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Bob Mackin

The son of a former BC Liberal MLA went on trial Oct. 4 in Powell River, accused of sexual interference of a person under 16 and invitation to sexual touching of a person under 16.

Kasimir Tyabji-Sandana (left) and Judi Tyabji (Instagram)

In B.C. Supreme Court, Kasimir Tyabji-Sandana, 35, pleaded not guilty to both offences, which the Crown alleges took place between July 1, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2016. Tyabji-Sandana was charged in 2020 and arrested after a Canada-wide warrant. Under the Criminal Code, the maximum sentence for conviction is 14 years in jail. 

During opening statements before Justice Peter Edelmann and a jury, Crown counsel Jeffrey Young said that email, social media direct messages and text messages will form much of the evidence about the interactions between Tyabji-Sandana and the alleged victim. Young said that Tyabji-Sandana met her when she was a 14-year-old living in Powell River with her family in early 2016. She volunteered on weekends at the sheep farm operated by his mother Judi Tyabji and then-husband Gordon Wilson, but stopped volunteering after she got a paying job in April 2016. 

Around the same time, Tyabji-Sandana obtained the girl’s email address and they began emailing back and forth. They eventually spent time together during the summer, at a local festival, on a logging road and at Tyabji-Sandana’s apartment. They watched movies on Friday nights and eventually had intercourse. 

“I expect [the alleged victim] will tell you that she does not necessarily recall all of these specific dates of the incidents she’s going to be testifying to, but rather will be giving estimates or ranges,” Young told the jury.

Young said that at the end of July in 2016 they were spending time together and went to Tyabji-Sandana’s residence. It was during this time that they first kissed.  

“You will hear that after that kiss, [she] responded to Mr. Tyabji-Sandana by telling him that she was 15-years-old,” Young said.

“I expect one of the potential issues this trial will be Mr. Tyabji-Sandana’s knowledge of [her] age at the time, as well as the steps he took to determine that age. You will hear [her] in her testimony say that she told Mr. Tyabji-Sandana that she was 15 years old throughout 2016.”

Young said he expected her to testify to various accusations she made about Tyabji-Sandana, how what happened between them has affected her and what Tyabji-Sandana’s response was to her. 

When the alleged victim, now 22, took the witness stand, she testified that they first met in January 2016, when she was still 14, looking ahead to her 15th birthday in April of that year. 

She described the farm where she volunteered, with 45 sheep, and that she would typically clean the stalls, help feed the sheep and take care of newborn lambs. She also described some of the incidents where they kissed, including when Tyabji-Sandana lifted her bra and fondled her breasts. 

Young asked her about discussions she had with Tyabji-Sandana about her 16th birthday upcoming in April 2017. 

“I believe some of the discussion was had over Facebook Messenger or text, some of the discussion would have been in-person,” she testified. “That it was coming soon within the near future. I remember specifically one time he had mentioned that, for my 16th birthday, he was going to get me a box of condoms.”

Young asked her when the conversation took place, to which she answered “not exactly.” Later  she agreed that it happened after she had stopped volunteering at the farm.

The trial is scheduled for another six days. 

Judi Tyabji won the Okanagan-East riding in the October 1991 provincial election when the Wilson-led BC Liberals became the official opposition to Mike Harcourt’s NDP government. 

Wilson, who won the Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA, named Tyabji the opposition house leader, but he eventually lost the leadership over their affair. They married in 1994 and formed the Progressive Democratic Alliance. After the 1996 election, Wilson joined the NDP and held a succession of portfolios in Premier Glen Clark’s cabinet, including aboriginal affairs, BC Ferries, finance and education. 

Wilson and Tyabji returned to the BC Liberals during the 2013 election when they endorsed Premier Christy Clark, who upset the Adrian Dix-led NDP and remained in power until 2017. 

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Bob Mackin The son of a former BC

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The Surrey Police Service (SPS) has hired Wayne Rideout, the province’s former head of police services, to help it take over the duties of the Surrey RCMP.

Wayne Rideout (LinkedIn)

Ian MacDonald, the media liaison for the SPS, said Oct. 5 that Rideout was contracted for three months at $175 per hour to assist with the continuation of the policing transition. 

