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Bob Mackin

The chair of Metro Vancouver said he was occupied in another meeting on the afternoon of March 22, at the same chief executive Jerry Dobrovolny revealed that it would cost $3.86 billion to finish the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant by 2030. 

The project was supposed to cost $700 million and be open in 2020.

Jerry Dobrovolny (upper left), Treasury Board president Anita Anand, George Harvie and Surrey Board of Trade’s Anita Huberman (Huberman/IG)

“It was a meeting that I had to attend, I was chairing that one also, that’s why I wasn’t there,” said George Harvie, who is also Mayor of Delta. “I had full confidence in Mr. Dobrovolny, our commissioner, to hold that press conference.”

Dobrovolny’s announcement came on a Friday afternoon in the middle of spring break, the week after a task force of regional politicians chaired by Harvie recommended carrying on with the project. It had been set back by pandemic delays, disputes with the original builder, Acciona, and a change in scope from secondary to tertiary treatment. After Metro Vancouver formally fired Acciona in early 2022, the Spanish company sued the regional district for $250 million. Metro Vancouver countersued for $500 million. 

Dobrovolny suggested the project could cost the average North Shore homeowner $775 a year over three decades to pay the additional cost. Harvie admitted his constituents won’t be spared. He said they’re looking at $80 per year under the regional sewage funding formula.

“Now, we have to go through a full review of this through our budget process, which is happening just in a very short time. That’s where it’ll be discussed and a decision made by the board as a whole,” Harvie said.

Asked if the task force documents, including the final report will be made public, Harvie said that decision will be left to Dobrovolny and the Metro Vancouver litigation team.

Harvie said the construction industry has changed immensely in recent years, to the point that “there’s no such thing as a fixed price anymore.”

“I would like to see a real good study done insofar as the future of these big projects in today’s world.”

The massive cost overrun at the North Vancouver project recalls the words of Bent Flyvbjerg, a business professor at Oxford University, who has analyzed megaprojects around the world. 

In his Iron Law of Megaprojects, Flyvbjerg said big infrastructure comes in “over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again.”

“Overruns up to 50% in real terms are common, and over 50% overruns are not uncommon,” Flyvberg’s research has found.

The big reason is ego. Architects want visually pleasing products and engineers are excited by building the longest/fastest/tallest. Politicians have a tendency to want monuments that benefit themselves and their cause. Business people and trade unions want revenue and jobs.

At the March 22 announcement, Dobrovolny said the board would return to the federal government and provincial government to seek more funding. In 2017, the two combined for $405 million. Dobrovolny and Harvie met March 11 in Surrey with Anita Anand, the federal treasury board president. 

Harvie said Metro Vancouver mayors are “struggling” to find sustainable funding, for transit and utilities as population continues to increase. Major developments, such as the Broadway Corridor and Jericho Lands, will put more pressure on Vancouver to provide drinking water and sewage treatment. 

“When you look at the intended growth that the province and federal government are putting on local governments,” he said.  “We need to find it, we can’t continue to provide water and sewage services without assistance from the province and the federal government.”

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Bob Mackin The chair of Metro Vancouver said

For the week of March 17, 2024:

Rather than solve the affordable housing crisis, David Ley predicts pro-development politicians like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, B.C. Premier David Eby and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim will do more harm than good.

David Ley (UBC)

Ley is the professor emeritus of geography at the University of British Columbia and author of “Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines” (2010) and “Housing Booms in Gateway Cities” (2023). On March 20, he spoke at the Local Democracy Project’s forum at UBC Robson Square on “Civic Government: Corporate, Consultative or Participatory?”

Ley said that Vancouver already had an over-supply of housing and it did not translate to lower rents. The rush in 2024 to up-zone neighbourhoods without public hearings and “build, build, build!” will result in more evictions and government-led gentrification.

“The survival options are the options that we will see increasingly: living in camper vans, homelessness, encampments,” Ley said. “I fear that current policy, plus the federal immigration policy which is reckless, in terms of the capacity of cities to provide services — including housing services for this population — I think that this is simply an inevitable outcome.”

Hear Ley’s speech on this edition of thePodcast. 

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

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For the week of March 17, 2024: Rather

Bob Mackin 

Metro Vancouver believes the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant will cost $3.86 billion and be substantially complete in 2030. 

That is more than $3 billion extra and 10 years later than originally planned. 

Commissioner Jerry Dobrovolny made the announcement March 22, the week after a task force of regional politicians held its last monthly closed-door meeting.

A timeline of how the biggest infrastructure scandal in North Shore history unfolded. 

Feb. 14, 2014

Metro Vancouver board directed staff to do a design/build/finance deal for the Lions Gate Secondary Treatment Plant and seek senior government grants. The project was estimated at $700 million. 

March 11, 2017

North Vancouver Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson announced a $212 million federal grant to the Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant project and B.C. Liberal Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Peter Fassbender announced a $193 million grant at the same photo op. 

