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Bob Mackin

The amount paid to the law firm that successfully defended ex-Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum in his public mischief trial remains a secret.

Doug McCallum in the Surrey courthouse parkade (Mackin)

But it won’t last forever.

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

McCallum lost the mayoralty to Brenda Locke in the Oct. 15 election, after she promised to pursue repayment. 

Under solicitor-client privilege, a public body can decide how much or how little it wants to to tell the public about the legal costs it pays. However, in 2015, an adjudicator with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner ruled against the Private Career Training Institutions Agency and upheld the public’s right to know the total amount paid to a specific law firm for an entire year.

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

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

Richard Peck (Peck and Co.)

Locke did not respond to requests for comment. 

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

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

During the five-day trial, McCallum was represented by three lawyers and an assistant, including Richard Peck and Eric Gottardi from the team that defended Huawei executive Meng Wenzhou against extradition to the U.S. McCallum did not testify. 

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

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

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

McCallum did not respond to email and phone requests for comment. 

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Bob Mackin The amount paid to the law

Business, News, Opinion

David Eby (left) and Guo Ding at the 2018 Wenzhou Friendship Society banquet (John Yap/Twitter)

Guest contributor

The next scheduled provincial election in B.C. is more than a year away, but Premier David Eby’s friend and advisor Guo Ding (aka David Ding) is already trying to influence provincial politics on the Chinese social media platform, WeChat.

On March 17, Eby said he believed Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents revealed by the Globe and Mail are “very troubling” and he is willing to learn “about any issues that they’ve identified in British Columbia, so that British Columbia can act to close any gaps that we may have.” 

On the other hand, Ding published an article on Rise Weekly’s channel on WeChat on March 21 in which he claimed that Eby is challenging CSIS’s documents and demanding CSIS to provide the investigation report to “prove” that the result of the 2022 Vancouver municipal election was “meddled” by the Chinese Communist Party. Obviously, Ding’s claims are very different from what Eby said on mainstream media like the Globe and Mail.

Excerpt from Ding’s commentary from March 21 (WeChat)

Ding believes the Chinese community should really appreciate Eby as he challenged CSIS’s leaked documents reported by investigative journalists, while other politicians wouldn’t do the same. We don’t know if Eby told a different story to Ding or Ding was acting on his own. Either way, Eby’s words spread on WeChat in a very different way from what he told the Globe and Mail.

Since Global News broke a story regarding alleged foreign interference networks involving MP Han Dong and Ontario MPP Vincent Ke, Ding has been attacking Canadian journalists and independent media by labeling them as “racist,” “unethical,” and/or “biased.”

On Feb 28, Ding claimed media shouldn’t “become a tool of racism and anti-Chinese hate” and that “biased journalists with special agendas shouldn’t report on documents leaked from CSIS to mislead readers.” 

On March 7,  Ding claimed that “CSIS with leaked documents colluded with journalists with ulterior motives, attacked Chinese Canadian elected officials.”

Excerpt from Ding’s commentary published March 7.

On March 14, Ding said “the most fundamental issue is that the right of Chinese-Canadians to participate in and discuss politics can’t be ‘smeared red’ or ‘smeared black.’ The unfounded charges to smear Chinese elected officials and Chinese voters has created a situation that everyone fears. Excuse me, is this not racism? Isn’t this McCarthyism?”

On March 28, Ding said “MP Han Dong’s lawsuit against Global News put this traditional media to the test: is it a qualified Canadian media or is it a ‘fake news’ media that imposes a political ‘witch hunt’?” Ironically, Ding failed to mention that MP Han Dong’s statement actually referred to the Tiananmen Square “incident” and “culture” revolution, because of CCP censorship on WeChat. Ding also mentioned the history book he co-authored last year. 

In November 2022, Ding’s organization, Canada Committee 100 Society, hosted an event to launch the book, “History of Overseas Chinese Immigration in Canada: 1858—2001.” Eby and NDP MLAs Katrina Chen and George Chow showed up to support. However, Ding’s book was published by Huaxia Publishing House in Beijing. Ding’s book failed to mention the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the pro-democracy movement that it sparked in the Chinese community in Canada. The 1989 protests are routinely censored by the CCP.

Ding has a history of making comments that are aligned with Beijing’s interest in Canada, echoing the CCP. Do Eby and his caucus members actually support this? 

