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Bob Mackin

City of Vancouver’s “100 Grand” club broke the 2,000 mark last year. 

The annual statement of financial information, published March 22, shows 2,023 employees of city hall, the park board and fire department were paid $100,000 or more. 

In 2021, there were 1,798 employees with similar pay packets.

Paul Mochrie (Vancouver Economic Commission)

Twenty-seven of them grossed over $200,000, topped by city manager Paul Mochrie at $343,549.

Patrice Impey was second on the pay podium ($309,456), followed by city solicitor Francie Connell ($308,056). 

Community services general manager Sandra Singh ($306,774) and deputy city manager Karen Levitt ($302,926) rounded out the top five.

General manager Donnie Rosa was the highest-paid at the Park Board, where the 273 employees averaged $99,009.01.

Chief librarian Christina de Castell ($267,662) earned more than fire chief Karen Fry ($263,828). Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services’ 798 employees averaged $130,160.

There were 1,100 working in engineering under that department’s general manager, Lon LaClaire ($293,356). Engineering employees averaged $99,019.24 in 2022.

A total 3,639 names are on the 2022 sunshine list for employees paid $75,000 and up, a 6% increase from 2021’s 3,426. 

The report did not offer any details about the eight severance agreements in 2022 ranging from a half-month to 17 months gross salary.

Former Mayor Kennedy Stewart was the highest-paid politician at $181,679 plus $20,577 in local expenses. Stewart spent $780,390 on political staff and other discretionary expenses. Ken Sim succeeded Stewart on Nov. 7, after the landslide win in the October civic election. 

Two regional government utility boards, whose members are not directly elected, received the biggest total annual payments from city coffers: Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District ($91.5 million) and Greater Vancouver Water District ($89.6 million). Number three on the list was the B.C. Municipal Pension Plan ($86.9 million).

The city paid $16.58 million in grants to the 22 business improvement areas, including $6.05 million to the Downtown Vancouver BIA. Funds granted to BIAs are raised through a special tax levy. 

Vancouver Art Gallery ($2.12 million) and Vancouver Symphony Society ($1.59 million) were top cultural grant recipients. The biggest grants to non-profit agencies went to the Aboriginal Land Trust Society ($6.25 million) and Lookout Housing and Health Society ($5.38 million).

For the year ended Dec. 31, city hall reported a $552.4 million surplus on $2.45 billion revenue. 

The record property tax haul of $1.08 billion was $74 million better than budgeted.

City reserves stood at $1.69 billion at the end of 2022, $231.5 million higher, year-over-year,. It also reported $611.7 million in net long term debt. 

Sim and his majority ABC city council voted Feb. 28 to hike taxes 10.7% for this year’s $1.97 billion budget.

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Bob Mackin City of Vancouver’s “100 Grand” club

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Bob Mackin

Han Dong, the backbench MP who quit the Liberal caucus March 22, charged taxpayers for a trip to Vancouver last summer where he met with groups friendly to the Chinese Communist Party and socialized with a Chinese diplomat.

Han Dong (third from right) at the River Rock Show Theatre during last July’s 20th anniversary of the Canadian Community Service Association, with CCSA founder Harris Niu (second from right) and China’s Deputy Consul General Wang Chengjun (far right). (Rise Weekly)

Global News reported that Dong met secretly in February 2021 with a Chinese diplomat and allegedly suggested China delay freeing Canadian hostages Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor so as not to benefit the Conservatives. Dong denied the allegation and announced he would sit as an independent while he clears his name. On Thursday, opposition politicians outvoted the Liberal minority 172-149 in favour of a public inquiry into foreign interference in Canadian elections. 

Dong, who has represented Don Valley North in Toronto since 2019, disclosed a $2,391.73 bill for transportation from July 28 to Aug. 5, 2022, “to attend meetings with stakeholders about business of the House.” He did not charge for accommodation and meals. 

Dong’s only other travel expenses are for occasional transportation between his riding and Ottawa.

Nobody from Dong’s office or the Prime MInister’s Office has responded to req12uests for comment. 

Dong is a member of two House of Commons standing committees, Industry and Technology and Public Accounts, neither of which met last summer. He co-chairs the Canada-China Legislative Association and also sits on the Canada-Japan and Canada-Italy Inter-parliamentary Groups, but they also had no business during the period. 

Conservative Kenny Chiu, who was the Steveston-Richmond MP from 2019 to 2021, called Dong’s trip to the West Coast “questionable.”

“If you are not conducting any committee business, or if you are not fulfilling any duty because of your portfolio, then it becomes a bit questionable and weird,” Chiu said. “Because his riding is Don Valley North, which is quite a few thousand kilometres away from Greater Vancouver.”