April 5, 2017

Metro Vancouver approved Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP for the $525 million design, build, finance contract. “New wastewater management regulations in Canada require all primary treatment plants in urban areas to upgrade to secondary treatment by 2020.”

April 10-issued stop work order for the $779M North Shore sewage plant project (Mackin)

Aug. 31, 2018 

At the groundbreaking ceremony, North Vancouver City Mayor Darrell Mussatto said: “It will be done by the end of 2020, which is wonderful, and will replace the oldest facility that Metro Vancouver has in wastewater.”

Jan. 10, 2019

In an interview with theBreaker.news, Metro Vancouver chair and Burnaby city councillor Sav Dhaliwal said: “It is exactly what we have signed, on budget and on time.”

Jan. 17, 2019

Report from project manager Paul Dufault said the approved budget increased to $777.9 million. 

April 4, 2019

Subcontractor Tetra Tech sued Acciona for $20 million. 

April 10, 2019

District of North Vancouver issued stop work order.

Construction site signs from North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant (Mackin)

 

March 12, 2021

New budget number. Metro Vancouver finally revealed that the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant would cost $1.058 billion and be finished in 2024.

Oct. 15, 2021

Metro Vancouver said it would cancel the contract with Acciona. 

Jan. 20, 2022

Metro Vancouver issued termination notice to Acciona, claiming the Spanish company had abandoned the site, shrinking crews from 300 to 50 workers. Acciona denied. 

Acciona knew it was coming. One of its employees, Anika Calder, took photographs of a confidential Metro Vancouver report dated Jan. 17, 2022. Calder had been visiting her father, Coquitlam city manager Peter Steblin, who used Greater Vancouver Sewage and Drainage District chair and Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart’s log-in credentials.

Feb. 25, 2022

Metro Vancouver hired PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc, as the general contractor. 

Sept. 20, 2023

Columnist Kirk LaPointe in the North Shore News, “Shocking bill coming for North Shore wastewater treatment plant”

“…it will be best to read the next line sitting down. I’m told the new estimate is coming in at … $4 billion.”

Sept. 30, 2023

Metro Vancouver chair George Harvie struck a task force to review options to complete the project, with a mid-2024 target to report findings and recommendations. Meetings happened monthly behind closed doors. 

March 22, 2024

On a Friday afternoon in the middle of Spring Break, Dobrovolny announced the board has approved a $3.86 billion budget, for substantial completion in 2030. 

He said the “average household impact” is $725 per year for North Shore residents over 30 years. For Vancouverites it’ll be $140 and Richmonders $70. 

“The litigation is is active with Acciona, and so I can’t get into specifics on that. I have not spoken to the RCMP, but I can’t get into the specifics of the litigation that’s ongoing.”

Dobrovolny made the announcement solo on the 29th floor of Metro Vancouver’s Metrotower III offices. None of the mayors or councillors on the Metro Vancouver board attended. 

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Bob Mackin  Metro Vancouver believes the North Shore

Bob Mackin 

Call it Vancouver city hall’s Starting XI. 

The 11-member FIFA World Cup 26 Secretariat is the central hub for organizing Vancouver’s hosting of seven World Cup matches and the FIFA Fan Festival in June and July 2026.

Jessie Adcock (LinkedIn)

Jessie Adcock, the former chief technology officer, is back at 12th and Cambie. She started a contract in January that pays up to $270,000-a-year as the secretariat lead, according to the city hall freedom of information office.

The other major contractor is Dave Jones, the co-lead of integrated safety and security. Jones, the retired chief of the New Westminster Police Department and Metro Vancouver Transit Police, joined last year on a contract worth a maximum $160,000 annually. 

Nine staffers are under them, with acting city clerk Rosemary Hagiwara being the most-senior. 

Hagiwara, who was paid $158,561 in 2022, is the coordination and alignment lead for the secretariat. She joined city hall as a licensing manager in 2002. 

Ex-Sport Hosting Vancouver assistant manager Taunya Geelhoed is the operations lead, Sherwood Plant the transportation and mobility lead, Kevin Nguyen the strategy lead and Natasha Qereshniku the communications lead. 

Rounding out the team: Kirsten Jasper from the Vancouver Emergency Management Agency (manager of operational readiness), Arthur Ruiz (senior marketing and digital strategist), Dan Maloney (project manager) and Kevin Cho (financial analyst). 

Qereshniku refused to provide the list of staff names and titles when a reporter asked. She referred a reporter to the city’s access to information and privacy office. That office’s manager, Cobi Falconer, said in an email that the number of city staff working on the project will increase. 

Falconer refused to provide the current annualized pay rates for the the staff members. Last year’s rates are scheduled to be published in April as part of the city’s 2023  statement of financial information. 