Excerpt from Ding’s commentary published March 28.

Ding wrote about the Chinese consulate’s November 2021 condemnation of Vancouver city hall’s exploration of a special relationship with the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. It was another case of Beijing seeking to diplomatically isolate and intimidate the self-governing island nation. 

On Nov. 15, 2021, Ding wrote a commentary titled “This Canadian mayor is playing political fire? Friendship Cities with Kaohsiung, will it tear the community apart?”

Ding blamed Stewart for refusing to meet with the Ambassador of China and Consul General of China while pushing for a friendship city relationship with Kaohsiung. Ding also claimed that the friendship-city relationship with Kaohsiung would hurt Vancouver’s interest, and eventually hurt Kaohsiung’s interest as well. 

It’s very concerning that Eby has someone with the CCP’s best interest in mind as his advisor. 

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[caption id="attachment_13230" align="alignright" width="522"] David Eby (left)

Business, News

Bob Mackin

A week after the release of a scathing provincial government report on conflict of interest at BC Housing, the CEO of its biggest housing provider bowed to pressure and quit.

Atira CEO Janice Abbott with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland (second from left) (Nomodic/CMHC)

In a statement emailed at 11:29 a.m. May 15, Atira Women’s Resource Society said that Janice Abbott had resigned immediately. The organization will be led by executive directors of operations, human resources and finance until an interim CEO is named. 

“The board thanks Janice for helping thousands of women and children over her 31 years of leadership at Atira,” said chair Elva Kim in a prepared statement. “The focus for the board now is working collaboratively with the B.C. government and BC Housing, and restoring the public’s confidence in Atira’s integrity, vision, mission, purpose and values.”

Also on May 15, Abbott voluntarily resigned from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) board of directors. Chair Derek Ballantyne’s statement said Abbott cited “personal reasons.” 

“I would like to thank Ms. Abbott for her service as a CMHC board member,” said Ballantyne’s statement. 

On Thursday, the Atira board returned $1.9 million surplus funds to BC Housing and established a task force to hire a third-party reviewer. 

“The board and staff at Atira are deeply committed to serving and protecting women and children and providing much-needed housing. We are confident that this path forward will allow us to focus on the essential work with fewer distractions,” said Kim.

The Atira announcement came about a half-hour before Premier David Eby’s scheduled photo op at the Lafarge cement plant in Richmond. Eby and Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon had publicly called last week for Abbott to resign in the wake of the Ernst and Young report that found her husband, Shayne Ramsay, subverted conflict of interest rules while he was CEO, in order to award contracts and funding to Atira. 

Ramsay (BC Housing)

“Leadership renewal at Atira will help it move forward in partnership with BC Housing and our government so that appropriate policies and procedures are in place,” Tweeted Kahlon. “We welcome the appointment of a government rep to Atira’s board and look forward to working with them to ensure concerns are addressed.”

That report said that since 2019, Atira’s funding outpaced other agencies, culminating in 2022 when it received $35 million more than the next-highest provider. 

The report also said that Ramsay modified meeting minutes and routinely deleted text messages, despite explicit instructions from the Office of the Comptroller General to preserve records.  

The Squamish Nation-owned Nch’kay Development said Friday that Ramsay was no longer the executive vice-president. He had joined the company, behind the Senakw towers development near the Burrard Bridge, after announcing his retirement from BC Housing. 

Abbott was in her second three-year term as a director of CMHC, which is loaning $1.4 billion to Senakw. 

A statement from the Office of the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion said the CMHC board is not involved in awarding national housing strategy funding, but it was reviewing Atira nonetheless. 

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Bob Mackin A week after the release of

Business, News, Opinion

For the week of May 14, 2023:

The story of how Canadian technology changed the world of telecommunications has made it to the silver screen.

Blackberry is based on the book, “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry,” by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff.

Jacquie McNish

Bob Mackin’s guest on thePodcast this week is Jacquie McNish, the former Wall Street Journal and Globe and Mail reporter. 

Blackberry was sold as a status symbol, McNish said, “like jewelry for businesspeople.”

“Within a couple of years after launching, they controlled the smartphone market,” McNish said. “They had, at their high, about 20% of the global smart smartphone market, and 50% of the North American smartphone market in a couple of years. To put the significance of that into context, it took the television 50 years to penetrate more than 50% of the North American market. This happened in a couple of years. This is all about the speed with which technology was changing our lives, and the first big iteration of this was the Blackberry.”

