPS). One of the petitioners, who was driving a Mustang convertible, yelled at McCallum to resign the mayoralty and unleashed a barrage of profanity at him. In court, Debi Johnstone denied McCallum’s hit and run allegation. McCallum told reporters after the incident that he was there on a grocery shopping trip.

In total, Surrey paid suppliers $674.6 million in 2022. 

A majority of Surrey city council voted behind closed doors on June 15 to keep the RCMP and shut down the SPS. The NDP government, which has offered $150 million to switch to the SPS, has not yet approved the decision.  

Neither Locke nor McCallum responded to interview requests. 

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Bob Mackin  The law firm retained to defend

Business, News, Opinion

For the week of June 25, 2023:

When Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015, he promised disclosure by default. He also promised an ethical Liberal government.

In 2019, the SNC-Lavalin scandal exploded and dominated headlines for months before that year’s federal election. The RCMP started an investigation after former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould blew the whistle.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, wanted to know what became of the investigation. In a response to an access to information request, the RCMP told him the investigation continues. Then the RCMP changed its tune and said it closed the investigation and gave Conacher incorrect information.

Conacher is the guest of thePodcast host Bob Mackin. Plus, highlights of The Bureau investigative reporter Sam Cooper’s testimony to a House of Commons committee studying foreign interference by China. 

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

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For the week of June 25, 2023: When

Business, News

Bob Mackin 

Attempts to link the proposed registry of foreign agents with the centennial of a discriminatory law play into the hands of the Chinese government, says a human rights advocate.

Senators Yuen Pau Woo (left) and Victor Oh, with Ontario politicians Michael Chan and Vincent Ke, applauding Trudeau Liberal backbencher Chandra Arya on June 24 at Parliament Hill (CCMedia/YouTube)

Senators Victor Oh (Ontario) and Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.) co-hosted a remembrance ceremony in Ottawa on June 23 for the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. With exceptions for students, merchants, diplomats and Canadians born in China, immigration from China was banned until 1947 when the law was repealed. Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in 2006. 

A rally took place at Parliament Hill and the Supreme Court on June 24.

Ivy Li of the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong said that the senators are using public money and resources, and their official platform, to “serve a foreign dictatorship’s interest.”

“The goal is very obvious,” Li said. “The Exclusion Act, of course, is a terrible, racist history that all Canadians should know and all of us should remember that something like that actually has happened in Canada. Using that to say that what we are doing today can be the repeat of that, and take it totally out of context, is the common strategy of [the Chinese Communist Party’s] racist card and victimhood card.” 

Woo also helped draft the April-launched e-petition against such a registry. Sponsored by backbench Liberal MP Chandra Arya (Nepean), the e-petition’s initiator is Coquitlam activist Ally Wang. With three weeks to go, it has more than 2,400 supporters, exceeding the 500 minimum for presentation to the House of Commons. 

In 2021, Wang co-founded the Stop Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Advocacy Group Association of Canada (SAAHCAG) and the Chinese Canadians Goto Vote Association (CCGVA). During the 2021 federal election, supporters of the latter group helped Liberal Parm Bains upset Kenny Chiu, the Conservative incumbent who originally proposed the foreign agents registry and voted to condemn China for committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims. 

Coquitlam activist Ally Wang (left) and Toronto United Front leader Weng Guoning on Parliament Hill June 24 (CCMedia/YouTube)

At a news conference on March 16, Woo said the 1923 law was the result of “groupthink” and rejected a reporter’s suggestion that he is cozy with the Chinese government. 

“Think about all the other Chinese people who don’t have my privilege or my protections,” Woo said. “Are they going to be accused of being fifth columnists, because of the views they hold? Are we going to have a foreign influence registry, that’s going to use the views that one holds as the litmus test of being a foreign agent?”

Wang was featured in a March 21 report by pro-Beijing Phoenix TV about leaks from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service alleging Tong Xiaoling, China’s former top diplomat in Vancouver, meddled in Canadian elections to help candidates friendly to China. Wang said that memorial activities would help fight systemic racism against not only Chinese, but Indigenous, African and Muslim communities, “because we all face the same white supremacy.”

Li said such a message stokes resentment and fear between ethnic communities. 

“If we want a multicultural society to succeed, we have to be very aware of these kinds of divide and control tactics, from regimes like the CCP, like Russia,” she said.