Former New Westminster and Transit Police chief Dave Jones (LinkedIn)

“The FWC26 Secretariat is structured as a project rather than a department,” Falconer said. “This means that staff are assigned to this work, while they remain in their home department within the city, the Board of Parks and Recreation, the Vancouver Police Department, and/or the Vancouver Public Library. Some of these staff positions are working on the FWC26 event planning and delivery full-time, while others are doing so part-time. Further, each staff member is working on this project for a specified period of time – this period of time may be a few months or up to approximately four years.”

Adcock started her contract the same month she joined the board of scandal-plagued Atira Women’s Resource Society. The former HSBC executive spent eight years at City of Vancouver, interrupted by a leave of absence in the fall of 2015 when she unsuccessfully ran for Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in the Port Moody-Coquitlam riding. The NDP’s Fin Donnelly defeated Adcock by almost 3,000 votes.

Seven years after the election, Adcock joined the federal bureaucracy in 2022. First as CEO of the Canadian Digital Service, then as senior assistant deputy minister of the Treasury Board secretariat and senior advisor to the chief information officer. 

The B.C. NDP government has refused to release the latest budget figure while it awaits estimates for B.C. Place Stadium renovations. Toronto’s budget rose from $290 million to $380 million. 

In early 2023, Vancouver city hall was expecting to spend $230 million based on hosting five matches at B.C. Place and the FIFA Fan Festival at Hastings Park. In February, FIFA assigned seven matches to B.C. Place between June 13 and July 7, 2026. 

The NDP government in Victoria and ABC-governed Vancouver city hall are both concealing their contracts with FIFA. 

Seattle city council released its agreements last August. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which obtained the Toronto deal via freedom of information, has called the arrangement one-sided, in favour of FIFA. 

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Bob Mackin  Call it Vancouver city hall's Starting

Bob Mackin

A year before the U.S. Congress voted to demand China’s ByteDance sell the popular TikTok video app, B.C.’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) was busy removing it from government devices. 

At the end of February 2023, the B.C. government followed the lead of the federal Treasury Board, which determined TikTok posed a national security and privacy risk. That triggered a high level summary for B.C. information security staff that warned China’s national security laws could allow the government there to demand data about TikTok users in B.C.

(TikTok/Douyin)

“This authority to gather sensitive personal information, proprietary information, and intellectual property could be used as a tool for spying and espionage,” said the review presentation, obtained under freedom of information.

Staff contacted each user individually to inform them of the ban. Names of users were censored from documents released by the Ministry of Citizens Services, but a partial list showed devices containing the app were used in Child and Youth Mental Health, Corrections Branch, Prevention and Loss Management Services and Prince George Youth Custody Centre. 

As of Feb. 28, 2023, 17 users were identified as “VIPs.” One of the emails said one of the VIPs was an assistant deputy minister, but did not name the ministry. Two days later, a report said the app had been removed by 126 users, but 332 remained, the vast majority on Apple iOS devices. 

Brian Horncastle, manager of vulnerability and risk management, delivered a TikTok security and privacy review and threat and risk assessment to chief information security officer Gary Perkins on March 9, 2023.

“Recommend continued ban as, given present situation when compared with the business value, represents an unacceptable risk to government systems,” Perkins concluded four days later. He resigned in August 2023 to join CISO Global in Arizona. 

The assessment also recommended the province investigate further if any security/privacy breaches or incidents occurred involving provincial data or the personal information of employees. Horncastle suggested that Dale Land, the director of cyber intelligence and investigation, could determine whether any such information was for sale by hackers on DarkNet, “where it might appear to have originated from TikTok.”

OCIO staff also worked with experts from IBM-spinoff Kyndryl to remove the app. 

“It sounds like there is a way to purge this from the machine in an automated way, if we give them direction to do so,” Horncastle wrote to Don Costello, the director of information security. “Or, we could reach out and ask the end users to remove, however, this may be complicated for them to do so.”

A month after the ban, TikTok was still installed on 10 devices, two more since the prior week. More than two hours later, the number was down to zero. One user “seems angered by the repeated calls they have been receiving,” wrote cybersecurity analyst Camden Leith. “They have requested if it is possible to be issued a new device as they have confirmed multiple times that it is not on their device.”

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at TED în Vancouver (TED/YouTube)

B.C. staff were also in contact with counterparts in other provinces, such as Prince Edward Island chief information officer Michael Muise, who had been contacted by a lobbyist for TikTok, with PAA Inc. 

“Their website says they are a national public affairs and strategic communications firm. I received a note from them recently asking for a meeting on behalf of TikTok to discuss our concerns,” Muise wrote. “At this time I have no plans to meet with them.”

The government released correspondence between March 9 and April 1, 2023 to a reporter, but it has delayed for almost a year the disclosure of earlier records, for the Jan. 31-March 8, 2023 period. The Information and Privacy Commissioner has granted three extensions. The latest, for 75 business days, expires June 5. 

Commissioner Michael McEvoy and privacy watchdogs from the federal, Quebec and Alberta governments began investigating TikTok more than a year ago.

The federal Liberal government revealed Thursday that cabinet quietly ordered a national security review of TikTok’s Canadian operations last September. 