Chiu wondered how Dong, who was neither a cabinet minister nor a parliamentary secretary, justified his trip to Vancouver. 

The Members’ Allowances and Services Manual says MPs are allowed to travel “in the fulfilment of their parliamentary functions only.” Chiu said during his trip to Ottawa in September 2020, he stopped in Toronto to attend a roundtable meeting connected to his duties as the opposition critic for diversity, inclusion and youth. 

There is nothing on Dong’s Facebook or Twitter accounts about the trip. However, the co-founder of the 1029 Crowdfunding Cafe in Richmond and Canadian Chinese Heritage and Future Foundation (CCHFF), published a diary on WeChat with photographs of Dong’s visit to Vancouver, Richmond and Burnaby.

Zhang Jiawei (left), Kong Qingcun and Han Dong at the Chinese Canadian Society for Political Engagement Clubhouse (51vote.org)

Under a headline translated to English as “You came and left gently,” Zhang Jiawei called Dong a friend and contrasted the MP’s visit to Metro Vancouver with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. 

Dong visited the Chinese Canadian Society for Political Engagement (CCSPE) at its clubhouse in a former Dunbar pizzeria on July 29, where he gave founder Kong Qingcun a Queen’s Platinum Jubilee pin. Dong and Kong visited Liberal MP Taleeb Noorhomamed’s Vancouver-Granville riding office and later attended the 20th anniversary banquet of the Canadian Community Service Association (CCSA) at the River Rock Show Theatre. Dong presented CCSA founder Harris Niu the jubilee pin and posed for photographs on stage with a group of people, including China’s Deputy Consul General Wang Chengjun.

Dong’s itinerary that week also included speaking from the stage at the Chinese Cultural Heritage Festival in Swangard Stadium, visiting the headquarters of TWG Tea Canada, and meeting with Phantom Creek Estates Winery owner Richter Bai Jiping and Keqin Zu, Vancouver bureau director of Chinese government-funded Phoenix TV. 

Dong and his wife, Sophia Qiao, the North American marketing director of Chinese streaming service iQIYI, visited the CCHFF office at the Terminal City Club on Aug. 3. Dong presided over a 15-person roundtable discussion about “politics and community public welfare and charity, especially against anti-Chinese discrimination and Canada’s multicultural policies,” according to Jiang’s diary. They dined at the Terminal City Club, met with Niu and Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations chair Wei Renmin and also attended a concert by the Vancouver Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra at the Canadian Flower Winery in Richmond. 

In late February, Dong denied support from the Chinese consulate in Toronto helped his nomination to run in the 2019 election. On March 1, the CCSPE website defended Dong, urging “all Chinese public opinion representatives, regardless of party affiliation, to say no to the ‘smearing’ without practical evidence, because if you don’t stand up today, you may also become a victim tomorrow.”

Neither Kong nor Jiang responded to emailed queries on Thursday and nobody answered the phone number on the CCHFF website.

Representatives of several Chinese-Canadian groups have appeared before House of Commons committees this month, urging the government to call a public inquiry. They say the Chinese government and its proxies routinely use threats, intimidation and coercion against the diverse diaspora.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau instead hired former Gov.-Gen. David Johnston as a special rapporteur and engaged two national security committees to study the issue. 

Bill Chu, of the Canadian Concern Group on the Chinese Communist Party’s Human Rights Violation, testified March 10 that the CCP intentionally confuses references to the party, China the state and Chinese people in order to make bogus claims of racism. 

“The purposes are simply to silence criticisms against the CCP by equating that as criticisms of all Chinese and also to rouse up a distorted sense of nationalism among all Chinese, including the diaspora,” Chu told MPs. 

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Bob Mackin Han Dong, the backbench MP who

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Bob Mackin

The former Vancouver Renters Advisory Committee co-chair has apologized to an ex-city councillor, four-and-a-half-months after he was censured for breaking the code of conduct.

Kit Sauder, ex-of the Renters’ Advisory Committee (Twitter)

On Oct. 19, Integrity Commissioner Lisa Southern reprimanded Kit Sauder for social media posts last spring that denigrated Colleen Hardwick and her political party, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver. Southern determined that Sauder used terminology that was “gendered and perpetuated harmful stereotypes when addressing a colleague.”

On March 17, Sauder tweeted his apology to Hardwick, after calling her the “Witch of the Westside” last June during a heated Facebook exchange over the Broadway Plan with Hardwick’s husband, actor Garry Chalk. 