“We believe that Mr. Rideout’s experience as the former assistant deputy minister and director of police services for B.C.’s Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General in addition to his 34-year policing career will assist us greatly,” MacDonald said. “Given Minister [Mike] Farnworth’s July 19 decision on policing in Surrey, we believe Mr. Rideout will provide meaningful contributions to the important next steps.”

Rideout spent more than six years in the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. From December 2020 to January 2023, he was the top bureaucrat overseeing policing in the province, reporting to Farnworth.

“I was responsible for the superintendence of policing in the province as well as the development and implementation of policy, legislation and the alignment of the RCMP and the province’s independent police agencies to address public safety challenges and crisis,” said Rideout’s LinkedIn profile. “I worked to ensue public confidence in law enforcement and to modernize policing to meet evolving performance and accountability expectations.”

In addition to managing the province’s RCMP contracts, Rideout also played a role in reversing a Vancouver Police Department budget freeze in early 2022 after an appeal from the police board. Rideout’s decision restored $5.7 million in funding after the December 2020 city council decision amid the “defund the police” movement.

Keep the RCMP in Surrey campaigning with Surrey mayoral candidate Brenda Locke (Twitter)

More than two months ago, Farnworth directed City of Surrey to replace the RCMP detachment with the municipal force. Farnworth reiterated the NDP government’s pledge to pay the estimated $30 million increased annual cost of the SPS for the first five years. 

Farnworth cited section 2 of the Police Act, which requires adequate and effective law enforcement be maintained throughout the province, and claimed that stopping the transition would leave other communities understaffed. 

He also announced the hiring of Jessica McDonald as “strategic implementation advisor” to facilitate the transition.

Despite Farnworth’s order, Mayor Brenda Locke said in a recent interview that there is no detailed plan to proceed with the SPS. She said she told Premier David Eby at the recent Union of B.C. Municipalities convention that the city is in an “untenable position.”

Surrey’s 2018-elected city council under Mayor Doug McCallum decided to switch police forces, but 2022 successor Locke’s majority council voted to keep the RCMP. 

Rideout began his policing career with the RCMP in 1982 and one of his first stops as a general duty officer was Surrey. He reached the level of assistant commissioner in 2012 in charge of criminal operations, investigative services and organized crime.

During his tenure as the officer in charge of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team from 2003 to 2008, Rideout refused to let the public information officer correct the record when an eyewitness video emerged of the taser death of Polish tourist Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport. A coroner’s court heard in 2018 that the decision sent Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre into a tailspin and he eventually died in 2013 of suicide.

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Bob Mackin  The Surrey Police Service (SPS) has

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Bob Mackin

The Kits Point Residents Association (KPRA) is pondering whether to appeal the B.C. Supreme Court’s Sept. 29 dismissal of its challenge to Vancouver city hall’s agreement for servicing the Squamish Nation’s Senakw towers.

Section of Lanier Park excavated for Senakw towers (Mackin)

“Clearly we are disappointed with the result,” said KPRA president Eve Munro by email. “We are in the process of reviewing the decision and considering our options. In view of this I am not able to offer any further comment at this time.”

Justice Carla Forth’s 73-page written verdict, given to the parties the day before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, said city council was justified in holding meetings in private and not consulting the public about the commercial agreement with the landowner. 

KPRA wanted a judge to quash the services agreement due to its secrecy, but Forth concluded the 120-year pact was valid, the city acted within the law and that no civic official acted in bad faith. 

“As such, the process used was not unreasonable nor arbitrary,” Forth wrote. 

Forth presided over hearings from April 18-21 about the city’s only role in the development on 10.5 acres of irregularly shaped Squamish Nation reserve land beside and under the Burrard Bridge. The Squamish Nation’s Nch’kay Development company is partnered with Westbank Development under the umbrella of Nch’kay West to build 11 towers in four phases. Phase one is expected to be ready for occupancy in November 2025. The federally approved project is slated to contain 6,000 residential units by 2030. 