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

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn or Apple Podcasts.

Now on Google Podcasts!

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

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For the week of May 14, 2023:

Business, News

Bob Mackin

The former CEO of BC Housing is gone from the Squamish Nation company involved in building rental towers around the Burrard Bridge, just four days after a provincial government report found Shayne Ramsay broke conflict of interest rules. 

Ramsay announced his retirement from BC Housing after 22 years last August but resurfaced in September with Nch’kay Development Corporation as its executive vice-president. After the Ernst and Young forensic audit report was released May 8, the Squamish Nation referred queries to Nch’kay, which did not respond until 12:29 p.m. May 11 with a nine-word email: “Shayne Ramsey [sic] is no longer with Nch’ḵay̓ Development Corporation.”

Ramsay (BC Housing)

Ramsay’s bio has also disappeared from the Nch’kay website. Nch’kay did not immediately reveal whether Ramsay had resigned or been fired. The Nch’kay board is chaired by former NDP leader Joy MacPhail. 

The damning report for the Office of the Comptroller General found Ramsay subverted conflict of interest rules and shifted contracts and funding to his wife, Atira Women’s Resource Society CEO Janice Abbott, without a competitive process. Ramsay had agreed in-writing in 2010 to a conflict of interest protocol to manage the business side of his relationship with Abbott. 

Abbott is also in her second three-year term on the board of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which gave a $1.4 billion loan last September to Senakw. 

A statement from the Office of the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion said the CMHC board is not involved in awarding national housing strategy funding. 

“However, as a precautionary measure, Minister [Ahmed] Hussen has already directed CMHC to review Atira. Minister Hussen will also be asking the chair of the CMHC board of directors to look into this to ensure all rules were followed by CMHC board members at all times.”

Atira communications director Caithlin Scarpelli has not responded to repeated queries. Premier David Eby and Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon have publicly called for Atira to replace Abbott. However, a statement released late Monday night by the Atira board of directors said it “remains confident that its CEO and senior management will guide the organization through these challenges and make required improvements to Atira’s operations and administration.”

Since 2019, Atira’s funding outpaced other agencies, culminating in 2022 when it received $35 million more than the next-highest provider. 

“BC Housing’s financial reviews of Atira have been substantially delayed,” the Ernst and Young report said. “The most recently completed financial review was for fiscal year 2020, which was finalized in August 2022.”

The report also said that Ramsay modified meeting minutes and routinely deleted text messages, despite explicit instructions from the Office of the Comptroller General to preserve records.  

Meanwhile, Atira announced May 11 that it had returned $1.9 million in surplus funds from 2020 and 2021 to BC Housing on Thursday. 

It struck a task force involving board chair Elva Kim and chairs of finance and governance committees, to review of policies and practices. “Discussions are underway toward the appointment of the independent review team,” said the Atira statement. 

The statement from Atira said it takes the report “with the utmost seriousness” and is open to the idea of a provincial government representative on its board. 

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Bob Mackin The former CEO of BC Housing

Business, News, Sports

Bob Mackin

The newly elected president of the Canadian Soccer Association testified to a House of Commons committee May 11, promised a new era of openness at an organization that its top players say is notoriously secretive.

CSA president Charmaine Crooks (ParlVu)

“Our team is working on making sure that all of our financial records and our minutes are posted publicly,” said Charmaine Crooks, who took over from Nick Bontis when he resigned in February and was voted last weekend to serve the remaining year of his term. She did not say when those records would be published, however. 

The 60-year-old, Jamaica-born West Vancouverite won silver for Canada at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics in 4 x 400 metre relay. She joined the International Olympic Committee’s athletes’ commission in 1996, was a full IOC member from 2000 to 2004 and sat on the board of VANOC, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics organizing committee. Crooks joined the CSA board in 2013 and is also on FIFA’s organizing committee for competitions.

“I just want to be the type of president for the organization that gives back, that listens, and truly engages all the partners, having had the opportunity to do that over the past few weeks,” said Crooks, who testified by webconference. “As I mentioned, trust, transparency and open communication, those are the things that I believe in.”