Wang, who traveled to Ottawa, said she was unavailable for an interview, but referred a reporter to Ivan Pak, who co-founded the two associations and is also in Ottawa. Pak, who ran for the People’s Party of Canada in Richmond Centre in 2019, said he supports Wang’s petition because he does not want the Chinese-Canadian community to “become collateral damage.” 

“I personally doubt about whether this registry is going to help,” Pak said. 

Pak describes himself as “pretty much anti-CCP,” but admits some of the groups involved in commemorating the centennial and opposing the foreign agents registry have deep ties to the Chinese government and businessmen in Mainland China.

WeChat ad for the May 3 lecture by Ally Wang, who is behind an e-petition against a foreign agents registry.

“Some of them, they are not pro-CCP, but pro-China,” Pak said. “They want a strong China, they feel proud to have a strong China.”

However, a WeChat notice from the organizing committee of the rally tried to distance the event from the e-petition campaign. It asked participants not to raise the Chinese national flag, sing the Chinese national anthem or shout pro-China slogans.

Pak said SAAHCAG raised around $17,000 in January at a Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel banquet in memory of the 1923 law. He also said SAAHCAG paid for his and Wang’s airfare to Ottawa, but not accommodation. 

The organization is the recipient of federal and B.C. government grants that he Pak says are separate from the petition. The $24,400 from Employment and Social Development Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program is a year-long project to promote volunteerism, mentoring, social participation and inclusion, and expand awareness of elder abuse, including financial abuse. 

In April, the B.C. government announced $5,000 for SAAHCAG’s 123 Anti-Discrimination Exhibition, which is billed as “in memory of those affected by the Chinese Immigration Act.”

SAAHCAG now counts 15 directors, including unsuccessful 2022 Vancouver city council candidates May He of Progress Vancouver and Morning Lee of the NPA. During last fall’s campaign, Lee was in damage control after a so-called Chinese blessing video starring impoverished African children was found on the YouTube account for Lee’s real estate company.

SAAHCAG and CCGV supporters include Richmond’s Wenzhou Friendship Society, which is under an RCMP national security investigation for allegedly hosting an illegal Chinese police station.

Wang’s promotional campaign for the e-petition included a lecture via Zoom for seniors involved in the Mississauga, Ont.-based Chinese Age-well Research and Education (CARE). An ad for the May 3 event featuring Wag said “this project is supported by the Government of Canada.” 

However, two departments that granted funds to CARE said it wasn’t. 

Department of Canadian Heritage said it provided CARE $4,000 last September to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II. The $25,000 from ESDC’s New Horizons for Seniors program ended March 27, more than a month before the presentation. 

“Given this, the organization is not able to claim that this event is related to funding received through the New Horizons for Seniors Program,” said Natalie Huneault, a communications manager with ESDC. “Of note, an event of this nature would not be allowable under the terms and conditions of the NHSP, and is not an eligible activity.”

CARE founder Weiguo Zhang, a University of Toronto sociology professor, did not explain why the ad said the May 3 lecture was federally sponsored. An April 23 hybrid symposium, that also included Wang, was supported by ESDC, he said by email.

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Bob Mackin  Attempts to link the proposed registry

Business, News, Sports

 

New PNE logo by Cossette (PNE.ca)

Bob Mackin

The PNE calls its new, June 22-unveiled logo an evolution of the familiar pinwheel symbol.  

The non-profit board behind the annual summer and Christmastime fairs at Hastings Park is no longer calling it the Pacific National Exhibition. They say the PNE is not national but it is more than an exhibition.  

The shape of the new red, blue, green and purple logo is more international, however, because it is already exhibited by companies on at least two other continents. 

An online search found the same design, with different colours, was used to promote last November’s Energy Cultural Festival in Irkutsk, Russia. Likewise for a digital ad agency based in Brazil, called Top Creative. 

The icon may have originated on the MacZ.com stock graphics and photos website, where it appears under the heading “coloured spin gradient element.” 

“Although we entertain over three million guests to our site annually, we focus our marketing in B.C. and Canada, and so there was never an intention to register the logo outside of Canada, so I can’t comment on similar logos from other countries,” said PNE spokesperson Laura Ballance.

She said the PNE paid national marketing and communications agency Cossette $17,500 and the organization is in the final stages of registering the new logo.