B.C.’s corporate registry shows that Network Sense Ventures Ltd., a company founded in 2016 in Gastown by Hank Horkoff, changed its name in August 2020 to TikTok Technology Canada Inc. That happened the week after ByteDance investor relations director Zhao Liu of Hong Kong replaced human resources head Wei Hua of Beijing as a Network Sense director. Zhao changed his address to Singapore in 2022, but Joshua Bloom of Toronto, TikTok’s Canadian general manager, replaced him last August. 

ByteDance CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared at the TED Conference in Vancouver in April 2023, where “curator” Chris Anderson asked whether the app could be used to interfere in a U.S. election. 

“I can say that we are building all the tools to prevent any of these actions from happening,” Chew said. “And I’m very confident that, with an unprecedented amount of transparency that we’re giving on the platform, we can reduce this risk to as low as zero, as possible.”

Anderson was not convinced. “I mean, how would the world know?”

Benjamin Fung, a professor in the School of Information Studies at McGill University, said TikTok’s claim that data is housed on U.S. servers is hollow because workers in China are legally obliged to co-operate when the Chinese government demands to see data.

Fung said TikTok is built on a very powerful “recommender system,” a machine learning algorithm that helps decide what the user sees. 

“This tool has the power to change people’s perception on some particular issues,” Fung said.

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Bob Mackin A year before the U.S. Congress

Bob Mackin

Toronto’s city manager signed a nine-page addendum to the FIFA host city contract almost two weeks before FIFA named it one of 16 cities for the 2026 World Cup. 

That is according to documents obtained under freedom of information by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and released on March 14.

(BMO Field)

B.C. director Carson Binda showed off the partly censored file outside Vancouver city hall, where officials refuse to release the local contract with soccer’s Switzerland-based, world governing body to a reporter. An appeal is underway to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. 

Toronto city hall is the latest to open its files, after Seattle city council released its contracts last August and Santa Clara, Calif. followed in January with a partly censored public version.

“Any kind of redaction with these documents, with agreements to spend taxpayer money, that’s a problem,” Binda said. “Taxpayers deserve to know how the politicians and FIFA executives are spending our tax dollars.”

The host city and stadium agreements, which are substantially the same, date back to 2018, before FIFA selected the U.S., Canada and Mexico joint bid. In Toronto’s case, it was signed by Peter Wallace, who resigned in April 2018 to join the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. 

The contract regulates almost every aspect of the tournament down to fine details, from police escorts for FIFA executives and heads of state and road closures and lane restrictions to backup power supply and advertising and commercial activities near stadiums. 

“The parties agree that they shall cooperate in good faith to minimize non-refundable taxes, duties and levies in line with applicable legislation and practice,” the Toronto contract states. 

The host city shall bear the cost of any municipal taxes, duties or levies. In the event of cancellation, abandonment, postponement or relocation, Toronto shall not receive compensation or seek compensation from FIFA.

The contract, which runs through Dec. 31, 2026, even stipulates that no other major sporting event is allowed in the host city, beginning seven days prior to the first match, all the way until seven days after the final match. There can be no other substantial cultural events, such as concerts, other than those approved by FIFA, between one day prior to a match day and one day after a match day. 

Toronto’s addendum emphasized that the host committee is responsible to plan, coordinate and procure — at no cost to FIFA — all public safety and security resources. 

“For all competition activities that will take place in and around the host city and stadium, as well as all private security resources with respect to FIFA Fan Fest in its current format,” said the document, signed June 3, 2022 by city manager Chris Murray. “This obligation extends to specific safety and security equipment required to be installed within any sites by local, provincial or federal authorities, even if used by private safety and security staff.”

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell (left) with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Seattle 26 CEO Peter Tomozawa on the Space Needle (Harrell/Twitter)

The requirement extends to fire department and emergency medical service operations at team hotels and training sites, for spectators, accreditation holders, media representatives, players and other attendees, “including… access to hospital services.” 

FIFA also required that Toronto provide it office space, at no cost, by Jan. 1, 2023 for up to 10 FIFA personnel, “at the stadium, host city centre or another similar location acceptable to FIFA until the end of the competition.”

“What’s unfair is expecting taxpayers to pick up that slack for FIFA, which is a multi-billion-dollar organization,” Binda said. 

Host cities are expected to follow all FIFA instructions and report all material information and developments about their activities, including regular budget updates. FIFA agreed to pay one-third of basic stadium rental fees six months prior to the first match in Toronto, another third 90 days prior and the final third 30 days prior to kickoff. 

FIFA is also “unfettered in its right and ability” to change and choose cities and venues.

Within the Toronto file is an additional exit clause, that allowed Toronto to withdraw its bid to host matches at BMO Field, without penalty, by the end of June 2020, if federal and Ontario financial support and security funding conditions were not met. 

Toronto city hall recently estimated the cost of hosting at $380 million. The provincial government pledged $97 million on the condition that the federal government provide matching funds.

