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Bob Mackin 

More than two thirds of the diplomats at the People’s Republic of China consulate in Vancouver have gone since 2021.

According to the July update to the Global Affairs Canada-published (GAC) “Diplomatic, Consulate and Other Representatives in Canada,” China has 22 consular officials in Vancouver, the same number as the April 2021 edition. However, 15 exited over the past two years.

Wilson Miao (left), Parm Bains, Tong Xiaoling, Lam Siu Ngai, Taleeb Noormohamed and Michael Lee in January 2022. (PRC consulate)

The most-prominent departure was Consul General Tong Xiaoling, who left her post at the end of July 2022, just shy of her fifth anniversary in Vancouver. Tong was the subject of stories in the Globe and Mail earlier this year, based on leaks from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. CSIS alleged that Tong interfered in the 2021 federal election in favour of Liberal candidates and in the lead-up to Vancouver’s 2022 civic election to defeat pro-Taiwan Mayor Kennedy Stewart. 

Yang Shu succeeded Tong last September, however Vice-Consul General Wang Chengjun remained. Deputy Trade Commissioner Liu Wei’s name appears in the April 2021 directory, but was replaced by Yang Fan in the March 2023 version. Chen Qingjie is also a notable addition to the post-2021 list. Chen, who is officially ranked consul, is the director for the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which runs activities for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) United Front propaganda and influence program. 

The Chinese consulate did not respond to a query about its turnover and the relatively high number of diplomats that represent Beijing in Vancouver. 

“Diplomatic life is one of continual change – of arrivals and departures, greetings and farewells,” wrote Canada’s Chief Protocol Officer Stewart Wheeler in the directory’s introduction. “In Canada, approximately 200 members of the diplomatic corps depart every month, with another 200 arriving to join our diplomatic community.”

The Chinese consulate’s economic, trade and cultural offices are based in a $19.87 million-assessed, walled compound on Granville Street south of 16th Avenue in Shaughnessy. The visa office is in a tower at West Broadway and Oak, while the education section is located in a $4.5 million house across the street from Prince of Wales secondary school in Arbutus. 

An analysis of the directory shows that China’s 22 consular officials in Vancouver outnumber the 16 at the United States’ consulate, while Japan has nine and India eight envoys. The directory does not list support staff or contractors.

The U.S. has 80 diplomatic personnel at its embassy in Ottawa and another 61 spread across Canada in consulates at Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver for a total of 141. 

China is close behind with 135 diplomatic officials, including 56 at the Ottawa embassy and 79 in the Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver consulates. 

By comparison, Japan has 63 diplomats across Canada and U.K. and India 33 each. Since 1970, Canada has only officially recognized Mainland China. It does maintain informal relations with Taiwan, which operates the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver to provide consular and trade promotion services. TECO has 37 staff in Canada, according to the directory.

Consul-General Yang Shu (left) with MP Parm Bains and Coun. Alexa Loo in November 2022. (Phoenix TV)

During February testimony at a Procedure and House Affairs Committee hearing, a former diplomat in Canada’s Beijing embassy and a senior fellow with a think-tank called the size of China’s contingent unusual when compared with other major nations, such as India, Japan and U.K.

“It does make me wonder if a significant proportion of China’s exceptionally large diplomatic cohort here are engaged primarily in the United Front work, monitoring agents involved in the influence-peddling, disinformation and coercion,” said Charles Burton of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. “I would imagine that CSIS would know the answer to that question, and if so, I do hope that CSIS will be prepared to share that information about the United Front Work mandate of the Chinese diplomats here in Canada with this committee.”

Burton said the CCP’s United Front Work Department is a massive bureaucracy, inside and outside China, that secretly develops and implements “a strategy of carefully crafted deception about the true intentions” of the CCP, with the goal of suppressing voices critical of China’s domestic and international policy. 

On Aug. 9, GAC announced that its rapid response mechanism (RRM) detected an information operation to spread false or misleading narratives on WeChat about Conservative MP Michael Chong between May 4 and 13. 

“One third of the network included known state-media outlets and accounts that are likely linked to China’s state apparatus but whose linkages may be opaque,” the announcement said. 

On May 8, foreign minister Melanie Joly expelled Zhao Wei from China’s Toronto consulate for intimidating Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong. 