“They reviewed similar logos across Canada and in our sector specifically throughout North America, and didn’t find a conflict,” Ballance said. “To be transparent though, since this is a refresh of an iconic logo that goes back to our very inception, we likely would have proceeded even if something was close, as many in B.C. would first attribute the pinwheel to the PNE.”

Russian Energy Festival in Irkutsk (En+)

Ballance explained the PNE is promoting itself as a year-round entertainment destination where play happens every day. 

Lindsay Meredith, professor emeritus of marketing at Simon Fraser University, said the PNE doesn’t have deep pockets to invest in branding like Apple or Nike. He said second-tier companies with smaller budgets have to be careful how much they borrow and how accurately they borrow the look of another. Otherwise, they could be accused of violating trademark law.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys have got access to other forms or have simply gone on the web and pirated other other formats that look easy to copy, changed the colour and away we go,” Meredith said. 

Meredith said the new PNE logo would be just as effective on the corner of a smartphone screen as it would in giant form on the side of a building at the PNE or a billboard around the city. It conveys a fresher message about the 113-year-old organization, which boasts something to entertain every member of the family.

Brazil digital ad agency Top Creative

“They’ve got a feel for the importance of marketing and what’s going on there and how they have to go about it and, what they had to do in terms of creating brand choice under that one umbrella,” Meredith said. 

The PNE and its previous logo were both registered in December 1990 by agent Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP in Toronto. The trademarks, which expire in 2030, cover a list of categories, including souvenir items, exhibitions, fairs, sporting events, restaurants and concessions.

The 2023 PNE Fair runs Aug. 19 to Sept. 4, with events around the site year-round.

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  [caption id="attachment_13323" align="alignright" width="384"] New PNE logo

Business, News

Bob Mackin 

Canada’s spy agency issued an extraordinary warning June 20 that the Chinese government is targeting Canadians, on the same day that the Federal Court published a previously secret ruling that allows deployment of a surveillance technology without warrant. 

But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) said the two are unrelated.

In a series of Tweets, CSIS explained how China’s intelligence services are targeting Canadians inside and outside China. 

“Be careful who you connect with on LinkedIn, and all other online platforms,” said one of the Tweets. 

The thread described the scheme in four steps. First, agents for the Chinese government identify recruitment targets by using proxies or “targeters.”

“They identify people who are actively looking for jobs in strategic sectors or who have high-value credentials,” the thread said.

They approach their target by posing as a human resources recruiter or security consultant via LinkedIn and then move the communication to a secondary platform, such as WeChat, WhatsApp or email, at the earliest opportunity. The targets are asked to write reports for client consultants, in exchange for payment. They may also be invited to meetings with people they are led to believe to be clients.

“Both the consultant and the client are in fact intelligence officers,” CSIS said.

In the fourth and final step, CSIS said the new recruits start receiving payment in exchange for providing confidential, privileged information that is of interest to the Chinese government. 

In its May 4-released annual public report, CSIS said China relies on “non-traditional collectors” to help transfer knowledge and technology from Canada to China. The non-traditional collectors are individuals without formal intelligence training, but include scientists and businesspeople who have relevant subject matter expertise.

The Tweets coincided with the publication of an October 2022 ruling from Federal Court Chief Justice Paul Crampton that allows CSIS to employ a certain type of technology inside and outside Canada without a warrant. 

The ruling had previously been marked “top secret,” but specifics about the technology and targets remain redacted for national security reasons. 

CSIS had applied in late 2021 for warrant powers to deploy a new tool against existing targets of an investigation, Crampton explained. His ruling mentions the technology was used in a 2018 pilot project without a warrant against both Canadian and non-Canadian subjects of an investigation in Canada and abroad. 

A hint about the type of technology appears to be contained in Crampton’s reference to the National Security and Intelligence Review Committee and its 2019 report to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, “Review of CSIS’s Use of [censored] – a Geolocation Data Collection Tool.”

Crampton ruled that the four CSIS-proposed uses of the technology within Canada would not require a warrant and that use of the technology outside Canada would not contravene any principle of international law and would not require a warrant. 

Information collected outside Canada, intended for use in a criminal proceeding, would be subject to admissibility tests under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Crampton wrote.

Meanwhile, a jury in a U.S. federal court on June 20, convicted three men for acting as illegal agents of the Chinese government and stalking across state lines. 

One of them, Michael McMahon, 55, is a retired New York Police Department sergeant who harassed and intimidated a man in an effort to coerce him to return to China during the “Operation Fox Hunt” anti-corruption campaign. McMahon could face up to 20 years in prison. 