“You put yourself forward to serve our city, and I earnestly believe you attempted to do so in line with your values and principles, and in the best way you know how,” Sauder wrote. “Your personal sacrifice and public service deserves to be acknowledged, and I want to unequivocally apologize to you, Garry and your family.”

Sauder’s term on the advisory committee ended Dec. 31. He said he is a Russian Orthodox Christian and the letter was part of a spiritual accounting during Lent, the period of contemplation and fasting preceding Easter. 

“I wrote a series of letters to apologize to people that I felt I had unfairly done wrong to, so I wrote a handwritten letter to former Councillor Hardwick, and then dropped off to her house,” Sauder said. “She sent me an email asking that I confirm that it was from me and, that if I wanted to make further amends, that I could share it publicly. So that’s what I did.”

Sauder denied the timing of the apology was related to his consulting career.

“The events themselves happened back in June of last year, so there’s been ample time for me to ruminate on this. But I made the apology three weeks ago, and that’s when I made it. “

Colleen Hardwick (PlaceSpeak)

The veteran political strategist worked in the BC Liberal government from 2013 to 2017 under Premier Christy Clark and managed the OneBurnaby party’s campaign in the Oct. 15 election.

Instead of seeking a second term as a city councillor, Hardwick challenged Kennedy Stewart for the mayoralty. She finished third in the Oct. 15 civic election. 

“I’m glad it’s been dealt with, it would have been nice if it had been dealt with at the time,” Hardwick said. “It would have been nice if it hadn’t happened at all.

“He apologized, the Integrity Commissioner identified it as inappropriate and hopefully this will be a lesson to others.”

Southern’s investigation of Sauder was the third of her four reports published so far.

Vancouver integrity commissioner Lisa Southern (SBP)

In June 2021, Southern cleared Stewart of conflict of interest after he used the Mayor’s Office to criticize NPA board members for alleged ties to the alt-right. 

In June of last year, Southern found Stewart broke the code of conduct for tweets that falsely accused Hardwick of contravening the city’s 2030 Winter Olympics bid exploration agreement with First Nations and Resort Municipality of Whistler.

More recently, on Feb. 17, Southern dismissed a conflict of interest complaint against Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung. 

Southern agreed it was rational for someone to question Kirby-Yung’s participation, given that her husband Terry Yung chairs the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden board. 

“A perception of a conflict of interest arises based on their familial relationship. However, relationship alone does not determine if there is a conflict of interest under the code of conduct,” Southern ruled.

In 2022, Southern’s law firm billed taxpayers $178,327.

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Bob Mackin The former Vancouver Renters Advisory Committee

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Bob Mackin

The seven current and former NPA board members ordered to pay ex-Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s legal costs are considering an appeal. 

Last July, Justice Wendy Baker threw out their defamation lawsuit when she ruled Stewart acted in the public interest and without malice by publishing a news release in early 2021 alleging NPA members had ties to the alt-right.

Kennedy Stewart’s Forward Together campaign promo (Forward Together)

The parties made written submissions to Baker on costs last fall. In a March 20 written decision, Baker ordered David Mawhinney, Christopher Wilson, David Pasin, Phyllis Tang, Angelo Isidorou, Federico Fuoco and Wesley Mussio to pay Stewart’s $100,000 legal costs, but not damages. 

“The sad part of this ruling is that the Court, rightly or wrongly, is endorsing that political opponents can participate in an American-style character assassin on their foes and actually benefit from doing so in the form of cost penalties,” said lawyer and ex-NPA director Mussio. “The judgment, if upheld in the Court of Appeal, encourages political foes to have a field day on one other. Is that Canadian? I do not feel that this is healthy for democracy in Canada but nonetheless, the NDP instituted this legislation to protect politicians and the court is required to make tough decisions to uphold it.”

Mussio referred to the Protection of Public Participation Act, the unanimously passed 2019 statute that Stewart relied upon to quash the defamation case against him. Then-Attorney General David Eby said the law was intended to protect people from costly lawsuits that aim to limit or stifle criticism or opposition to matters of public interest. 

In her ruling in favour of costs, Baker wrote that the defamation claim had substantial merit, but the plaintiffs did not prove they were harmed and Stewart did not make the statements with malice. Stewart alleged the action was brought in bad faith or for an improper purpose.

“I do not agree that Mr. Stewart could be characterized as a smaller and more vulnerable party than the NPA directors. Similarly, I do not agree that the NPA could be properly characterized as a large and powerful entity,” Baker wrote. “Nevertheless, it is clear that the NPA and Mr. Stewart were in a political competition, and the filing of this notice of civil claim did serve to limit Mr. Stewart’s political expression from the time he learned of the claim in February 2021, until this claim was dismissed in the summer of 2022, a state of affairs which could easily be seen as politically advantageous to the plaintiffs and the NPA.”