In July 2021, city council passed a resolution behind closed doors to authorize and execute a services agreement. The agreement was signed in public by Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Squamish Nation council chair Dustin Rivers, aka Khelsilem, on May 25, 2022, but not published until just before B.C. Day weekend. Forth noted that he Squamish Nation originally wanted the agreement to remain confidential, but the city insisted it be disclosed. 

Staff considered whether there should be any type of consultation, concluding that to do so would imply the city had regulatory control over the nation’s land use decision.

KPRA argued in court that the city should have used its ability to refuse services as a bargaining tool to exert control over the density and composition. Forth said the law is clear that municipalities are not required to consult the public prior to entering a commercial agreement and the city was correct to not regulate or influence an Indigenous government’s development.

Senakw (Westbank/Nch’kay)

“The decision made by the city that it would not use the negotiation of the services agreement as a means to force the nation to change the density of the development was based on the city’s view of whether this was an appropriate strategy in all of the circumstances,” Forth wrote. “After fully considering the issues, the city concluded it was not.”

Forth noted that the city decided in 2014 to become a “City of Reconciliation” and that policy should shape its negotiations over Senakw. While the Vancouver Charter contains clauses about when meetings must be open, Forth found that it was appropriate to hold a July 2021 meeting behind closed doors because the agreement was still under negotiation and publicity could have disadvantaged the city’s bargaining position. 

“The petitioners submit that the 2021 report ought to have been considered in an open council meeting. A review of that report supports that it contains sensitive information about land rights issues, issues relating to the Bridge and the competing claims to the land on which it stands, the use of Vanier Park, and the confidentiality of the terms of the services agreement,” Forth wrote. 

As the losing party, KPRA is liable to pay the city’s costs. But Forth acknowledged going to court was a last resort for the frustrated petitioners. They had legitimate concerns about the impacts of Senakw, given the size, scale and unprecedented nature of the development and its traffic and transportation ramifications. 

“They were provided with no public forum to bring forward their concerns and have them heard. In my view, although the city was successful in defending this petition, it should consider whether costs should be pursued,” Forth concluded.

At the groundbreaking ceremony in September 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $1.4 billion loan through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to finance half the units in Senakw’s first two phases.

A 2019 expert report for Squamish Nation members estimated the project could bring as much as $12.7 billion cashflow for the band and developer. 

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Bob Mackin The Kits Point Residents Association (KPRA)

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Bob Mackin

The mayor of Vancouver’s sister city in China is scheduled to visit in less than a month. 

But Vancouver city hall had little to say  about plans for Guangzhou’s Guo Yonghang and his entourage. 

“The City of Vancouver is aware of the upcoming visit of the delegation from Guangzhou, China. At this time, the city has not confirmed any sister-city events,” said a statement delivered by Johann Chang of city hall’s communications department.

Guangzhou Mayor Guo Yonghang (GZ government)

Vancouver twinned with Guangzhou, the capital of China’s most-populous province Guangdong, in 1985. The cities marked the 30th anniversary of the relationship in 2015 when Guangzhou Mayor Chen Jianhua and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson unveiled a sculpture outside 12th and Cambie and appeared at an economic and finance forum at the Four Seasons Hotel. Guangdong is the ancestral home to many British Columbians of Chinese descent and known as the manufacturing and high-tech heartland of China. 

Guo is expected to arrive in Vancouver Oct. 18 and spend Oct. 19-21 at events and meetings with business and consular officials. His itinerary has not been announced, but a person familiar with the trip, but not authorized to comment, said the delegation will number six or seven people. 

The Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in Vancouver did not respond for comment. 

Guo was vice-governor of Guangdong when he was named Guangzhou’s acting mayor in 2021. He also occupies senior civic and provincial posts in the Chinese Communist Party. In China, mayors and governors are not elected. They are appointed by the state council, the Chinese government’s cabinet. 

Guangzhou, with more than 18.7 million residents, is one of Vancouver’s five sister cities, but Guangzhou has 64 “friendly cities” and 38 “friendship cities” of its own. Vancouver is number four on the latter, more-prestigious list. 

Guangzhou also has official friendship city alliances with two Russian cities, Kazan and Yekaterinburg. Guo marked the 10th anniversary of the Kazan relationship in September 2022 with a visit to its Mayor, Ilsur Metshin, “to discuss further deepening cooperation between the two cities in areas such as trade, tourism, sports, and culture,” according to a Guangzhou government website. 