During the same period, staff at then-Fisheries and Oceans Minister Joyce Murray’s Vancouver-Quadra constituency office discontinued using the Liberal MP’s WeChat channel. They have not disclosed the reason, despite repeated requests from a reporter. 

“RRM Canada specialists performed monitoring activities, such as keyword searches specifically related to the by-elections,” said GAC spokesperson Genevieve Tremblay. “No information was seen on Mrs. Murray or on any other MPs, with the exception of Mr. Chong.”

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Bob Mackin  More than two thirds of the

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Nine years since the speaker of B.C.’s Legislative Assembly apologized for charging taxpayers when her husband accompanied her to South Africa, the two Liberal speakers in Ottawa dinged Canadians almost $31,000 to bring their wives to Australia.

Canadian Speakers Anthony Rota and George Frey in Australia (CSPOC/Twitter)

Then-Senate Speaker George Furey and Karen Furey and House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota and Chantal Piche Rota traveled to the Jan. 3-6 Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth in capital city Canberra. They were half of Canada’s eight-person delegation that spent more than $150,000. 

Furey was named to the Senate in 1999 by Prime Minister Jean Chretien and became speaker in the upper chamber in 2015 after Justin Trudeau led the Liberals back to power with a majority. Rota Is the Liberal MP for Nipissing-Timiskaming who became House of Commons speaker after the 2019 election.

“After eight years of Trudeau, it is clear he and his Liberal government never miss an opportunity to jet-set around the world to visit global elites and stay in fancy hotels,” said a statement from Michael Barrett, the Conservative shadow minister for Ethics and Accountable Government. ”Canadians are struggling to put food on the table or afford a place to live, but the Liberals continue to add to the inflationary fires with their wining and dining on the tax payer’s dime.” 

George Furey spent $23,234.13 and Karen Furey $19,441.98 on airfare, accommodation and daily allowances, more than Anthony Rota’s $15,246.24 and Chantal Piche Rota’s $11,398.45. The Fureys charged taxpayers $17,972.92 each for airfare alone. 

Karen Furey received $1,469.19 in daily allowances and Chantal Piche Rota $1,387.63. 

“When the speaker’s spouse accompanies him on an international trip to represent Canada, her travel and accommodation expenses are paid by the House of Commons, and she receives a per diem because she is considered a member of the delegation,” said Amelie Crosson, director of communications in Speaker Rota’s office.

“For international trips such as these, the House of Commons only pays travel expenses for the spouse of the speaker and does not pay travel expenses for the spouse of any other member of parliament or employee.”

The expensive junket, originally reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, also included ex-Clerk Charles Robert, who was listed as “parliamentary staff” and charged taxpayers $21,170.42.

(Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth 2023

Robert took leave of absence in mid-November but quit in early December after denying allegations of misconduct — including showing pro-Liberal bias.

The entourage also included Senate Clerk Gerald Lafreniere ($19,997.85), Furey’s Chief of Staff Vince MacNeil ($19,130.29) and Rota’s Chief of Staff Alexandre Mattard-Michaud ($20,280.16). 

Rota chairs the Board of Internal Economy, which sets spending rules in the House of Commons. Liberals hold the five-vote majority on the nine-member committee, which also includes two Conservatives and one each from the NDP and Bloc Québécois.

“Instead of controlling the costs of government which drive up the cost of everything else, this out of touch Liberal government is taxing Canadians more in order to spend more on itself,” Barrett said. “Canadians are out of money and this Liberal government is out of touch.”

In August 2013, then-BC Liberal Speaker Linda Reid charged taxpayers for her husband’s business class airfare, meals and hotel when she attended a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in South Africa. In March 2014, when Reid was exposed, she said she reimbursed the public treasury for her husband’s $5,528.16 airfare. She did not respond to repeated requests from a reporter to see the proof of repayment. The B.C. Legislative Assembly remains exempt from B.C.’s freedom of information law, despite NDP Deputy Premier Mike Farnworth’s 2019 promise. 

One of Reid’s successors, Darryl Plecas, became speaker in 2017 and blew the whistle on lavish spending by globetrotting, BC Liberal-appointed Clerk Craig James. In 2017, James racked-up $51,649 in expenses on top of his $347,090 salary.

One of Plecas’s legacies is the the Legislative Assembly Management Committee’s 2019 policy on employee travel, that includes an explicit ban on reimbursement for costs incurred by a spouse. 