The judge agreed with Stewart that the plaintiffs caused distress when they made conflict of interest allegations against three different lawyers Stewart hired. There was no application to disqualify Stewart’s third lawyer, David Sutherland. 

“The positions taken by the plaintiffs in relation to Mr. Stewart’s choice of counsel certainly increased Mr. Stewart’s costs, and caused him anxiety,” Baker wrote. “I am satisfied that the plaintiffs took the positions they did for strategic reasons, in an inappropriate attempt to limit and thwart Mr. Stewart’s defence.”

Baker said the issue in deciding costs was whether the plaintiffs’ case was about reputation and public expression or whether it was a strategic lawsuit against public participation. She ruled it was the latter.

“In light of the fact that I have ordered full indemnity costs in favour of Mr. Stewart which he states, in his affidavit sworn Sept. 19, 2022, total in excess of $100,000, I find it would not be appropriate to order damages in favour of the defendant. I am satisfied that the full indemnity costs I have ordered fully addresses any harm to Mr. Stewart arising from this action.”

Image from WeChat video of Sept. 23 Fred Harding campaign event (NPA/WeChat)

In the court of public opinion, however, both sides of the case lost severely in the Oct. 15 civic election. 

Former NPA candidate Ken Sim defeated Stewart for the mayoralty in a landslide. None of Stewart’s Forward Together candidates was elected to city council.

The NPA was similarly shut out. Even its only incumbent, Melissa De Genova, was defeated when Sim’s new party, ABC Vancouver, won all but three seats on city council. 

Leaks from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service reported in the Globe and Mail suggest Stewart’s campaign suffered from meddling by Tong Xiaoling, China’s former consul general. 

NPA mayoral candidate John Coupar quit just over two months before election day and was replaced by parachute candidate Fred Harding, a former West Vancouver Police officer who lives in Beijing and promotes Vancouver real estate to Chinese investors. Harding finished a distant fifth place. 

The most media attention Harding and the NPA team got during the election period was when a Provincial Court judge allowed them to use Chinese characters beside their names on the ballot.  

  • Meanwhile, also on March 20, Elections BC fined Stewart’s campaign $500 for election

advertising without the required financial agent authorization statement. 

Elections BC received Sept. 28 and Oct. 4 complaints about Stewart robocalls and texts that lacked the name of the campaign’s financial agent and the financial agent’s contact information. 

The investigator found Stewart’s campaign spent $5,500 for all texts and $500 for a script that lacked the required authorization statement.

Investigator Adam Barnes could have fined Stewart’s campaign up to $10,000. He opted for the $500 penalty because all 13 telephone scripts and four out of five text scripts contained the authorization statement, the campaign amended the ad where possible and it had not been the subject of a previous fine. 

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Bob Mackin The seven current and former NPA

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A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ordered seven current and former NPA board members to pay ex-Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart $100,000 in costs, but not damages, after Stewart thwarted their defamation lawsuit last summer.

Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)

Justice Wendy Baker threw out the claim from David Mawhinney, Christopher Wilson, David Pasin, Phyllis Tang, Angelo Isidorou, Federico Fuoco and Wesley Mussio in July 2022 under the Protection of Public Participation Act. Baker ruled that Stewart acted in the public interest when he issued a news release in early 2021 alleging NPA members had ties to the alt-right. The parties made written submissions to Baker on costs last fall. 

Baker wrote in her March 20 decision that although the defamation claim had substantial merit, the plaintiffs did not prove they were harmed and Stewart did not make the statements with malice. Stewart alleged the action was brought in bad faith or for an improper purpose.

“I do not agree that Mr. Stewart could be characterized as a smaller and more vulnerable party than the NPA directors. Similarly, I do not agree that the NPA could be properly characterized as a large and powerful entity,” Baker ruled. “Nevertheless, it is clear that the NPA and Mr. Stewart were in a political competition, and the filing of this notice of civil claim did serve to limit Mr. Stewart’s political expression from the time he learned of the claim in February 2021, until this claim was dismissed in the summer of 2022, a state of affairs which could easily be seen as politically advantageous to the plaintiffs and the NPA.”

The judge agreed with Stewart that the plaintiffs caused distress when they made conflict of interest allegations against three different sets of lawyers Stewart hired. There was no application to disqualify Stewart’s third lawyer, David Sutherland. 