Horgan and Chinese Politburo member Wang Chen (Rich Lam/BC Gov)

Vancouver’s first sister city in 1944 was Odesa, the Ukrainian port city under Russian attack for the last year and a half. 

Charles Burton, a senior fellow with the Macdonald Laurier Institute think-tank, said it is an awkward time for Guo to visit Vancouver. He wondered what the benefit is for Canada while so many questions remain unanswered about China’s interference in Canadian affairs, including the last federal election and illegal police stations.  

“It’s puzzling why we would give a visa for an official Chinese government-associated delegation that appears to have no reason to come to Canada except to engage in activities which don’t seem to be in the interests of Canada’s development or security,” said Burton, a former diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing. “In other words, you’d expect that the mayor of Guangzhou to be having some program with his counterparts in the municipal government, but evidently, there isn’t anything to do with them. Obviously, we’re not going to be arranging celebratory activities between Vancouver and Guangzhou.”

The visit is scheduled just after the anniversary of ABC Vancouver leader Ken Sim’s landslide election as the first Vancouver mayor of Chinese descent. Sim defeated Kennedy Stewart on Oct. 15, 2022, a year after the NDP-aligned incumbent raised the ire of Chinese diplomats when he proposed forging a friendship city alliance with the Taiwanese city Kaohsiung. China has threatened to invade Taiwan, the self-governing, democratic island. 

The last, big Chinese government mission to Vancouver was June 2018 when Premier John Horgan hosted a 24-person entourage led by Wang Chen, a member of dictator Xi Jinping’s Politburo and vice-chair of the National People’s Congress standing committee. 

Horgan and Wang officially discussed trade, tourism, education and climate change. 

Wang’s visit came the week after local demonstrations marked he 29th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and two weeks after the Vancouver Convention Centre staged the 9th Conference of the World Guangdong Community Federation. 

In May 2016, Premier Christy Clark hosted the CCP’s Guangdong secretary Hu Chunhua and 200 other business and political officials.

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Bob Mackin The mayor of Vancouver’s sister city

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The Calgary Police Service came to the Lower Mainland on a recruiting mission, despite area forces already in the market for officers. 

The force in the “Stampede City” advertised on CKNW for its Oct. 3-4 attendance at a career fair in New Westminster’s Anvil Centre and an information session on the same day in Surrey, where job uncertainty remains for both RCMP and municipal officers. 

The Calgary Police Service did not make anyone available for an interview. Instead, Pam Lipsett in the media relations unit sent a prepared statement.

Calgary Police/Facebook

“It is common practice for organizations to attract candidates from across the country,” read the statement. “Policing is a niche career choice, and law enforcement agencies commonly recruit nationwide to broaden the talent pool to ensure that the most highly qualified people are selected for the role.”

The force’s website touts a starting salary of $67,885 rising to $104,439.24 after five years, plus a 25-year pension plan and health benefits package. 

Kash Heed, a Richmond city councillor, former B.C. Solicitor General and former West Vancouver Police chief, said Calgary is the most-assertive recruiter in Canada and credits Chief Mark Neufeld, a former Vancouver Police constable.

“It’s a common practice, the applicant pool is so shallow in Canada, that we’ve got every major police agency across the country that’s recruiting all across Canada and not necessarily just in their home jurisdiction,” Heed said. “So I’m not surprised that they’re coming here. In the past Vancouver has actually gone to Alberta to recruit people for the police department. So Calgary coming out here is par for the course.”

Heed said Calgary can obviously offer a lower cost of living than Vancouver, but the force’s management philosophy and equipping of officers is more-advanced than other cities. 

In July, Brian Sauve, president of the RCMP officers’ union, the National Police Federation, wrote an open letter to Premier David Eby, calling for a hiring spree because the Mounties were 242 shy of its 2012 quota of 2,602 officers.

Surrey Police Service, which got Solicitor General Mike Farnworth’s nod in July to eventually take over from the RCMP in Surrey, has 389 officers and 58 civilian staff. 