Plecas called in the RCMP after finding waste and corruption, including James’s unnecessary overseas trips, purchases of watches and gifts, failure to report and pay duties to Canada customs, the purchase of a wood splitter kept at James’s house and a $257,000 retirement allowance James decided to give himself in 2012. James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz were suspended in November 2018 and both retired in disgrace the following year. 

In May 2022, a B.C. Supreme Court judge found James guilty of fraud and breach of trust. He was sentenced to a month of house arrest and two months of curfew for spending $1,886.72 of taxpayers’ money on custom shirts and suits for personal use. 

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Quest University’s land and buildings may soon have a new owner, which could mean the Squamish institution that suspended classes in April will reopen. 

The 55-acre property was listed for sale by NAI Commercial in late February, a day after the private university’s board announced the end of instruction. The land was assessed last year at $15.08 million and buildings $54.17 million, but real estate agent Marshall MacLeod said the asking price was only available for bidders who signed a non-disclosure agreement. The offering brochure has since disappeared from the NAI website and MacLeod has not responded for comment. 

An executive with the seller did not deny a deal is near.

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

“We hope for the best resolution for the future of Quest and the community of Squamish,” said Charles Lee, director, strategy and business development for Primacorp Ventures Inc., said by email. “We are pleased that the parties are working together and discussions are moving forward.”

Primacorp paid $43 million for the land and university buildings to rescue Quest out of court protection from creditors in December 2020. Quest sought protection in January of that year after its biggest lender, the Vanchorverve Foundation, demanded repayment of $23.4 million. Vanchorverve is one of dozens of charities registered by Vancouver lawyer Blake Bromley.

Could the private university become public? 

Capilano University president Paul Dangerfield and vice-president of strategic planning Toran Savjord did not respond to phone and email queries about whether it offered to buy the land and buildings. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills initially referred a reporter to Quest. Pressed to answer whether taxpayers money could be invested to resurrect Quest, Lisanne Bowness refused to answer. 

“We have no further comment at this time,” Bowness said. “We hope to be able to share more information in the coming days.”

There could be a complication. Another charity set-up by Bromley, the Eden Glen Foundation, has lost its Canadian Revenue Agency charitable registration, as per the Canada Gazette on July 29. 

In a June 15 letter, published on researcher Vivian Krause’s blog, director general of charities Sharmila Khare wrote that the foundation gifted almost $5 million to a numbered company, a non-qualified donee, when it sold one of Quest’s original land parcels in April 2018. 

“When the foundation sold the beneficial ownership interest of Lot 12 to the corporation for $2 million (that is, $4.745 million less than the property’s fair market value), it provided an unacceptable private benefit to the corporation,” said Khare’s letter. 

Instead of assessing sanctions, CRA chose to revoke Eden Glen’s registration due to severity of the non-compliance.

Primacorp bills itself as Canada’s largest provider of private post-secondary education with 15,000 annual enrolments, including the CDI College chain, and has subsidiaries in seniors’ housing, commercial real estate and self storage in Canada and the U.S. 

In July 2021, Chung reportedly paid $42 million for the Belmont Estate, the 22,000 square foot Northwest Point Grey mansion formerly owned by philanthropists Joe and Rosalie Segal.

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Bob Mackin Quest University’s land and buildings may

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Seattle city council did what Vancouver city hall and the B.C. Pavilion Corporation’s freedom of information offices have refused to do.

Release the host city contract for FIFA World Cup 26.

Lumen Field, home of the Sounders (Sounders)

On Aug. 8, Seattle civic politicians formally delegated responsibilities to the Seattle International Soccer Local Organizing Committee. They also published the agreements and annexes that define the relationship between the home of the Sounders and soccer’s Switzerland-based governing body, which is staging the 48-nation tournament in less than three years in Seattle, Vancouver and 14 other cities in U.S., Canada, and Mexico.  

Unless otherwise explicitly stated, the host city authority shall be responsible to bear all costs and expenses incurred to fulfil hosting obligations and waive any and all claims of liability against FIFA, its officials and related entities. 