Unlike Canada, the U.S. has a law requiring agents of foreign governments to register with the Department of Justice. 

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Bob Mackin  Canada’s spy agency issued an extraordinary

News, Opinion, Sports

Bob Mackin

On June 13, the Vegas Golden Knights became the 21st active franchise to win the Stanley Cup. Following are the imagined thoughts of an old Pacific Coliseum worker, about the Cup-less Vancouver Canucks.

Your mother and father asked me to put some wisdom on paper, to help you grow up and succeed. Well, apart from the obvious (question authority, obey the law, respect your elders and eat your greens), I regret one thing. Even though it’s not my fault. 

It goes back to the night the puck dropped on the third Canadian entry to the National Hockey League, live on Hockey Night in Canada, Oct. 9, 1970 at the Pacific Coliseum.

Before they hosted their first opponent, the Los Angeles Kings, they held a ceremony and the Stanley Cup was right there, on the ice, in front of the home team. 

It was my job to open and close the door at the rink on Renfrew. When it arrived I said you might want to think twice about letting the Cup in the building. Who wouldn’t want to touch that silver beauty, eh? But it didn’t belong. Coach Hal Laycoe and his Canucks hadn’t earned it. 

I say it jinxed the team.

I write this after the NHL won its biggest bet. The first major sport league to give a team to Las Vegas. The Golden Knights won it at home, in year six. Fabulous. Not so for the Canucks.

When the Canucks joined, there were 14 teams. Less than a decade later, four World Hockey Association teams entered in 1979. That included the Edmonton Oilers, who won the Stanley Cup in their fifth season and added four more.

The NHL eventually hired pro basketball’s lawyer to run the league and he sold franchises to Tampa Bay, Miami, Anaheim and Phoenix, places where Canadians go to escape winter.

The Montreal Canadiens were the last Canadian team to win it all, way back in 1993.

There were lean years for all. Two seasons, two decades apart, lost to lockouts. A pandemic ruined a couple more. Now there are 32 teams, including one in Seattle that eliminated the defending champs from Colorado in only their second season.

The Canucks moved downtown in 1995, an American took over, and then he sold to the sons of that Italian fella Aquilini, who bought and sold apartment buildings. I remember when they lived near Callister Park and rented parking spots in their driveway on game nights. Look how rich they are now. 

The team has worn so many different colours, I’ve lost track. But they did make three trips to the Stanley Cup final. There were two downtown riots. But still no Cup. 

Meanwhile, the team in Tampa Bay won three. Carolina and Anaheim have one apiece. And now Vegas. Nothing in Vancouver since the 1915 Millionaires. 

Maybe there is hope. In baseball, the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox beat their jinxes and became World Series champions again. 

Look what else happened since 1970. 

Soccer has become so popular that some Americans are even calling it by the name the rest of the world uses: football. 

The Rolling Stones keep touring and recording. The Beatles keep making more money apart than they ever did together. Another song is coming later this year, with an artificial intelligence John. Fancy that!

Department stores are endangered species, being replaced by warehouses and delivery truck drivers. The government is trying to replace gasoline cars with ones that run on batteries. Coca-Cola changed its taste. Coffee costs $3 or more. Typewriters merged with TVs. Phones are computers that fit in your pocket and hold your entire record collection. You can read a newspaper without getting your fingers dirty. 

The longest-running TV show is a cartoon about a family in Springfield. But nobody really knows which Springfield. Back in 1970, a TV star was governor of California. Ronald Reagan later became president of the U.S. of A., asked the Soviets to tear down the Berlin Wall. And, by golly, it eventually fell! 

A black man became president, but it’s too bad Martin Luther King wasn’t around to see it happen. 

Then an orange man came to live in the White House and launched a crusade to build a wall. He didn’t last more than four years and now he’s in trouble with the law. Maybe he’ll wear an orange suit and live behind a wall for a long time. 

Here in Canada, we had a Prime Minister in 1970, Pierre Trudeau, who became friendly with Chairman Mao in China. He had a son the next year and that son grew up to become Prime Minister. Some say he got the job with help from China. 

Truth is stranger than fiction. In 1970, if you predicted any of this would happen, they’d have accused you of smoking weed. 

Guess what? That Trudeau son who became PM, he legalized it! But don’t try it until you grow up.  