“Canadian police agencies are looking for good people to join. Many including Surrey Police Service look to recruit from out-of-province and across Canada, as well as locally,” SPS media liaison Ian MacDonald said. “Ultimately, we support policing and individuals who have chosen policing as a profession. We understand that each agency will look for individuals who will be the best fit for them, regardless of where they currently work or reside.”

Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer told the police board that his department had hired 100 new officers as of its Sept. 21 meeting date. Palmer said he had sworn-in 70, while 24 had been lured from other police forces.  

“I just want to dispel some myths that you hear about police recruiting because they hear people always talking all around North America, how they can’t get applicants and they can’t find people and all this kind of stuff,” Palmer said. 

Palmer said applications from new officers are up over 50% and applications from experienced officers from other departments across Canada are up over 700%. 

“So we’re definitely bucking trends,” Palmer said, adding that the VPD also hired 40 special municipal constables for its “farm team,” to act in community safety, jail guard and traffic authority roles. 

ABC Mayor Ken Sim, who also chairs the police board, ran on a platform in the 2022 election to hire 100 new officers. 

VPD public information officer Sgt. Steve Addison said the current authorized strength is 1,483 sworn officers and the force expects to hire dozens more to account for retirements. 

“We’ve traveled around the province this year to connect with new recruits and have hired a number of exempt officers from other agencies within B.C. and around Canada,” Addison said. 

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Bob Mackin The Calgary Police Service came to

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For the week of Oct. 1, 2023: 

Will Canada’s men’s basketball team turn its bronze medal at the FIBA World Cup into a medal at next summer’s Olympics in Paris?

Howard Kelsey during his playing days (NBTAA.com)

Which teams with Canadian stars are the ones to watch during the upcoming NBA season? 

And what about a Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame? 

B.C. Sports Hall of Famer Howard Kelsey, a former national team player, is Bob Mackin’s guest on this week’s edition of thePodcast, to answer those questions and more.

Plus, headlines from the Pacific Rim and the Pacific Northwest and commentary on Canada’s latest foreign affairs embarrassment. 

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

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

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For the week of Oct. 1, 2023:  Will

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Bob Mackin

The federal government has spent at least $120,000 to contest five orders from the Office of the Information Commissioner, according to documents submitted to the House of Commons. 

In June, MP John Nater (Conservative, Perth-Wellington) asked the Liberal government for statistics on binding orders issued since June 2019, by government institution, how many orders were abided by, ignored, appealed or challenged in court and how much the government spent on lawyers.

Justin Trudeau on July 29, 2019 at Kitsilano Coast Guard base (Mackin)

June 2019 was when the minority Liberal government amended the Access to Information Act to allow the Information Commissioner to make orders to compel government institutions to respond to applicants and release documents. 

The Sept. 18 response from Attorney General Arif Virani said total legal costs for the files amounted to approximatively $120,000.

“The total amount mentioned in this response is based on information contained in Department of Justice systems, as of June 14, and does not include amounts incurred directly by government departments who have contracted legal counsel outside of the Department of Justice,” said the response to Nater’s question made via the House of Commons’ order paper process. 

Two of the Information Commissioner’s orders are about access to information requests to the Privy Council Office, which works closely with the Prime Minister’s Office, and another two involve Public Service and Procurement Canada, the government’s buying and contracting arm. The other was directed to Export Development Canada. 

Three of the five cases concern delays and another is about refusal of disclosure. Litigation is ongoing in three of the cases, including one in which the applicant sought records from March 1, 2020 onward about the potential use of the Emergencies Act as a tool to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Over the course of four years, the Office of the Information Commissioner has issued 214 orders, according to the response to Nater. National Defence led the way with 22 orders received, followed by 17 each for Transport Canada and Public Service and Procurement Canada. 

Others in double digits: RCMP (16), Canada Revenue Agency (14), Privy Council Office, Innovation, Science and Industry and Environment and Climate Change Canada (12 each), and Global Affairs Canada (11). 

Twenty-one government institutions received one order, including Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., Canada Post, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Public Health Agency of Canada, Trans Mountain Corporation and Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. 