CSA logo

Committee members asked Crooks whether her company, NGU Consultants Inc., had received any contracts from FIFA (she denied); whether another West Vancouver resident, FIFA vice-president Victor Montagliani, aggressively campaigned to make her the CSA president (“To suggest that I’m in this role because somebody did something or said something I think is a real disservice”); and whether she agreed with the lopsided deal that sold CSA broadcast and marketing rights to Canadian Soccer Business Inc. until at least 2027 (“We are currently looking at ways to modernize this agreement”).

Crooks distanced herself from the 2008 board, which included Montagliani and negotiated coach Bob Birarda’s exit, despite allegations he sexually harassed national team and W-League Whitecaps players. Birarda was charged in late 2020, pleaded guilty in early 2022 and jailed for 16 months last November for sexual assaults that occurred between 1988 and 2008. 

He had returned to coaching teenage girls soccer teams until former Whitecap Ciara McCormack blew the whistle in early 2019. Crooks said there was “immediate action” to close gaps in the coaching certification system in 2019, but said the organization continues to work on recommendations from University of Western Ontario sports law professor Richard McLaren’s damning 2022 report.  

“Our goal is to make this sport the safest in Canada,” Crooks said.

Crooks was asked about the CSA’s rollercoaster finances. It went from a $5.3 million surplus in 2021, when the women’s team won Olympic gold, to a $6.3 million deficit last year, when the mean’s team returned to the World Cup for the first time since 1986. She said the difference was a board decision to adopt retroactive pay equity for the women’s team.

“Also, the costs from some recent men’s national team matches have allowed us to be where we are now, not to mention the COVID-19 recovery, and also the very extensive travels that had to be taken over the past year for our respective teams to travel to World Cup and training competitions,” she said. 

In March, captain Christine Sinclair appeared in-person at a House of Commons committee, and welcomed a woman in the top role, but was unimpressed by Crooks’ board performance.

“During her tenure, she has shown nothing to the women’s national team that proves that she’s there fighting for us,” Sinclair said.

On Thursday, Conservative member Kevin Waugh (Saskatoon-Grasswood) bluntly stated “the national teams are absolutely pissed off with you and your organization.”

Crooks admitted that “what happened in the past was not perfect.”

“I acknowledge a lot of the historic hurts that have happened in the past with our athletes, but we are working to make it a better place,” she said. “All of us want to make Canada Soccer a better place. We’ve had challenges and we will continue to work through that.”

Crooks also said that she had seen many of the players and spoken to some of the alumni, but did not name them. 

The Canadian Heritage committee has also heard testimony from former presidents Montagliani, Bontis and Steven Reed and former general secretary Earl Cochrane, who all appeared by webconference. However, it has not called Peter Montopoli, who was the CSA’s general secretary in 2008 and is now the chief operating officer for the 2026 World Cup organizing committee in Canada. 

Also on May 11, Sport Minister Pascal St-Onge announced new measures in a bid to quell widespread demands from athletes for a judicial inquiry into abuse and corruption in Canadian sport. She said Sport Canada would create a public registry of banned coaches, prohibit non-disclosure agreements, and oversee sport organizations to make them more accountable and transparent. 

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Bob Mackin The newly elected president of the

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Bob Mackin

Staff of a Liberal cabinet minister are phasing out the use of a controversial Chinese state-monitored social media app on which they promoted government and party activities.

Ying Zhou (left) coordinated MP Joyce Murray’s WeChat group (Joyce Murray/Facebook)

On May 5, users of the WeChat group for Vancouver-Quadra MP Joyce Murray, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Coast Guard, were greeted with a notice in English that said: “We have some news to share! As things in our office change, we will be using our WeChat channel — MP Joyce Murray Information Group — less and posting minimally on this platform.”

The message, signed “Team Joyce Murray,” said the office would continue to provide Chinese-language services to constituents. 

On May 8, after the Liberal Party’s weekend convention in Ottawa, administrator Ying Zhou removed users from the channel on which she had frequently published Chinese translations of government announcements and Murray’s activities inside and outside the riding. The audience included users in both Canada and China.

Murray was the Minister of Digital Government in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet from March 2019 to October 2021. She did not respond to an interview request. Contacted by a reporter, Zhou said: “I cannot answer your question,” before she abruptly ended the call. 

Amanda Oliveira, Murray’s chief of staff, was similarly blunt. 

“We have no further comments on that,” said Oliveira, who repeated the line when asked if national security factored in the decision.