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that my most-important advice to you is this: If you grow up to run a new sports franchise, don’t ever let them bring the trophy into the building on opening night. 

Bob Mackin was born two months before the Canucks debuted and hopes they find a way to break the Stanley Cup jinx next year.

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Bob Mackin On June 13, the Vegas Golden

Business, News, Sports

Bob Mackin

Lordy, lordy, B.C. Place Stadium is 40! 

The dome that attracted a World’s Fair and Winter Olympics, and triggered False Creek North’s transformation from industrial to residential, opened June 19, 1983.

Inside B.C. Place Stadium (Mackin)

A look at the history of downtown Vancouver’s biggest room, through stats and facts. 

0.85: thickness in millimetres of the original teflon-coated Fibreglass roof. First inflated Nov. 14, 1982. It ripped and collapsed Jan. 5, 2007 after the air pressure was hiked, instead of the snow-melting system. 

1: B.C. Lions first shutout in B.C. Place, 22-0 over the Edmonton Elks on June 17, 2023.

2: Queen Elizabeth II visited March 10, 1983, before it opened, to invite the world to Expo 86. Pope John Paul II delighted faithful Catholics on Sept. 18, 1984.

3: Number of tenors who sang and walked off the stage early for a New Year’s Eve show that almost didn’t happen Dec. 31, 1996. After a late December snowstorm, staff with shovels and brooms scrambled to clear snow from the roof, saving both the roof and the concert by Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.

4: Number of Douglas Coupland’s Terry Fox sculptures facing Robson Street. Unveiled in 2011, two weeks before the stadium reopened, the statues replaced the original four-sided triumphal arch on Terry Fox Plaza by Franklin Allan and Ian Bateson.

5: The retired jersey numbers of Lions’ kicker Lui Passaglia and Vancouver Whitecaps’ defender Bob Lenarduzzi. They set longevity records in the Canadian Football League and North American Soccer League, respectively. 

6: B.C. Place appears in The 6th Day, a 2000 sci-fi thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

7: The third digit in Percy Williams’ 667 bib at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, where he won 100 m and 200 m gold medals. Williams is immortalized in statue outside the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame. 

8: Number of years that drivers in the 1990-launched Molson Indy Vancouver raced around B.C. Place. The route shifted eastward from 1998 to 2004. 

9: Number of Grey Cup games at B.C. Place (1983, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1994, 1999, 2005, 2011 and 2014). The Lions lost the first to Toronto, but won in 1994 and 2011. It’s returning in 2025.

10: The Russ Howard-skipped Team Canada scored five in the 10th end of the Men’s World Curling Championship on April 5, 1987, beating Germany 9-5. 

12: Number of Lions’ seasons coached by Wally Buono. 

13: Jersey number of Peter Beardsley, scorer of both Whitecaps’ goals in the 2-1 win over the Seattle Sounders on June 20, 1983.

16: Carli Lloyd scored three goals in 16 minutes to lead the U.S. over Japan in FIFA’s Canada 2015 Women’s World Cup final on July 6, 2015. 

18: Number of cars daredevil motorcyclist Robbie Knievel jumped over on Jan. 24, 1987.

22: Quarterback Doug Flutie began an eight-year career in the CFL wearing Lions jersey number 22 in 1990. 

36: Number of imported-from-Thailand steel masts erected to support the new 2011 roof. Stuttgart, Germany engineering firm Schlaich Bergermann and Partner pioneered the new generation retractable roof system at a Frankfurt stadium rebuilt for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

38: Lions are in their 38th season at B.C. Place (due to renovations, all of 2010 and part of 2011 were at Empire Field and 2020 was lost to the pandemic). 

40: U2 ended their Joshua Tree Tour concert on Nov. 12, 1987 with “40,” the last track from the War album.

41: Points scored by the McMaster Marauders in the three-point, double-overtime win against the Laval Rouge et Or in the 47th Vanier Cup championship on Nov. 25, 2011.

47: Joe Biden, the 47th vice-president (now 46th president), led the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

82: Number of national flags paraded at the Vancouver 2010 opening ceremony on Feb. 12, 2010. 

86: With their fifth round pick in the June 16, 1990 NHL Draft at B.C. Place, the Vancouver Canucks chose Gino Odjick, 86th overall.

100 m x 85 m: size of the opening in the retractable roof. 