The main contract, which is likely similar to Vancouver’s, states the host city authority is responsible for supporting the government to provide safety, security, fire protection and medical services at no cost to FIFA, plus free public transportation to ticketholders on match days and to anyone accredited by FIFA throughout the competition period. The host city shall provide police escorts to the FIFA president, heads of state, international dignitaries, FIFA officials, guests, teams and match officials, and close any roads and restrict access to certain vehicle lanes as necessary. It must also provide space for parking and event transport vehicle depots. 

The contract says Seattle must provide sufficient back-up power and cleaning services around the stadium and beautify the city during the competition period. FIFA will determine a “controlled area” adjacent to Lumen Field’s outer perimeter, where “certain commercial and other activities are prohibited on match days and the days prior to match days.”

Seattle will remove or fully cover any advertisement or commercial identification and not permit any activities within the controlled area, including in any buildings and spaces within, unless approved by FIFA. 

“The controlled area must be subject to strict traffic restrictions in order to ensure regulated and controlled access and circulation only, including the establishment of access permission systems and its enforcement through access permit controls by the relevant public authorities,” the contract states.

Seattle is responsible for installing, maintaining and dismantling any decorative material for the venue dressing program at any FIFA-selected location and is liable for any damages. It must also secure and provide to FIFA any billboards, transit shelters and other outdoor advertising space in the area for a period beginning two weeks before the tournament and through 48 hours after the last match staged in the host city.

Inside B.C. Place Stadium (Mackin)

FIFA requires that no other major sporting event be held in the host city seven days prior to the opening match. The prohibition lasts until seven days after the final match in each city. There can also 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. 

The host city authority shall support measures for “preferred treatment procedures” for entry and exit of teams, officials, FIFA delegations, VIPs and VVIPs, “including special immigration, customs and security procedures.”

The contract includes clauses for human rights, labour standards, anti-corruption and environmental protection. The latter is meant to minimize “any adverse impact on the natural environment.” But, the host city agreement is explicitly “to be governed by, and interpreted in accordance with, the laws of Switzerland.”

The host city authority agrees that any taxes, duties and levies imposed directly or indirectly on FIFA and related parties due to the competition shall be borne by the host city authority. “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.”

But, with the risks, come rewards. Not just the promise of hundreds of thousands of tourists spending money in hotels, restaurants and bars in June 2026. Specifically, front of the line access to tournament tickets for city insiders.

FIFA’s 2026 World Cup logo (FIFA)

Seattle city council also released a pamphlet titled “FIFA World Cup 2026: Host Committees Rights and Assets,” which touts the merits of being a host city: Direct access to FIFA audiences, fundraising support and host city promotion via global broadcast exposure, advertising and merchandise.

The pamphlet states that FIFA will provide purchase access, prior to general public sale, to 1.5% of the available purchase capacity of the stadium, per hosted match. “These tickets can be used to assist fundraising efforts and included as part of a host city supporter package.”

That would translate to more than 1,000 tickets per game at 67,000-seat Lumen Field, but less at B.C. Place Stadium, where capacity is 54,500. 

FIFA also provides host cities with 175 to 250 complimentary VIP tickets at each match the city hosts. Host cities are also eligible for a small amount of tickets at matches they don’t host, such as four to the tournament opener, four to each semifinal and four to the final. Those tickets are not available for public purchase and cannot be resold.

B.C. was not included in the successful three-nation, 2018 bid to FIFA. Then-Premier John Horgan changed his mind in 2021 when Montreal dropped out due to rising costs. More than six months after Vancouver was named a host city, the province shifted responsibility for $230 million in costs to Vancouver city hall and decreed it could charge a temporary 2.5% accommodation tax through 2030.

In January, the province said Vancouver city hall was planning to spend $73 million for security and safety, $40 million for venues, $20 million for the FIFA Fan Festival, $15 million for a host city office, administration and volunteer service, $14 million for traffic and stadium zone management, $8 million for decoration and brand protection, and $8 million for insurance. The budget includes a $52 million contingency. 

PavCo has not revealed its budget for upgrades to B.C. Place Stadium, including two temporary natural grass pitches. 

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FIFA Seattle Agreement by Bob Mackin on Scribd

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Bob Mackin Seattle city council did what Vancouver

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Bob Mackin

With less than a month until schools reopen, a coalition of doctors, nurses, health scientists, and advocates for pupils and teachers is warning the NDP government about a repeat of the so-called “tripledemic.”