Vancouver city hall budgeted $230 million in early 2023 when it anticipated five matches. Last month, FIFA awarded Vancouver seven matches. The NDP government has refused to release the latest budget figure while it awaits estimates for B.C. Place Stadium renovations.

Among the pages fully censored from the Toronto contract is a pamphlet titled “FIFA World Cup 2026: Host Committees Rights and Assets.”

The version Seattle released states that FIFA will allow the host city committee to buy, ahead of the public, as much as 1.5 percent of tickets per hosted match. “These tickets can be used to assist fundraising efforts and included as part of a host city supporter package.”

FIFA also provides host cities with 175 to 250 complimentary VIP tickets at each match they host and a small amount of tickets to matches in other cities — even four to attend the World Cup final that are not available for public purchase and cannot be resold.  

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Bob Mackin Toronto’s city manager signed a nine-page

For the week of March 17, 2024:

Kerry Mortimer

A special St. Patrick’s Day edition of thePodcast, with guest Kerry Mortimer, the chair of Gaelic Games Canada, the governing body for Ireland’s national sports in Canada.

Mortimer offers the state of hurling and Gaelic football from coast to coast and previews the 2024 national championships, coming Labour Day weekend to Burnaby. 

Plus, sounds of the 1985 Shamrock Summit, featuring the late ex-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and this week’s Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

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For the week of March 17, 2024: [caption

Bob Mackin 

Premier David Eby’s staff either kept no records or deleted the records that existed after his social media accounts errantly displayed a message about the national day against Islamophobia on the international day to remember Holocaust victims.

Eby’s Jan. 27 message on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram said “we stand with the Muslim community throughout Canada on this sorrowful day of remembrance.” It should have run Jan. 29, the anniversary of the 2017 killing of six people at a Quebec City mosque.

David Eby’s Jan. 27 error on X. (@Dave_Eby)

In 2005, the United Nations declared Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to coincide with the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.  

A freedom of information request sought copies of the schedule of Eby’s social media posts for Jan. 27-29, the approved text and related correspondence about the approval for each post, and copies of correspondence by email, text and Slack about the error and the correction.

The request asked for records to be found in the accounts of the NDP premier’s chief of staff Matt Smith and communications staff George Smith, Manveer Sihota, Bhinder Sajan and Jimmy Smith.

“Although a thorough search was conducted, no records were located in response to your request,” said the March 12 letter from Information Access Operations manager Cindy Elbahir. 

Eby press secretary Jimmy Smith said March 15 that the issue on the final weekend of January was “handled by a number of phone calls to address the need to respond extremely quickly.”

As for the other information, including the approved wording and schedule of publication of social media posts, Smith said that those items would have been deemed transitory, or temporarily useful, and not required to be kept. 

“If there’s no decisions that are made by statutory decision makers for records, then good records management includes clearing out drafts,” Smith said. 

While in opposition, the NDP slammed the BC Liberals for “triple deleting” records and promised new measures, including a duty to document law. However, officials in Premier John Horgan’s office were caught mass-deleting email. 

Horgan tried in 2021 to exempt the Premier’s Office from the FOI law, but the amendment was abandoned. The law, however, does threaten a fine of up to $50,000 for wilfully concealing, destroying or altering records in order to avoid complying with an FOI request.

Someone on Eby’s staff corrected the Jan. 27 mixup and posted an apology on Eby’s account later that day. During a news conference in Ottawa two days later, Eby called the incident unacceptable and apologized to “anyone who was hurt by this error that was made.” He refused to discuss any related personnel matter. 

Selina Robinson (B’nai Brith Canada)

“We have taken steps to confirm the content of any of my public statements that are issued by social media before they are released,” Eby told reporters. 

Asked for details about the new measures and procedures, Smith declined to talk about them.

“I’m not in a position right now to divulge exactly how all processes work within the Premier’s office,” Smith said. 

Just over a week after the incident, Eby forced Selina Robinson to quit as Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills for comments she made during a B’nai Brith web conference that described pre-1948 Palestine as a “crappy piece of land.” Robinson, who is Jewish, had apologized and promised to take anti-Islamophobia training. 

On March 6, Robinson quit caucus and issued an open letter that accused several NDP MLAs of antisemitism. Eby has resisted calls from BC United and the Conservatives to conduct an investigation. 

Eby met with Jewish community leaders on March 8, the same day his Deputy Minister, Shannon Salter, sent a memo to government workers that said “we do not tolerate antisemitism in the B.C. Public Service.”

March 15 was the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement, but Eby did not. 

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Bob Mackin  Premier David Eby’s staff either kept

Bob Mackin 

Costs and contracts are not the only things that Vancouver’s FIFA World Cup 26 organizers are keeping under wraps.

B.C. Place GM Chris May during a March 13 FIFA site tour (City of Vancouver/X)

B.C. Place Stadium’s general manager Chris May briefly appeared in a social media video on March 12, showing visiting World Cup planners a map of False Creek and downtown. 