Zhou’s note on the WeChat group came the day after Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly announced she had summoned Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu over a diplomat’s 2021 threat against Conservative MP Michael Chong and his relatives, which was revealed earlier in the week by the Globe and Mail. On May 8, Joly expelled Zhao Wei. China retaliated a day later by ordering Jennifer Lynn Lalonde to leave Canada’s consulate in Shanghai.

Joyce Murray, the Trudeau Liberals’ minister of digital government (WeChat)

Almost three years ago, a Liberal Party supporter’s use of Murray’s WeChat group to promote a lawsuit against a journalist sparked debate in the House of Commons. 

Maria Xu, a former honorary chair of the pro-Beijing Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations, posted a notice about the Maple Leafs Anti-Racism Actions Association (MLARA) and a QR code to make donations for a potential class action lawsuit against Global News. In Question Period, Murray said the WeChat group was an important part of community outreach, but she did not share Xu’s views.

“We do periodically post the disclaimer and rules of engagement,” said then-parliamentary assistant Jonathan Chiu. “Neither the Minister, nor any member of our team played any role in the fundraising. The WeChat account is not operated on a government device, it is run on a staff member’s personal device.”

Xu and members of MLARA were offended by an April 2020 story about how supporters of the Chinese Communist Party in Canada, Australia and other countries went on a six-week, worldwide personal protective equipment buying spree and exported 2.5 billion masks, gloves and other items to China early in the pandemic. MLARA co-founder Ivan Pak said last year that they raised $15,000. No lawsuit was filed.

At the end of February, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier banned the use of the Chinese-owned video app TikTok from government devices due to privacy and national security concerns. 

However, only WeChat was mentioned in the body of the Communications Security Establishment’s 2023-2024 National Cyber Threat Assessment, which called the threat posed by China the “most significant by volume, capability, and assessed intent.”

WeChat/Tencent

“Online foreign influence activity very likely also targets linguistic minorities and diaspora communities in Canada. State-sponsored cyber threat actors aim to influence these groups in order to minimize dissent or support the policies of their country of origin,” said the report by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. “These groups often interact on platforms that are semi-closed and censored according to restrictive content regulations, meaning that misinformation, disinformation and malinformation [MDM] can very likely spread more easily throughout these groups. For example, WeChat, a social media app from China used by billions around the world, has been used to spread MDM and propaganda specific to the Chinese diaspora.”

Benjamin Fung, a professor in the School of Information Studies at McGill University, said Chinese-speaking immigrants to Canada “basically go back to China” when they pick up a smartphone and open WeChat. They feel like they are in a “comfort zone” when they scroll for celebrity or entertainment news. 

Sometimes, however, the Chinese government or a state-sponsored organization will input disinformation to promote a candidate or an idea, as happened during the 2021 federal election defeat of Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, the Steveston-Richmond East backer of a foreign agents’ registry. 

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Bob Mackin Staff of a Liberal cabinet minister

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Bob Mackin 

The non-profit at the centre of the BC Housing nepotism scandal is now the subject of a federal review. 

Atira Women’s Resource Society CEO Janice Abbott, who is married to former BC Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay, was reappointed to the board of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in December 2020 for a second three-year term.

Atira CEO Janice Abbott with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland (second from left) (Nomodic/CMHC)

The damning, Monday-published Ernst and Young report for the Office of the Comptroller General found Ramsay subverted conflict of interest rules and shifted contracts and funding to Atira without a competitive process. Ramsay had agreed in-writing in 2010 to a conflict of interest protocol to manage the business side of his relationship with Abbott. 

A statement from the Office of the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion said the CMHC board is not involved in awarding national housing strategy funding. 

“However, as a precautionary measure, Minister [Ahmed] Hussen has already directed CMHC to review Atira. Minister Hussen will also be asking the chair of the CMHC board of directors to look into this to ensure all rules were followed by CMHC board members at all times.”

Ramsay announced Aug. 2 that he would retire from BC Housing on Sept. 6. That was also the day that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $1.4 billion CMHC loan to Senakw, the Squamish Nation tower development around the Burrard Bridge. Three weeks later, on Sept. 27, Ramsay was announced as the executive vice-president of Squamish Nation-owned Nch’kay Development, the partner with developer Westbank. 

Last July 28, Surrey politicians cut the ribbon on Atira’s 44-unit Little Too’s modular housing complex, a $16.4 million CMHC project through its rapid housing initiative. Little Too’s also has operations funding for 20 years from BC Housing. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland joined Abbott for a pre-opening tour of the project in April 2022.