Dr. Lyne Filiatrault (PoP BC/YouTube)

“In short, we are on track for a rinse-and-repeat of last year,” Protect Our Province B.C. (PoP BC) said in an Aug. 8 open letter to Premier David Eby, Health Minister Adrian Dix and Education Minister Rachna Singh. 

Last August, PoP BC sounded the alarm about a coming triple whammy of influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and another COVID-19 wave. Eventually, six children in the province died and emergency rooms were jammed throughout winter. 

“Currently in B.C., we have no mask protections in schools, no proof of indoor air quality in schools including monitoring of carbon dioxide levels during full class occupancy, no [high efficiency particulate air] filtration units available in most classrooms, almost non-existent [nucleic acid] testing, and only the occasional provincial public health report (and those reports we do see are of limited value),” the open letter said.

PoP BC fears that parents will send infected children to school and make things worse, leading to mass-absenteeism and another round of emergency room delays. They point to a new “summer wave“ of COVID-19 in parts of the U.S., new variants spreading in Japan and the U.K., as well as the bellwether rise in respiratory illness during southern hemisphere winter. 

POP BC proposed a five-point plan: improved ventilation and air cleaning; a return of mask mandates in schools; admitting COVID-19 in airborne and can hang in the air for hours, like cigarette smoke; dipping into the federal stockpile of 39 million rapid antigen tests and distributing them widely; and vaccination children and families against COVID-19 and influenza early.

“You as leaders have a choice: either do nothing or decide to protect B.C. children, their educators and their families. Schools are not islands. Viruses walk in and then viruses walk out to infect families and communities. Studies show that schools are still the major source for COVID-19 transmission with 70% of COVID-19 infections transmitted to households from children.”

New versions of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines await federal approval and could be ready by the end of September.

More than a year-and-a-half ago, the B.C. government pivoted to a hybrid immunity theory, relying on a combination of high vaccination rates and mass-infections of less-lethal mutations of the virus. When the B.C. government discontinued its weekday-updated COVID-19 dashboard in April, it had counted almost 400,000 confirmed cases and 5,430 deaths since the pandemic began in early 2020. 

More than 50 signatories to the open letter include the Safe Schools Coalition B.C., B.C. School Covid Tracker, Do No Harm B.C., Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council’s health and safety committee and the Canadian Aerosol Transmission Coalition.

PoP BC co-founder Lyne Filiatrault is a retired emergency room doctor who, in March 2003, helped identify and contain the first case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) at Vancouver General Hospital in a patient who had returned from Hong Kong. 

The 2007 report of Ontario’s SARS judicial public inquiry credited “robust worker safety and infection control culture, with better systemic preparedness” in B.C. and urged public health to adopt a precautionary principle across the system. 

“Safety comes first,” concluded the final report. “That reasonable efforts to reduce risk need not await scientific proof.”

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Bob Mackin With less than a month until

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The husband of Lillooet’s outgoing chief administrative officer (CAO) died “unexpectedly due to a sudden illness” on Aug. 6, according to a notice on the district website. 

Kevin Taylor, the director of corporate and development services, succumbed after an unspecified illness at Lillooet Hospital. His husband, Jeremy Denegar, was hired last month by District of Sooke to become its new CAO after Labour Day.

Jeremy Denegar (left) and late husband Kevin Taylor (Summerland/YouTube)

“Kevin has been an inspiration to our team, he was loyal to Lillooet in wanting perfection to reign, seeking the highest standards in governance and his vision for our Main St was stunning,” said the Aug. 7 statement from Mayor Laurie Hopfl, council and staff. “He was honest, smart and professional in his work. He was quick witted, fun and kind in his life. He will be greatly missed.”

The statement asked for privacy for Denegar and Taylor’s family. “Please give time to begin the healing of our loss. We will do the best we can for our community as always.”

Denegar and Taylor were both hired in November 2019 at Lillooet, where council adopted a new policy on supervising spouses that shifted certain responsibilities from the CAO to the mayor in an effort to avoid a conflict of interest. 

Taylor was originally from North Vancouver and held a political science degree from the University of Victoria. He worked in the District of Peachland planning department beginning in 2014 and later joined the development services departments in Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen and District of Summerland.  

Denegar was Esquimalt’s information technology manager from 2007 to 2013 and director of corporate services for Summerland from 2013 to 2019. Sooke council voted to hire Denegar for the vacant CAO position in July after a recommendation from consultant Paul Murray. 