“The positions taken by the plaintiffs in relation to Mr. Stewart’s choice of counsel certainly increased Mr. Stewart’s costs, and caused him anxiety,” Baker wrote. “I am satisfied that the plaintiffs took the positions they did for strategic reasons, in an inappropriate attempt to limit and thwart Mr. Stewart’s defence.”

Baker said the issue in deciding costs was whether the plaintiffs’ case was about reputation and public expression or whether it was a strategic lawsuit against public participation. She ruled it was the latter.

“In light of the fact that I have ordered full indemnity costs in favour of Mr. Stewart which he states, in his affidavit sworn Sept. 19, 2022, total in excess of $100,000, I find it would not be appropriate to order damages in favour of the defendant. I am satisfied that the full indemnity costs I have ordered fully addresses any harm to Mr. Stewart arising from this action.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyer Karol Suprynowicz, a partner at Mussio’s firm, has not responded for comment. 

In the court of public opinion, however, both sides of the case lost in the Oct. 15 civic election. 

Former NPA candidate Ken Sim defeated Stewart for the mayoralty in a landslide. None of Stewart’s Forward Together candidates was elected to city council. 

The NPA was similarly shut out. Even its only incumbent, Melissa De Genova, was defeated when Sim’s ABC Vancouver won all but three seats on city council. 

Leaks from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service reported in the Globe and Mail suggest Stewart’s campaign suffered from meddling by Tong Xiaoling, China’s former consul general. 

NPA mayoral candidate John Coupar quit just over two months before election day and was replaced by parachute candidate Fred Harding, a former West Vancouver Police officer who lives in Beijing and promotes Vancouver real estate to Chinese investors. 

The most media attention Harding and the NPA team got during the election period was when a Provincial Court judge allowed them to use Chinese characters beside their names on the ballot.  

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A member of the human rights group that exposed networks of overseas Chinese police stations, including one allegedly in Richmond, told a House of Commons committee March 20 that Safeguard Defenders researchers were looking for something else.

(House of Commons)

“We came across the police stations as we were tracking how exactly the Chinese authorities had managed to return, according to their own statements, 230,000 individuals, all through clandestine means, between April 2021 and July 2022, alone,” Laura Harth, campaign director of Safeguard Defenders, testified to the Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship. 

Safeguard Defenders, based in Spain, gained international headlines for its September report called 110 Overseas and its December followup, Patrol and Persuade. Harth told the committee how her team relied on independently verified, open source statements from Chinese authorities and state and party media reports. Harth said they also found chatter among dissidents and activists on social media channels.

“How, starting in 2016, public security authorities from four local Chinese jurisdictions with large diaspora communities overseas have established over 100 so-called overseas police service centres in at least 53 countries,” Harth said. 

At least five are in Canada. In December, after the followup report, the RCMP confirmed a national security investigation of the Wenzhou Friendship Society in Richmond. The RCMP is also investigating alleged overseas Chinese police stations in Toronto and Montreal, which is linked to a municipal councillor from Brossard, Que.

Harth said the stations are part of the Chinese Communist Party’s wider United Front “sticks and carrots” approach to promoting policies and activities aligning with CCP interests and dividing CCP critics. 

“All these organizations share a direct and demonstrable linkage to the United Front Work Department. Understanding this linkage is fundamental. The United Front is the Communist Party’s of China’s prime influence agency, which seeks to influence various public and private sector entities outside China, including, but not limited to political, commercial and academic spheres,” Harth said. 

She said China’s transnational repression and influence activities need to be publicly denounced and, when necessary, investigated. A foreign agents registry should be part of a wider national strategy, which should include using the Magnitsky law, formally known as the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, to sanction Chinese state institutions and officials. She also suggested promoting people in the diaspora communities that are not linked to the United Front. 

RCMP SUV outside the Wenzhou Friendship Society clubhouse in Richmond on Dec. 10, 2022 (Mackin)

“Give them a voice,” she said. 

In December, Cpl. Kim Chamberland of the RCMP’s national headquarters, confirmed the Richmond investigation, but declined to provide specifics. 

“The RCMP recognizes that Chinese-Canadians are victims of the activity we are investigating,” Chamberland said. “There will be no tolerance for this or any other form of intimidation, harassment, or harmful targeting of diaspora communities or individuals in Canada.”

Also at the Monday’s committee meeting, Royal Military College of Canada Prof. Christian Leuprecht called Beijing’s espionage and interference program the “single greatest threat to Canada’s democratic way of life” and said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s staunch refusal to convene a public inquiry is jeopardizing Canada’s relationship with its most-important ally, the U.S.
“The PRC is intent on gaining control of Canadian critical minerals, and is actively running influence campaigns over resource development,” Leuprecht said. “[Spy] balloons and election interference are merely the latest episode in a long list of hostile, hybrid warfare efforts perpetrated by the CCP against Canada.” 