140: Length in minutes of the first concert on the roof, the Contact Music Festival’s Feb. 6, 2021 webcast featuring DJs Vanic, Tails B2B Juelz, Nostalgix and Poni. 

200: The 2023 edition of the HSBC Canada Sevens was the 200th such tournament in men’s rugby sevens history. Argentina defeated Fiji for the trophy. 

228: The concourse location where an elderly janitorial contractor collapsed early Nov. 13, 2006, during cleanup from the Lions West final win. Pritam Kaur Sandhu died later that day in Vancouver General Hospital, the stadium’s only known workplace fatality. The law requires immediate notification to WorkSafeBC, but management did not report the incident for almost two years.

403: Number of bankers boxes of documents that were destroyed in December 2015 by contractor 1800-Shredding. Subjects of the 1983 to 2009 files included stadium events, personnel, accounting, operations and construction bids.

B.C. Place Stadium was supposed to become Telus Park, but Clark nixed the naming rights deal.

957: Number of unique names (including Pigeon Place and Rain Bowl) suggested by 7,446 entrants in a name the stadium contest. A petition signed by 15,138 supported Terry Fox Stadium, but it was originally dubbed the Stadium at B.C. Place instead. 

1999-2000: KISS’s New Year’s Eve concert made it the last band to play B.C. Place in 1999 and the first of 2000. A recording was released in a 2006 box set. 

7,924 km: distance covered by Steve Fonyo on his St. John’s to Victoria Journey for Lives cancer research fundraiser. He stopped at B.C. Place on the penultimate day, May 27, 1985.

40,075 km: distance covered by Rick Hansen’s 34-country, Man in Motion World Tour. He celebrated at B.C. Place on May 23, 1987, the day after the tour ended at Oakridge Centre. Hansen rolled into the stadium with the Olympic flame at the 2010 Games’ opening ceremony.

41,875: The attendance for Canada’s first indoor baseball game on Aug. 12, 1983. The Vancouver Canadians lost 10-9 to the Phoenix Giants before a Pacific Coast League record crowd. The night included an old-timers game that featured legends Hank Aaron and Roger Maris and a concert by Gloria Loring and Bob Hope.

60,342: Attendance for the Whitecaps’ match against Seattle on June 20, 1983. 

$200,000: How much Ken Schley and John Briulo paid to buy one of the original SS Minnows from Gilligan’s Island. Co-star Dawn Wells, aka Mary Ann, appeared with the yacht at the Vancouver International Boat Show in 2014.

$250,000: Cost to produce the 90-minute opening ceremony on June 19, 1983, shown live on BCTV. California’s Robert Jani was the producer and Don Harron the master of ceremonies. The 41,604 attendees were treated to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and figure skater Karen Magnussen. 

$11 million: The cost to taxpayers for the April 6, 2013 Times of India Film Awards.  

$15.2 million: How much Telus billed taxpayers for technology installed during the renovation, after the BC Liberal cabinet cancelled the sponsorship contract. B.C. Place almost became Telus Park. 

$126 million: original budget to build the stadium. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $343.3 million.

$514 million: The cost of the 2011-completed renovation and new roof, as reported by the provincial government in 2012. It had been budgeted at $563 million. 

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Bob Mackin Lordy, lordy, B.C. Place Stadium is

Business, News, Opinion

For the week of June 18, 2023:

The Cullen Commission public inquiry into B.C.’s money laundering scandal cost taxpayers $18.6 million over three years and the final report, released June 15, 2022, included 101 recommendations. 

Surprisingly, Commissioner Austin Cullen concluded the previous BC Liberal government wasn’t corrupt (cabinet just didn’t do its job to stop dirty money at casinos) and he downplayed the role that billions of dollars from China played in distorting the real estate market. 

Guest James Cohen of Transparency International Canada was a participant in the inquiry. On this edition of thePodcast, he offers his thoughts on the legacy, one year later. Though few recommendations have been adopted by Premier David Eby’s NDP government, Cohen tells host Bob Mackin that enacting a corporate beneficial ownership registry, regulating money services businesses and enabling unexplained wealth orders are powerful tools that will make a difference.  

Listen to the interview. Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

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For the week of June 18, 2023: The

Business, News

Bob Mackin

A former Vancouver mayor told officials in Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s office that he was an advisor to Premier David Eby.