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For the week of Aug. 6, 2023:

On the B.C. Day edition of thePodcast, the president of the B.C. Lions is Bob Mackin’s guest.

B.C. Lions president Duane Vienneau (BC Lions)

The six-time Grey Cup champions have had many ups and downs since joining the league in 1954. As part of dynamic owner Amar Doman’s long-term plan to pack B.C. Place Stadium, he brought Duane Vienneau to Vancouver a year ago. 

Vienneau, the CFL’s former Chief Grey Cup and Events Officer has a dual focus: to bring fans and sponsors back to B.C. Place Stadium and plan for the 2024 Grey Cup in Vancouver.  

“We want to be the provincial team, it’s the B.C. Lions, not the Vancouver Lions,” Vienneau said. “Amar, since the day he bought this team, he said I want to reach out and invite young children and families to come to games.”

Plus commentary, the Virtual Nanaimo Bar award to a difference maker, and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.  

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 Aug. 6, 2023: On

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Bob Mackin

The Vancouver Public Library is not immune from the culture war.

According to a list for the period of January 2022 to June 2023, released under the freedom of information law, library users filed 17 challenges to books and one CD. After review, none was removed from the shelves.

“We see complaints on both sides of the political spectrum,” chief librarian and CEO Christina de Castell said in an interview. “People concerned about racism, concerned about antisemitism, and in older books in VPL’s collection. Then we see a little bit of vandalism happening of books that are promoting inclusion, and particularly around gender identity.”

The subject of complaints included:  

  • Books for children about same-sex relationships: “Princess Princess Ever After” by Kay O’Neill, “Two Grooms on a Cake: The Story of America’s First Gay Wedding,” by Rob Sanders and “Asha’s Mums” by Michele Paulse and Rosamund Elwin, which elicited two complaints.
  • Sex education: “You Know, Sex” by Cory Silverberg. 
  • A book about rapid-onset gender dysphoria: “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” by Abigail Shrier.
  • Comics and illustrated children’s books: Four complaints about the Asterix series, including two about “Asterix the Gladiator,” referencing six pages that depict Africans, and a complaint about a vintage warplane emblazoned with a Nazi iron cross in “The Berenstain Bears Take Off!”
  • Books from Pacific Northwest authors or publishers about domestic and foreign violent radicals: “Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan the Destroy Democracy” by Andy Ngo; “The White Nationalist Skinhead Movement: UK and USA 1979-1993” by Robert Forbes and Eddie Stampton; and “It IS About Islam: Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran and the Caliphate” by Glenn Beck.

“We do hold so many voices for Vancouver and that means that sometimes we hold things that people disagree with and we try not to judge what someone is coming into a library to explore,” de Castell said.

While some library users formally ask that a book be banned, others deface public property. Someone added “Jews” to the spine of Noam Chomsky’s “Who Rules the World?” and the words “queer” and “homosexual” were scrawled on the title page and table of contents of former First Lady Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming.” 

It wasn’t just books. Displays about Pride Month and Indigenous History Month were vandalized or tampered. In August 2022, a sign was stolen from the “You gotta have PRIDE” display and one of the featured books, “Pride: Celebrating Diversity and Community” by Robin Stevenson, was found in the stacks with many pages torn out.

The good news is, the proportion is small — VPL has 2.3 million items in its collection — and Vancouver has not seen the type of coordinated book banning campaigns that libraries have faced in Texas, Florida, Manitoba or New Brunswick. De Castell said only two books have been removed from VPL in the past decade, both for copyright infringement. “Tintin in the Congo” was moved from the children’s to the adult collection, “because of the level of racism in the pictures,” she said. 

“It’s hard to see that book censorship coming back into the public conversation,” de Castell said. “We’re sorry to be in this space where book banning is happening and glad that it is happening less in Vancouver. I hope it stays that way.”

VPL participates in the Book and Periodical Council’s Freedom to Read Week campaign every February, which promotes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protections for thought, belief, opinion and expression. The council’s declaration states, in part: “The freedom to choose what we read does not, however, include the freedom to choose for others.”

“How do we understand and work out as a society, how we can function democratically, if we can’t read views different from our own? All we create is an echo chamber,” said sociology professor James Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression (CFE) at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson.