The Chinese consulate in Vancouver has denied leaked reports from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service about previous Consul-Gen. Tong Xiaoling meddling in federal and Vancouver elections.

“China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and has never interfered in any Canadian elections and has not interested in to do so,” read the March 16 statement on the consulate website.

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The campaign to recall Premier David Eby and force a Vancouver-Point Grey by-election has failed. 

Elections BC gave proponent Salvatore Vetro the green light to begin the petition Jan. 17, with a deadline of March 20 and a requirement to collect at least 16,449 signatures.

Salvatore Vetro

Vetro said Monday that his team collected only 2,737 signatures, which is 13,712 less than the minimum required to remove the NDP leader from the seat he has held since 2013.

“We may have lost the battle, but we didn’t lose the war,” Vetro said. “We are continuing on with educating the public through Bill 36 as the focus and also to try and attract those that don’t go to vote, and that usually amounts to 40% to 50% of the people.”

Vetro, an actor and former bus driver who opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates, said he was motivated to organize the recall campaign based on the NDP government’s Health Professions and Occupations Act. 

The NDP majority rammed the bill through the Legislature on Nov. 24, the last day of the fall session, without debate on more than two-thirds of the bill. It gives the government more power over a streamlined set of healthcare regulatory colleges. 

“When a premier, unelected, invokes closure, and only discusses and cuts off the debate… that was a good reason why I called him a dictator, because he doesn’t consult,” Vetro said.

Vetro said his campaign had 77 volunteers. Elections BC registered 271 canvassers, 116 of whom were actively pursuing eligible signatories: people registered to vote in the Vancouver-Point Grey riding at the last election in 2020 and currently registered to vote in B.C.

Eby has won three Vancouver-Point Grey elections in a row, most recently with 12,602 votes in 2020, a 51.3% share.

During the course of the recall campaign, Eby travelled around the province, making big ticket, campaign-style funding announcements after predecessor John Horgan left a $5.7 billion budget surplus. The governing party also ran ads on Vancouver radio stations, promoting Eby’s first 100 days in office. 

Vetro’s petition was the third recall try in Vancouver-Point Grey, after unsuccessful attempts to unseat BC Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell in 1998 and 2003. 

It was also the 28th all-time failure since the NDP government of Premier Mike Harcourt passed the direct democracy law in February 1995. 

Prince George North NDP MLA Paul Ramsey, the Minister of Education, Skills and Training, was the first recall target in 1997. The petition fell 585 signatures shy of forcing Ramsey out of of office and triggering a by-election. 

Petition organizer Pertti Harkonen cried foul after forensic accountant Ron Parks delivered a report that found Ramsey’s anti-recall campaign overspent by $3,288 and benefitted from union-funded phone canvassers. 

The 1998 petition to recall Parksville-Qualicum BC Liberal MLA Paul Reitsma needed 17,020 signatures, but ended up with 24,530. The official count was never completed because Reitsma resigned instead of becoming the first recalled MLA in B.C. history.

The Parksville Qualicum Beach News had caught Reitsma writing letters to the editor in praise of himself, under the pseudonym “Warren Betanko.” 

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The general secretary of the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) said the organization is not only working to solve a pay dispute with women’s national team players, but is backtracking on program cuts that threatened the team’s hopes at this summer’s Women’s World Cup.

CSA’s Earl Cochrane on Marc 20 (ParlVu)

In testimony March 20 at the House of Commons Canadian Heritage Committee, Earl Cochrane pledged to give the team what it needs for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand. 

“Recently, Canada Soccer made some funding decisions for the operations of the women’s team, that it thought would have minimal impact,” Cochrane said. “We were wrong. Those decisions were made with good intentions of controlling spending, but we should not have made those decisions that negatively impacted the women’s team.”

The pay dispute and proposed spending cuts prompted players to threaten a strike before the February SheBelieves Cup tournament in the U.S. Team captain Christine Sinclair told the same committee on March 9 that the team’s most-painstaking battle is against the CSA and that the team does not trust the federation to be open and honest.  

Cochrane said the CSA was meeting with players for a “financial information session” in the afternoon, after making a March 9 proposal to pay men’s and women’s players the same $3,500-per-match, plus bonuses and incentives. 

Cochrane said a new deal with players will not necessarily mean equal spending at all times, due to different competition calendars. Cochrane said the CSA spent $37 million for staffing and programs of national teams from 2012 to 2019, with $2.92 million paid to players on the men’s team and $2.96 million for the women. What he did not say was that the women did something the men did not: They played in more meaningful matches and won medals.