Premier David Eby meeting Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and his wife Trudy on March 13, 2023 in Olympia (WA Gov/FOI)

In email obtained under freedom of information, Gregor Robertson contacted Inslee climate policy advisor Becky Kelley on Feb. 27 as a representative of the Cascadia Climate Project.

“Although I’m not attending monthly PCC [Pacific Coast Collaborative] meetings I am advising B.C.’s new Premier David Eby on ambitious climate and energy opportunities. And he’s coming to Seattle on March 13 for a first meeting with your Governor!” wrote Robertson, the Vision Vancouver mayor from 2008 to 2018. “Do either of you have a few minutes asap to talk about possible opportunities for action that align with the PCC and your work in Washington?”

In a subsequent message, Robertson wrote “I need to keep this unofficial for now, the Premier’s [intergovernmental] and scheduling staff are managing the visit and I’m gathering some intel and ideas to share more directly.”

Kelley agreed to set-up an “informal/unofficial” chat with Geoff Potter, Inslee’s international relations and protocol director.

Robertson, the executive vice-president of Vancouver construction materials company Nexii Building Solutions, did not respond to an emailed request for comment. 

Since becoming premier, Eby hired former Victoria mayor Lisa Helps as a housing advisor and the former Robertson-hired Vancouver city manager Penny Ballem as a health advisor. Premier’s office communications director George Smith said Robertson has not been hired by Eby, who he said speaks everyday to “stakeholders, experts as well as everyday British Columbians.”

Robertson’s exchange was among almost 1,000 email, briefing note, calendar entry and text message files that Inslee’s office disclosed free of charge under the Washington State public records law.

The documents detail the planning and execution of the third-term Democrat governor’s March 13 hosting of the new NDP premier for a bilateral meeting and lunch in state capital Olympia.

The B.C. government, by contrast, charged a $10 application fee, disclosed only 18 pages, and withheld four. 

“There is more information that could and should have been available from the premier’s office,” said Jason Woywada, the executive director of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. “It’s a shame that they redacted as much as they did, because we have no guarantee that they weren’t being overly cautious with some of that information.”

The B.C. documents show how staff working for the two leaders planned the meeting, but the Washington files show greater detail before, during and after Eby’s first visit with Inslee.

The B.C. file shows Potter’s Jan. 18 email to Nicole Longpre, Eby’s U.S. relations aide, suggesting a March meeting. Almost a month later, on Feb. 17, Potter confirmed March 13 for 90 minutes. By March 1, the meeting was expanded to two hours, including lunch at the Governor’s residence. 

Longpre’s internal email said the two leaders would discuss “housing/homelessness and climate, and particularly on driving sub-national leadership in these areas, with other files discussed as time allows, setting up for a media avail focused on those two areas.”

Gov. Jay Inslee’s staff text during his bilateral news conference with Premier David Eby. (WA Gov/FOI)

The next paragraph was censored because Eby’s office feared it would harm intergovernmental relations. The same reason, along with an exclusion for policy advice, was used to justify withholding the four pages. 

Censorship by Washington, however, was minimal. 

The two-phased disclosure included briefing documents for Inslee that recommended he also discuss high-speed rail, management of the Nooksack River, ending daylight saving time and the legacy of Indigenous boarding schools (Washington had 15, the last of which closed in 1969). Biographical material for Inslee explained that Eby succeeded John Horgan after the party disqualified climate activist Anjali Appadurai “due to alleged improper coordination with outside parties.” 

“Premier David Eby is 6’7”,” Inslee’s briefing material said. “His staff indicated he might be open to shooting a few baskets upon walking to the Legislative Building.” 

Before Eby arrived in Seattle on March 12, an RCMP officer requested an executive protection unit-trained state Washington State Trooper to drive a Suburban SUV containing Eby, deputy minister Silas Brownsey, senior advisor Jessica Smith, deputy chief of staff Aileen Machell and MLA Rick Glumac, Eby’s liaison to the Pacific Northwest Economic Region. Security officers also requested the front doors be closed during Eby’s time in Inslee’s office.

Eby’s staff arranged to bring Inslee a University of B.C. Thunderbirds’ hockey jersey. Inslee reciprocated with a Coast Salish wool blanket by Nooksack Tribe artist Louie Gong. 

Potter received dietary advice from the B.C. side, which he forwarded to the Governor’s mansion to prepare lunch. Eby prefers gluten-free food and is a pescatarian, while Glumac doesn’t eat farmed salmon and prefers to avoid beef. 