Upon closer inspection, it contains markings and patterns similar to those on a security roadblocks map produced for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. 

Public access was severely restricted around eastern False Creek when B.C. Place hosted ceremonies, neighbour Rogers Arena was known as “Canada Hockey Place,” and the Olympic Village housed athletes at the new south shore condo complex.

When a reporter wanted to know what May’s map was about, he deferred to Jenny McKenzie, B.C. Place’s senior manager of marketing and communications,

“Further information regarding road networks will remain confidential until finalized,” McKenzie said by email. 

Documents obtained last year from city hall, via freedom of information, show planning was underway to close streets surrounding B.C. Place, at least every match day and every day preceding a match. That is a total of 14 days. Part of Expo Boulevard could be taken over by broadcast trucks. City hall also released a photograph showing an artist’s rendering of a Canadian Soccer Association live site on the Concord Pacific lands. 

The latest FIFA visit coincided with the White House budgeting US$16 million to begin preparations for World Cup security in the U.S., host of 78 of the 104 matches in June and July 2026.

Safety and security, at $73 million, was the biggest line-item on the City of Vancouver’s $230 million hosting budget released in January 2023. Mayor Ken Sim and Premier David Eby are both keeping the latest figures secret for now. Budgets for Public Safety Canada, RCMP and other federal departments to help keep Vancouver and Toronto safe could be announced when Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tables the federal budget on April 16.

The city’s FIFA operations lead, Taunya Geelhoed, acknowledged in a February 2022 safety and security planning email that the majority of risk in hosting the World Cup is based on security needs.

“It’s not our first rodeo,” said Bud Mercer, who was the chief operating officer for the RCMP-led Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit. 

Mercer’s force of Mounties, municipal cops and Canadian Forces members swelled to 10,000 at Games time. It was responsible for 31 competition, training, accommodation and support venues at the 17-day Winter Olympics, which featured 2,600 athletes from 82 nations. Originally estimated at $175 million, safety and security cost $900 million. Games-time incidents included protests, assaults and a $2 million ticketing fraud. 

FIFA site tour map (City of Vancouver/X)

In 2026, B.C. Place will host seven matches spanning a 24-day period, including two featuring the Canadian men’s team. The other nations drawn to play here in the first round won’t be known until sometime in late 2025. The other spectator venue is expected to be the $104 million, 10,000-seat PNE Amphitheatre, targeted for a spring 2026 opening, as the centrepiece of the FIFA Fan Festival. The official watch party at Hastings Park is expected to operate for the duration of the 39-day tournament.

Though Vancouver was named one of the 16 FIFA host cities in June 2022, meetings began months earlier with personnel from the Vancouver Police Department, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service, B.C. Emergency Health Service, Emergency Management B.C., TransLink, Transit Police, City of Vancouver emergency planning and special events, YVR security and RCMP.

Last summer, the city’s FIFA secretariat hired former New Westminster and Transit Police chief Dave Jones on a $160,000-a-year contract as the safety and security lead.

Mercer said the security planning team should already be running tabletop exercises “where they start stressing every part of their plan to its breaking point, to see if it holds up, how they react, and if there’s any gaps.”

Mercer said it is crucial for the security team to compile a comprehensive threat assessment and be ready to escalate if and when needed.

Vancouver 2010 Olympics transportation and security closure map (VANOC)

“Everything you do is based on your threat level that exists, and your threat assessment. Everything from those two things flows,” Mercer said. “What’s the threat level? What are you prepared to live with?”

For Vancouver 2010, Mercer planned for a medium threat level at a time when the actual threat was deemed low. In November 2009, just a few months before the Games began, Mercer was called to Ottawa to meet with top aviation security officials because the air threat level had gone from low to medium.

“The simple question was, what are you guys doing about the change in the threat level in the air environment? For me, it was easy in the Olympics, because I said, very categorically in front of all the federal deputy ministers, ‘we’re good to go.’ Everybody kind of paused and stared at me. I said all along, we were planning to a medium threat level.”

Mercer, in his second term as a Chilliwack city councillor, said he was approached about a year ago to work on the 2026 security team, but declined. “I think there’s people out there with the right experiences that are a little bit more current than I am right now.”

Some things have changed. Some things have stayed the same. The head of security for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 in Australia and New Zealand offered a laundry list of the usual mega-event risks, plus some new ones. 

“Numerous security risks include terrorism, corruption, cyber attack, hooliganism, field of play invasions, lone wolf attack, insider threats and drones, to name a few,” Andrew Cooke wrote on LinkedIn. “But, the greater threat will come from the adversaries targeting locations such as fan parks and open events which are soft ‘targets’.”

In Auckland, on opening day, a shooting at a construction site left two people dead. The incident was unrelated to the World Cup, but illustrated the challenge of hosting a mega-event in a major city. 