Turk said censorship proponents are motivated by moral and ethical reasons, but there is no evidence that bans lead to less antisemitism, Islamophobia or homophobia. “We have to deal with these problems seriously, it’s just censorship isn’t the way to do it.”

Last fall, CFE launched a Library Challenges Database to keep track of attempts across the country to restrict intellectual freedom at libraries. The database shows 26 complaints at VPL since 2021, with only the People’s Daily — the Chinese Communist Party propaganda organ — being removed after a complaint that it was “politically/ideologically biased.”

Book banning is almost as old as the mass-printing of books. The Catholic Church published a “List of Prohibited Books” from the 16th century until 1966. Great thinkers were victims of censorship. Socrates was executed (“the most extreme form of censorship,” Turk says) for “corrupting the youth of Athens” and Galileo was deemed a heretic and threatened with torture for claiming the Earth revolved around the Sun.

“This has a long history,” Turk said. “What you’re seeing now is a particularly virulent form of it, but there have been virulent forms in the past.”

Turk said groups like Moms for Liberty and Action4Canada are using social media to promote their campaigns to ban books. The latter complained unsuccessfully about certain books in a Chilliwack school library, but the Chilliwack RCMP decided there was no breach of pornography laws.

“Our courts have been very clear what they’re really protecting is expression by marginalized groups, expression by people who don’t like the majoritarian view,” Turk said. “And if you suppress that, then you’re abandoning democracy for an authoritarian form of government.”

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Bob Mackin The Vancouver Public Library is not

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With less than three years to go, is Seattle better organized for FIFA World Cup 26 or simply more transparent than Vancouver? 

Seattle Sounders chief operating officer Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, who co-chairs the city’s local organizing committee (LOC), appeared Aug. 3 before Seattle city councillors.  

After her presentation, the committee on governance, native communities and tribal governments recommended the full council delegate responsibilities to the LOC at its next meeting on Aug. 8.

Maya Mendoza-Exstrom (Sounders)

No similar presentation has occurred at an open Vancouver city council meeting since FIFA chose Vancouver to be among the 16 host cities in June 2022. Vancouver city hall and the B.C. government have refused to release the host city contract with FIFA and the detailed business plan on how they plan to spend more than $230 million. 

Mendoza-Exstrom said Seattle could host as few as three and as many as eight matches, but is expecting between four and six at 67,000-capacity Lumen Field. Upwards of 750,000 unique visitors, between 50% and 70% of them international, will need places to stay. Some of them will be commuting long distances. 

“We really do expect 100% of hotel nights, border-to-border, I mean it is going to take everything on that transportation corridor, I-5, on our rail system, using our extended regional network to access the hotels between Bellingham and Portland and then east along I-90, as well,” Mendoza-Exstrom said. 

Lumen Field, home of the Sounders (Sounders)

Husky Soccer Stadium, Seattle University and Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila are candidates for team training sites. The Sounders’ new facility at Longacres is likely to be a team base camp, Mendoza-Exstrom said.

“Right now, FIFA is exploring directly additional potential team base camps in Bellingham and Spokane and Portland that would further connect us geographically to the wider region,” Mendoza-Exstrom said.

Pier 62 on the Seattle waterfront will be the main Fan Fest site, but other venues are under consideration, including the Seattle Mariners’ T-Mobile Park, Seattle Center, Westlake Park and Occidental Park.

FIFA’s largest-ever tournament will feature 48 nations and a total 104 matches. Host nations Canada, U.S. and Mexico qualify automatically. Mendoza-Exstrom said the expansion from 32 to 48 teams gives Asian nations, especially South Korea, Japan, China and India, a better opportunity to qualify.

Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles “will function together, not only as a timezone, but as a quadrant in terms of how this tournament plays out,” she said.

The LOC signed its first supporter agreement with the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, which Mendoza-Exstrom called “the first time in history that Indigenous people have ever been a sponsor/supporter of a World Cup.” 

Former Seattle Police Chief John Diaz is the LOC’s director of security. 

The report to the committee, however, did not include budgeting. 

Before FIFA expanded the number of matches from 80 to 104, five matches were expected to come to 54,500-capacity BC Place Stadium.

The few documents released under freedom of information about FIFA 26 in Vancouver show that the new $103.7 million PNE Amphitheatre is expected to host the Fan Fest shortly after it opens. The Canadian Soccer Association has studied the Concord Pacific land across from B.C. Place for another fan zone.