Canadian women brought home medals from the the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Canada 2015 Women’s World Cup. The men’s national team, however, failed to qualify for both Olympics and the Brazil 2014 and Russia 2018 World Cups. 

Cochrane told the committee the CSA is developing a new five-year, revenue-focused strategic plan and discussing potential amendments to the controversial 2019 agreement with Canadian Soccer Business. Players have called the deal one-sided because it gives the private company the lion’s share of CSA marketing and broadcast revenues. The CSA argues it receives $3 million a year in royalties and no longer has to spend $1 million a year on broadcasting matches.

Cochrane denied it was a “bad deal,” but admitted it needs “some modernization.”

“The unilateral term option and limited ability for us to share in upside revenue are drawbacks of the agreement with CSB, but we hope to resolve those issues shortly,” Cochrane said. 

Christine Sinclair on Parliament Hill, March 9 (OurCommons/ParlVu)

Cochrane, meanwhile, told the committee that the sexual assault case of former CSA coach Bob Birarda “was the only case that we have had as a national body.” 

Last November, a Provincial Court judge sent the former national under-20 coach and senior assistant coach to jail for 16 months. Birarda pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting four players between 1988 and 2008. Birarda was only investigated and prosecuted after former Whitecap Ciara McCormack blew the whistle in 2019 on Birarda’s return to coaching girls soccer. 

Pressed further, Cochrane reiterated that there are zero cases currently being investigated nationally. “Provincially? I don’t know the answer,” he said.

As for last week’s FIFA announcement to expand the 2026 World Cup by 24 matches, Cochrane said he did not know how much revenue the CSA would receive for co-hosting with the U.S. and Mexico or precisely how many more matches would be played in Vancouver and Toronto, beyond the expected five each. 

“We’re talking about 10 to 12, maybe 15 games, over the course of the 104-game World Cup,” Cochrane said. 

Committee members resolved to call CSA chief financial officer Sean Heffernan and former presidents Nick Bontis and Victor Montagliani to testify before the end of the month. In 2016, Montagliani became president of CONCACAF, FIFA’s North and Central America and Caribbean subsidiary, and one of FIFA’s vice-presidents. Bontis resigned in February after a no-confidence vote by provincial soccer presidents. 

Vice-president Charmaine Crooks took over on an interim basis. CSA set a March 29 deadline for nominations to the presidency and vice-presidency. Candidates are restricted to those who have served at least one term on the CSA board. 

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Bob Mackin  The general secretary of the Canadian

Business, News, Opinion

For the week of March 19, 2023: 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s China crisis continues, with revelations in the Globe and Mail that Chinese diplomat Tong Xiaoling was working to change Vancouver city hall leadership.

Ex-Mayor Kennedy Stewart (Mackin)

An earlier report on leaks from Canada’s spy agency alleged Tong worked to flip Richmond’s two Conservative-held ridings to the Liberal in the 2021 federal election.  

On this edition of thePodcast, hear from former Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who was warned by Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers that the Chinese government and its proxies were preparing to meddle in last fall’s civic election. 

“They said they had information and it was basically being ignored, so this was an opportunity to make the public aware,” said Stewart, who lost to Ken Sim. “In fact they were happy this would come out in my public calendar, so it would get attention.”

Tong had criticized Stewart publicly on more than one occasion, including for his exploration of closer trade and cultural ties with Taiwan, which Xi Jinping wants to annex. Stewart tells host Bob Mackin that he wonders why Tong was not expelled from Canada before her term ended last July. Stewart also said municipal nomination and election laws need strengthening, to guard against foreign interference. 

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West (Mackin)

Also on this edition, Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, who led a campaign against Chinese government influence operations at the 2019 Union of B.C. Municipalities convention. 

West called Trudeau’s “special rapporteur” appointment of former Governor-General David Johnston a delaying tactic.

“What more do you need to hear or confirm to make a determination as a Prime Minister that a full independent public inquiry is required?” West said. “To go from the top to the bottom of our institutions and ensure that they are free from foreign influence and the interests being served by our institutions are the interests of Canadian citizens.”

Plus headlines from the Pacific Northwest and the Pacific Rim. 

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thePodcast: Did the Chinese diplomat who boosted Trudeau's Liberals in 2021 propel Ken Sim into Vancouver city hall last year?
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For the week of March 19, 2023:  Prime

Business, News

Bob Mackin

Former Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart wonders why the federal government did not order China’s consul general in Vancouver to leave the country.