Notably, the response to Nater’s questions emphasized that the Information Commissioner, Caroline Maynard, does not monitor compliance with her orders. 

“The commissioner has no power under the Act to force the institution to implement all aspects of her order. Once the commissioner issues her final report with her findings and order, she has exhausted her powers to investigate the allegations in the complaint,” said the response from the Office of the Information Commissioner.

“Institutions are legally obliged to abide by an order from the commissioner unless they apply to the Federal Court for a review of the matter that is the subject of the order.”

In June, Maynard was encouraged by recommendations to overhaul access to information from the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. However, she noted Canada’s Access to Information Act is nearing its 40th anniversary and “definitely showing its age.”

The United Nations’ International Day for Universal Access to Information, also known as Right to Know Day, is Sept. 28. 

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British Columbia’s Labour Code can apply at the Parliament Buildings, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled on Sept. 22. 

Justice Bruce Ellwood rejected the Legislative Assembly of B.C.’s petition that sought to overturn a B.C. Labour Relations Board (LRB) decision in favour of a union’s application to bargain for special provincial constables at the seat of government. 

The LRB ruled in late 2021 that applying the code to the constables would not impede the Legislative Assembly’s ability to carry on its constitutional functions. The Legislative Assembly argued that parliamentary privilege prevailed due to the necessity to protect the assembly and members at all times. 

Ellwood noted that the LRB “was not persuaded of another method by which special constables could exercise their constitutional right to collective bargaining.

Cupola at the B.C. Parliament Buildings (Mackin)

“The privilege claimed by the assembly would exclude all of the provisions of the Code, including the duty to negotiate in good faith and the unfair labour practice provisions, regardless of whether the parties agreed to negotiate under a voluntary recognition model,” Ellwood wrote. 

In 2019, constables working for the Legislative Assembly Protective Services (LAPS) division of the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms formed the Legislative Assembly Protective Services Association (LAPSA) and applied for Labour Code certification. 

LAPSA and the all-party Legislative Assembly Management Committee (LAMC) both agreed to put the application on hold while they negotiated a collective agreement. But talks broke off and LAPSA resumed the certification bid in May 2020. A majority of LAMC members are NDP MLAs. The committee’s chair is Speaker Raj Chouhan, who helped establish the Canadian Farmworkers Union and formerly directed bargaining for the Hospital Employees’ Union. 

Edward Illi, who was elected president of the union, was put on administrative leave in August 2020 and fired in December 2020, just four days before the LRB originally agreed that parliamentary privilege applied. He was a respondent with the LRB against the Legislative Assembly’s petition. 

At the start of February 2021, union members voted to dissolve the association. Illi filed an application with the LRB a month later, alleging unfair labour practice. 

“I do not agree with the assembly that the board ‘subordinated’ parliamentary privilege to the Charter rights of the special constables. Rather, the board found that the assembly had not made out its case for a privilege based on the governing law, which required consideration of those rights,” the judge wrote.

The B.C. decision came five years after the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2018 ruling on a case in Quebec, that found the national assembly’s speaker could not use parliamentary privilege to avoid the grievances of three fired security guards.

“The Code is the only existing statutory scheme by which the special constables can access an enforceable process of collective bargaining,” Ellwood wrote. 

At a meeting in July, LAMC announced the beginning of a transition to what Clerk Kate Ryan-Lloyd called “a new hybrid model of layered security.” The first group of 10 unarmed safety officers was brought in for orientation and training. 

The move came three years after Alan Mullen, the chief of staff to Speaker Darryl Plecas from 2017 to 2020, had recommended transforming LAPS into a security department with unarmed officers. His report determined LAPS officers were overqualified and the department’s police force model was not necessary when compared to day-to-day operational requirements. 

Mullen 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. 

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Bob Mackin British Columbia’s Labour Code can apply

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The purchase price for Quest University’s campus has been censored from a contract released by Capilano University. 

On Aug. 16, NDP Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills Minister Selina Robinson appeared in Squamish to announce the province had provided $48 million to Capilano for its $63.2 million purchase of the 18-acre campus. Quest suspended operations in April. Capilano plans to reopen the former private university next year. 