Potter’s email also included food allergy information for two members of the B.C. delegation, which Woywada said should have been censored. 

“It’s great to see how transparent they were, also they were probably overly transparent because that could put somebody’s personal health at risk and possibly cause harm,” Woywada said. “In a Canadian context, we try to avoid that. But we also end up with over-redactions, as evidenced by what we’re seeing from the Premier’s office. So it’s kind of a pox on both their houses in this instance and here’s hoping that in the future, they can get it right.”

On a lighter note, the text messages included banter among Inslee’s communications staff during the bilateral news conference. 

After a reporter from Global TV asked Eby a question on behalf of a female Vancouver Sun reporter — in case time ran out and she didn’t get a chance — Inslee’s communications director Jaime Smith typed: “Leave it to a man to ask a question on behalf of a woman… but I digress.”

Press secretary Mike Faulk replied with an animated graphic showing the man who crashed the stage and interrupted five women from The Talk during the 2016 People’s Choice Awards.  

Smith responded with an image of a bemused blonde woman holding a beverage. 

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Bob Mackin A former Vancouver mayor told officials

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Bob Mackin

The president of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton (BCS) told the House of Commons Canadian Heritage committee on June 12 that the organization’s high performance director was a victim of abuse.

New Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton president Tara McNeil (BCS/Twitter)

Tara McNeil was acclaimed president at the BCS meeting last November in Whistler when the embattled Sarah Storey bowed to pressure from athletes and did not run for a third term. Storey, who was also the acting CEO, and high performance director Chris Le Bihan were both targets of a post-Beijing Olympics campaign by sliding athletes who demanded they resign over a combination of toxic culture, inadequate safety, lack of transparency and poor governance. The BCS scandal was the first mass-uprising of Canadian athletes in a year of upheaval across the Canadian sport system. 

McNeil said she discovered in her first week with BCS that Le Bihan had been “the recipient of abuse” and had been treated unfairly. She did not provide further details. 

“So imagine my surprise and concern about all of this,” McNeil told the committee. “And so, with that, we sought careful legal counsel as to how to manage all the circumstances. We were in daily contact with our sport partners as to how to manage and we brought on a CEO as quickly as possible, an interim CEO [Patrick Jarvis, the ex-Canadian Paralympic Committee president and Snowboard Canada executive director], to be able to do a very extensive deep dive into the staffing concerns.”

McNeil called it a “very challenging time,” because the organization’s assets were also frozen.

McNeil, a Calgary physiologist who has consulted for BCS, Canadian Luge Association, WinSport and the Canadian Sport Institute, testified the organization is at a crossroads, focused on restoring operational stability and good governance.

“Once we have our operations and board of directors fully in place, we’ll be working to fully adopt all governance principles in the Canadian Sport Governance Code, as requested by Sport Canada, by April 2025,” McNeil said. “This will also require further review of all of our bylaws.”

BCS is based in Calgary, but the Whistler Sliding Centre, built for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, is the country’s main international sliding venue because the Calgary 1988 track needs a major upgrade.  

For 2021-2022, the most-recent fiscal year published, BCS reported just over $3 million of its $4.1 million revenue came from federal taxpayers. The organization finished with a $194,000 surplus. 

Meanwhile, the committee also heard from Skate Canada CEO Debra Armstrong. In late April, an anonymous whistleblower, through Skating For Change, alleged there had been incidents of physical, verbal and emotional abuse by coaches from the Champs International Skating Centre of British Columbia, formerly known as the B.C. Centre of Excellence, at the Scotia Barn in Burnaby. 

“We are very disturbed when allegations like this come to our attention and so we immediately provided links to Skate-Safe [confidential reporting system], as well as to Abuse Free Sport, and we then took the initiative to send the information we received in that open letter on the 27th [of April] directly to Skate-Safe, our investigator,” Armstrong said. “We have no knowledge of what’s happened since we’ve sent it there.”

Armstrong said the organization also had no prior knowledge of the allegations, but has ongoing dialogue with Figure Skating For Change.

“We are not aware of the athletes who are involved in this particular set of allegations that are raised in the open letter,” Armstrong said. “So we have had no change in our approach to athletes since that time.”

For the year ended March 31, 2023, Skate Canada reported a $2.7 million deficit. Of its $21.1 million revenue, almost $2.9 million came from government grants and $8.8 million from membership fees.

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Bob Mackin The president of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton

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