Almost two years after Vancouver 2010, CONCACAF, soccer’s North and Central American and Caribbean zone, came to B.C. Place to hold its regional qualifying for the London Olympic women’s tournament.

John Furlong (left) and RCMP Olympic security head Bud Mercer in 2010 (BudMercer.ca)

Two days before kickoff, gangster Sandhip Dure was murdered at the restaurant in the tournament’s host hotel, Sheraton Wall Centre.

Members of the U.S. national team were near the lobby when it happened. 

One of the VIP hotel guests was CONCACAF president Chuck Blazer, who blew the whistle on FIFA vote-buying the previous year. He secretly pleaded guilty to bribery and tax evasion in 2013 and become a wire-wearing informant for the FBI. 

When authorities in the U.S. and Switzerland rounded-up FIFA executives just before the Canada 2015 Women’s World Cup, FIFA president Sepp Blatter cancelled his travel plans for fear of being the next one arrested. He appeared by video during a FIFA conference before the B.C. Place final.  

The 2026 tournament is primarily American-hosted, with Canada and Mexico playing supporting roles. The U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment, which will help shape 2026 security, contains the usual concerns about “ambitious and anxious” China and “confrontational” Russia, as well as Iran and non-state actors, such as Hamas. 

Beyond the ever-present threat of terrorism, the report also pinpointed the harder to forecast “new technologies, fragilities in the public health sector, and environmental changes.”

“If we all sat in a room, we could come up with 100 things that are going to be different than 2010, because the world has changed,” Mercer said. 

“Just like the world has changed, and sport and in politics, the world’s changed in policing too, these things move forward in lockstep. Everything that you’re talking about is not going to be lost or foreign unto the law enforcement agencies that are securing these games.”

What will not change, Mercer said, is the goal: For visitors to remember the beauty of the country and the thrill of the competition. 

“If that’s what they remember, and they don’t remember security, then I will believe that security was successful,” Mercer said. 

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Bob Mackin  Costs and contracts are not the

Bob Mackin 

Three years ago on March 12, a grand jury in San Diego indicted two men behind a Vancouver encrypted smartphone company on charges of racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

Jean-François Eap (Facebook)

The U.S. Department of Justice accused Sky Global CEO Jean-Francois Eap and distributor Thomas Herdman of selling modified smartphones and subscriptions for the encrypted Sky ECC network to transnational drug traffickers.

Prosecutors claimed that over the course of a decade, Sky Global made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits by helping criminals hide their deeds from law enforcement. At least 70,000 Sky Global devices were in use worldwide. 

None of the allegations against Eap and Herdman has been tested in court. Eap vowed to clear his name.

“I do not condone illegal activity in any way, shape or form, and nor does our company,” Eap reacted in a statement three days after the indictment. “We stand for protection of privacy and freedom of speech in an era when these rights are under increasing attack. We do not condone illegal or unethical behaviour by our partners or customers. To brand anyone who values privacy and freedom of speech as a criminal is an outrage.”

The court file in San Diego appears dormant since prosecutors applied in September 2021 for forfeiture of Eap and Sky Global’s accounts with TD Bank, a California-licensed 2019 McLaren 570S Spider and a list of domain names. 

Neither Eap nor prosecutor Joshua Mellor responded for comment. No hearings are scheduled.

“We are not in a position to do interviews on this ongoing case,” said Kelly Thornton, director of media relations for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California. 

Two law professors in a New Journal of European Law article last November say that police in Belgium and France found criminals using Sky ECC phones as early as 2015. The investigation would eventually reap a “treasure trove or jackpot for law enforcement authorities.” 

U.S. authorities claim Vancouver-based Sky Global sells goods and services to transnational drug criminals. (Sky ECC)

Authors Jan-Jaap Oerlemans and Sofie Royer also offered a theory about the priorities of the prosecutors.  

In mid-2019, a French court permitted wiretapping Sky ECC’s Roubaix, France servers. Police from Belgium, France and Netherlands formed a joint investigation team by the end of the year. Their Operation Argus shut down Sky Global on March 9, 2021 and intercepted a billion messages. The company had been so confident of its product, that it offered $5 million to anyone who could crack their security.

“Later, it became clear that probably the actual goal, and most certainly the result, of the operation was not to prosecute the individuals behind Sky ECC itself,” wrote Oerlemans and Royer, “but to obtain insight in the criminal activities carried out in Belgium and beyond and to prosecute individuals operating from Belgium and neighbouring countries.”

On Saturday, authorities in Belgium marked the third anniversary of searches at 200 locations around their country after they cracked Sky ECC phones. They boast 592 files against 4,439 suspects. Eighty-seven sentences have been handed down, totalling a combined 1,139 years in prison. They seized 183 million euros [almost $270 million] in dirty money. It is far from over. 

“These criminals are not rid of us yet,” prosecutor Franky De Keyzer told Het Niuewsblad.

Closer to home, Damion Patrick Ryan, a full-patch Hells Angel from B.C., allegedly used Sky ECC to help a drug lord connected to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security hire a hitman. 