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

Vancouver Park Board pitches at Empire Fields, Jericho, Killarney and Strathcona are official candidates for team training sites. Three-to-four downtown Vancouver hotels will be needed for team accommodations. Streets around B.C. Place will be closed on each match day and the day before each match day.

The B.C. government announced in June 2022 that B.C. taxpayers could expect a bill of $240 million to $260 million to subsidize FIFA. But, in January of this year, the province said the city is now responsible for $230 million in costs. To help raise money for the tournament, the provincial government gave Vancouver special power to levy a 2.5% accommodation tax through 2030. 

The province has not elaborated on cost estimates for B.C. Place, such as installation of a temporary natural grass pitch and interior renovations to transform part of the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame into additional luxury suites.

Vancouver was not included in the winning three-country bid in 2018 after Premier John Horgan balked at giving FIFA a blank cheque and bidders refused to negotiate more favourable terms to B.C. 

Horgan changed his mind in 2021 when Montreal withdrew due to its concern over high costs. 

FIFA reported record gross revenue of US$7.6 billion for the 2019 to 2022 cycle and forecast US$11 billion for the 2023 to 2026 period. It relies on local markets to pay most of the costs for hosting the World Cup. 

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Bob Mackin With less than three years to

Business, News, Uncategorized

Bob Mackin

Two Long Island men who used embattled Vancouver payment processor PacNet in their massive mail fraud scheme were sentenced to jail Aug. 2 in New York. 

In the Eastern District Court, Judge Joan Azrack ordered Sean Novis, 53, to serve seven-and-a-half years behind bars and Gary Denkberg, 59, to five-and-a-half years.

Between January 2003 and September 2016, Novis and Denkberg mailed millions of phoney prize notices and stole more than $92.7 million from more than 700,000 victims. 

A federal jury convicted them in May 2022 of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, fraudulent use of fictitious names and aiding and abetting other mail fraud schemes. 

Also on Aug. 2, Azrack ordered Novis to forfeit $60.5 million and Denkberg $19 million.

The July 19 sentencing submission to the court from the Department of Justice described the men as “recalcitrant individuals who show no remorse, refuse to acknowledge the trial result and the jury’s role in determining guilt, and insofar as they see nothing wrong with their fraudulent prize-notice scheme, show little or no rehabilitative potential.”

Instead, the three prosecutors said the men claim to be victims of politically motivated prosecution, but ignore that Novis learned the business from his father who was jailed for a similar crime. 

Novis and Denkberg paid brokers for mailing lists of potential victims and contracted third-party payment processors and copywriters to help create fraudulent prize notices. 

One of the payment processors was PacNet, which warned the men that that elderly people were vulnerable to their scheme. 

PacNet founder Rosanne Day

“In March 2008, Rosanne Day at PacNet emailed the defendants to warn them about the high volumes of checks from individuals who were ‘nearly always elderly.’ She wrote that 40 people had sent more than 50 cheques each in a recent two-month period, and four others sent more than 150 cheques each,” said the Department of Justice court filing. “Day warned the defendants of the ‘regulatory risk’ accompanying the practice of taking money from these vulnerable persons. Denkberg included Novis on his response to Day, acknowledging the problem and claiming to take it seriously. In the eight years that followed, the defendants did nothing to address the issue.” 

In September 2016, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated PacNet a significant transnational criminal organization. The designation was lifted in October 2017, but Day and PacNet’s legal problems were only beginning. In June 2019, the District of Nevada charged Day and three others for mail and wire fraud and money laundering.

The sentencing submission also said that the two men were subject to at least three government actions against their scheme before 2016 — two by the U.S. Postal Service and one jointly by Australian and Irish authorities in 2007. 

“One of the PacNet principals informed the defendants of the government crackdowns on sweepstakes ‘scams’ and how the defendants’ activities imperilled PacNet’s operations, to the point where that person feared the Irish police would ‘arrive with a set of handcuffs and a black van marked for my personal use’ because of what Novis and Denkberg were doing,” said the sentencing memorandum.

Azrack ordered Novis to surrender to an institution designated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on Oct. 16. Denkberg is scheduled to begin his sentence on Oct. 27. 

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Bob Mackin Two Long Island men who used

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