Photo from Dawa News story on the Sept. 28, 2019 ceremony featuring Consul Gen. Tong Xiaoling and Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung

Tong Xiaoling figures heavily in Canadian spy agency reports leaked to the Globe and Mail. According to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, she boasted of helping replace two Conservative MPs in Richmond with two Liberals in the 2021 federal election. In early 2022, she allegedly discussed a strategy to replace Stewart with a Chinese-Canadian candidate. 

NDP MP Stewart edged businessman Ken Sim in 2018 by under 1,000 votes, but Sim registered a 36,000-vote landslide in 2022.

Stewart had rocky relations with Tong, beginning shortly after he was elected in 2018. 

She rebuked him and other officials at a Chinatown banquet more than a week after the U.S.-requested arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at Vancouver International Airport for alleged bank fraud. 

Stewart suspended meetings with Chinese officials in April 2021. His friend, Conservative MP Michael Chong, was among those sanctioned in the wake of the House of Commons declaring China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims a genocide. In November 2021, Tong publicly lashed out at Stewart for exploring a “friendship city” relationship with Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Stewart was already talking to Taiwanese trade officials and community members in Vancouver about closer ties with the self-governing island that Xi Jinping is eager to annex. Stewart also has a niece who is Taiwanese. 

“I thought, holy cow, this is way out of line,” Stewart said. “And this person should have been expelled a long time ago, but there was really no action taken. So our our relationship really deteriorated.”

Tong’s five-year posting in Vancouver ended last July, more than two months before the election. Her replacement, Yang Shu, arrived in September.

Stewart said he remembers the surprise when a staff member advised him at a daily briefing last spring that federal intelligence officers wanted to visit. 

“They said oh, CSIS has requested a meeting with you, and I thought CSIS, that’s weird,” said Stewart, now director of the Centre for Public Policy Research at Simon Fraser University. “I actually asked to see their badges and they showed me their badges that say they were CSIS and they said they had to brush them off, because they never did this. They don’t typically brief people.”

The meeting with two officers, including one from the China desk, lasted two hours. He was also surprised when they didn’t mind that the meeting would be disclosed on his publicly released May calendar. CSIS also met with city hall’s top election officials in the clerk’s office and counterparts from Elections BC.

Stewart admits he did not recognize any obvious foreign meddling during the rest of the spring and summer, mainly because he was juggling the jobs of mayor, candidate and party leader. 

“You’re kind of the hood ornament on the car, right? So you’re up every morning, you’re out either door knocking, or greeting people on the street or doing debates or prepping for debates or doing media.”

Just like he noticed when the invitations to events involving Tong and her allies no longer arrived, so too did he notice campaign support evaporated at the most-crucial time. 

“At one point, our fundraising dried up, maybe three weeks out from the election, and that was strange,” he said. “It’s hard to know why that happens.”

In the end, Sim’s ABC Vancouver ran a nearly $2 million campaign, almost double Stewart’s Forward Together. ABC scored supermajorities on city council and park board. Stewart’s slate was shut out.

Stewart supports Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s appointment of former Governor General David Johnston as a “special rapporteur” on foreign interference in elections as a first step, but “something more powerful needs to happen, something that you would, for example, be able to subpoena people.”

Ken Sim (left) and Justin Trudeau before the 2023 Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown (@kensimcity/Twitter)

In the meantime, lawmakers in B.C. need to close whatever campaign finance loopholes exist, including largely unregulated nomination contests. Municipalities can no longer be treated as a “kid brother” to senior levels of government and Elections BC needs more power and more resources.

“Municipal elections are a tag-on to their real job, which is provincial elections. And they neither have the capacity nor really the mandate to do the kind of investigations,” Stewart said.

“These are big campaigns, and then, when you’re in control of massive assets, and you have access to all kinds of confidential information.” 

As an MP who ran in three campaigns, and won two, Stewart is familiar with the rigour of Elections Canada and its auditors, who trace donations down to the penny and find whether people actually live at the addresses given. Less attention is given to municipal campaigns, because donations are not tax-deductible.

“In B.C., for municipal elections, we just send in sheets of people we say donated to us, they’re never checked, they’re not verified. And then there’s no access to bank accounts. So this is wide open, it could easily be abused and provincial governments have known this forever and they really haven’t done much to fix it.”

On Friday, Premier David Eby said he asked his staff to arrange a briefing on foreign interference from CSIS, to find ways “to close any gaps that we may have.”

“Obviously, I am very troubled by the allegations related to British Columbia generally, and Canadians deserve a thorough and independent investigation that provides us with information about what’s going on,” Eby told reporters.

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Bob Mackin Former Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart wonders

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