In January, Ryan, 43, Adam Richard Pearson, 29, and Iranian Naji Sharifi Zindashti, 49, were charged in Minnesota for conspiracy to use interstate commerce in the commission of a murder-for-hire plot between December 2020 and March 2021. They allegedly shared photographs of the intended victims, maps identifying their locations, discussed logistics, recruited personnel and negotiated payment. All using Sky ECC. 

“The Sky ECC operation was not the first data-driven criminal investigation and it will most certainly not be the last one,” wrote Oerlemans and Royer. “We expect similar operations to be carried out in the future, focusing on communication service providers such as VPN services, cryptocurrency-mixing platforms, and hosting providers.” 

Sky ECC was also not the first Lower Mainland “cryptophone” case to make international headlines. Richmond’s Vincent Ramos sold modified BlackBerries from his Phantom Security company to clients including Hells Angels and Mexican drug cartels. Arrested in the U.S. in 2018, Ramos pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, was sentenced to nine years in a U.S. jail and forfeited US$80 million.

The prosecutor in last fall’s national security leaks trial of ex-RCMP civilian intelligence officer Cameron Ortis called Ramos and Eap associates. The heavily redacted trial transcripts approved for release to reporters included Ortis’s testimony that he had emailed Eap. But Eap’s lawyer in California, former federal prosecutor Ashwin Ram, said in November that Eap never did business with Ramos and never communicated with Ortis.

Naji Sharifi Zindashti (FBI)

Ram claimed in a November 2021 court filing that no government agency had expressed concern to Sky Global about illegal use of its products before March 2021, and that the company had its own internal checks and balances. 

The application to the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California said Eap had unsuccessfully sought a resolution with U.S. government lawyers in July 2021. 

“While Sky Global appreciates and applauds – and would have assisted – the government’s efforts to identify and prosecute those individuals who used Sky ECC to engage in illicit activity, those efforts do not justify the illegal and improper seizure of Sky Global’s [web domains] or the irreparable and ongoing harm to Sky Global’s business caused by the seizures,” said Ram’s filing. 

Ram claimed that Sky ECC had 120,000 users by March 2021. At its peak, Sky Global and related companies employed 70 people. The shutdown caused the layoff of 27 staff member and 14 contractors.

Almost a month before the 2021 bust, Eap had launched the Hello Nori sushi restaurant on Robson Street, designed by his wife Jennifer Zhang’s Concrete Cashmere firm. He was already planning expansion to Park Royal in West Vancouver and the Amazing Brentwood in Burnaby.

Just 20 days after the U.S. charges, Eap found his accounts with National Bank of Canada had been frozen.

Hello Nori at Park Royal South in 2022 (Mackin)

National Bank filed a foreclosure petition in B.C. Supreme Court in March 2022, claiming Eap owed $4.4 million on a line of credit and $57,062 on a credit card. 

Eap sued the next month and included an appraisal for his West Vancouver residence, pegging its value at $15.5 million. He swore an affidavit that he had always been a good customer since opening the account in 2017. But, on April 1, 2021, he was suddenly unable to access $125,000 in his account or use his credit card. 

Eap said that disrupted his businesses, which also included real estate investment and Fido and Rogers mobile phone dealerships. He did not explicitly mention Sky Global or its legal problems in the affidavit, but said he ran “a technology company that does research and development software, secure messaging and fintech products such as gift cards.” 

“As a businessman with approximately 200 employees, freezing my bank account and credit cards caused losses for my business and damage to my reputation. It also negatively impacted my credit because I couldn’t use my credit card to make preauthorized payments,” said Eap’s affidavit.

“I also had supplementary cards for my employees who were shocked they could not use their credit cards and were worried about the financial health of my businesses. Even though I was in full compliance with the credit documents, the bank did not explain to me why they were allowed to freeze my accounts.”

A letter from National Bank on June 10, 2021 gave Eap until the end of October to close out and repay or refinance outstanding obligations. That letter mentioned discussions on five days between April 8 and June 8. 

“We appreciate the dialogue with you, allowing us to hear directly from your U.S. legal counsel and your willingness to be open with us,” said the bank’s letter. “As mentioned when we spoke on April 20, and based on the available information and considerations at this time, National Bank has, subject to our comments below, made a decision that it is preferable to exit our banking relationship.”

Eap and the bank appear to have settled out of court: both sides filed notices of dismissal in January 2023, both on a no costs basis. 

The Burnaby Hello Nori finally opened Feb. 10. Work continues on the Park Royal South location, where hoarding went up in summer 2021 below the Keg Restaurant. An architect applied for municipal permits in June 2021 based on plans for a $150,000 project. The next month, Eap ceased to be a director of Hello Nori Inc. 

Last July, plans were revised upward to $180,000. Where it used to read “opening 2022” and then “opening 2023,” the sign simply says “coming soon.” 

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Bob Mackin  Three years ago on March 12,