Under the freedom of information law, Capilano released three, heavily redacted agreements. The North Vancouver university’s risk management and privacy officer Jacquetta Goy said “redactions have been applied on the grounds of disclosures harmful to the business interests of a third party… and on the grounds of disclosures harmful to personal privacy.”

“We are not able to provide you with correspondence related to the contract as requested as it is excluded on the grounds of solicitor-client privilege,” Goy wrote.

Quest University Canada in Squamish, B.C. (Quest)

Adjudicators with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and B.C. Supreme Court judges have repeatedly decided in favour of disclosing contracts between public bodies and private entities.

“We’re looking at an expenditure of around $100 million — $60 million for the campus and Capilano has options to buy four residences which will be at least another $40 million,” said researcher Vivian Krause, who has analyzed the history and taxation implications of Quest land deals. “It’s shocking to see such a heavily redacted document, it’s shocking to see dates and amounts blacked out, it’s shocking to see the names of law firms blacked out.”

One of the documents, called the Superseding Purchase Agreement for the Quest Campus Lands, is between nominee Primacorp, beneficial owner New Quest Land Holdings LP and Capilano University, the purchaser. New Quest, registered in 2016 and formerly known as Vancouver Career College LP, is another of Primacorp chair Peter Chung’s companies.

Primacorp paid $43 million for the land and university buildings to rescue Quest out of court protection from creditors in December 2020 and agreed to provide student recruitment, marketing and fundraising services for Quest. Quest’s biggest lender, the Vanchorverve Foundation, had demanded repayment of $23.4 million at the start of 2020.

Definitions of deposit holder, deposit, Excise Tact Act, purchase price and the related payment schedule were blacked-out. So were the Quest chattels, or equipment, machinery, furnishings, inventory or supplies in which the vendor and/or nominee has any right or claim, pursuant to the lease. 

On another document, an agreement about assignment and novation, Capilano blacked-out the assignor’s name and the names and signatures of the parties.

That contract refers to an original agreement of purchase and sale made March 30, 2023 between Primacorp, New Quest and the secret assignor. The only hint about the identity of the assignor is that it is incorporated under Alberta laws. 

The supplemental “Amended and Restated Agreement to Assign Purchase Contract,” included the nine-digit property identifier for the entire 55.67 acre Quest property. B.C. Assessment Authority valued it at $88.9 million in July of 2022. The assessment authority’s database said the most-recent transaction was Aug. 9 and worth $60.88 million. That is close to the price announced by the province a week later. 

“Taxpayers deserve to know who is getting the tens of millions of dollars the government is spending in Squamish,” Krause said. “Government should provide an unreacted copy of this agreement, if there is nothing to hide, why is the information blacked out?” 

The deal announced last month did not include the student dormitory buildings. A spokesperson for Robinson said the government was looking at an opportunity to acquire the student housing buildings, which would accommodate 450 beds. 

“Further feasibility analysis about this potential acquisition will be required,” said a statement from the ministry. 

While Primacorp owns the land under the four vacant buildings, the buildings that contain 416 student residential units belong to the company that built them, Southern Star Developments. 

In an affidavit in November 2020, Southern Star president Michael Hutchison said his company spent $41.7 million to build the residences specifically for student use, with financing from a Bank of Montreal mortgage. 

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Bob Mackin  The purchase price for Quest University’s

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For the week of Sept. 24, 2023: 

Torrential rains and floods devastated the Interior and Fraser Valley during November 2021’s parade of pineapple expresses.

But provincial, regional and municipal authorities were not prepared. They could have and should have been. 

A researcher with the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives used the freedom of information law to investigate dike inspection reports from 2017 to 2021. 

Ben Parfitt collected more than 5,000 pages from the Ministry of Forests and communities at risk of flooding, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Merritt, Princeton and Richmond. 

He found no evidence that B.C.’s inspector of dikes issued any orders to improve protection for people and property. 

Hear the interview with Ben Parfitt on this week’s edition of thePodcast. 

Plus, headlines from the Pacific Rim and the Pacific Northwest and commentary on the latest in Canada’s year of foreign interference. 

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

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For the week of Sept. 24, 2023:  Torrential

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