Ramsay (BC Housing)

Conservative Tracy Gray (Kelowna-Lake Country) asked CMHC senior vice-president Paul Mason at a House of Commons committee meeting on Feb. 17 whether Abbott recused herself from decisions that led to the funding. 

Mason initially said CMHC ensures staff are not working with board members on applications. 

“The question was whether or not the board member would have removed herself during any discussions on the rapid housing initiative that would have been discussed at the board level?” Gray said.

“That would be my understanding, yes,” Mason replied. 

Atira communications director Caithlin Scarpelli has not responded to repeated queries. Premier David Eby and Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon have publicly called for Atira to replace Abbott. A statement released late May 8 by the Atira board of directors said it “remains confident that its CEO and senior management will guide the organization through these challenges and make required improvements to Atira’s operations and administration.”

On May 12, Atira said it had returned the $1.9 million in surplus funds to BC Housing and would begin an internal review. 

Atira’s board includes two BC Hydro executives: corporate secretary Amy McCallion and advisor to the chief financial officer Taha Rizwan. Neither responded. Instead of commenting, CFO David Wong forwarded a request to Mora Scott in the BC Hydro communications department.

“BC Hydro has employees across the province that give their time every day with sincere desire to improve their community,” Scott said. “We don’t direct how employees spend their time outside of work as long as they adhere to our code of conduct policy.”

That policy includes sections on compliance with the law and conflict of interest.

Senakw (Westbank/Nch’kay)

Also on the Atira board is Miriam Sobrino, communications director for the Health Sciences Association of B.C. and wife of Minister of Forests and Surrey-Whalley NDP MLA Bruce Ralston. Sobrino has also not replied. 

Squamish Nation council chair Dustin Rivers, aka Khelsilem, did not respond to questions about the council’s reaction to the BC Housing report and whether Ramsay has the nation’s confidence.

Squamish Nation spokesperson Marc Riddell referred questions to Nch’kay, but its CEO, Mindy Wight, has also not yet responded. Nch’kay’s chair is Joy MacPhail, the former NDP leader who chairs BC Ferries. 

Midday May 12, however, Nch’kay announced in a one-sentence statement that Ramsay was no longer employed there. 

Since 2019, Atira’s funding outpaced other agencies, culminating in 2022 when it received $35 million more than the next-highest provider. 

“BC Housing’s financial reviews of Atira have been substantially delayed,” the Ernst and Young report said. “The most recently completed financial review was for fiscal year 2020, which was finalized in August 2022.”

The report also said that Ramsay modified meeting minutes and routinely deleted text messages, despite explicit instructions from the Office of the Comptroller General to preserve records.  

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Bob Mackin  The non-profit at the centre of

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Bob Mackin 

A member of a House of Commons committee slammed an executive vice-president of a B.C. Crown corporation May 8 for starting his testimony with a First Nations land acknowledgment before ducking questions about investments in a company that spies on ethnic minorities in China.

Daniel Garant of BCI (ParlVu)

Daniel Garant, the global head of public markets for B.C. Investment Management Corporation (BCI), acknowledged the public sector pension fund’s headquarters in the traditional territory of the Lekwungen people when he appeared by web conference before the committee on Canada-China relations.

Garnett Genuis (Conservative, Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan) called Garant’s testimony “discordant,” because of the BCI investment in Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd. In its March 2022 inventory, BCI held $49.35 million worth of Hikvision shares. 

“Complete disregard that your investments show for the dignity and rights of the Indigenous peoples of East Turkestan,” Genuis said. 

“Hikvision is directly complicit in the persecution and genocide of Uyghurs. Hikvision actually has developed ethnic facial recognition technology, that is cameras that identify Uyghurs and marks them out for a particular persecution.”

Genuis, a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, asked Garant how he felt about the investment decision, to which he answered: “We do invest both actively and passively. So I cannot speak specifically about this company.”

That sparked a lively response from Genuis. “I’m sorry, you can’t speak specifically about the company? Because that was my question, you must have expected it, coming before the special committee on Canada-China relations of Canada’s parliament.”

Genuis then asked Garant if he would be prepared to divest from Hikvision. Garant said the Hikvision shares were part of an index and BCIMC is “engaging with index providers to improve what they put in the index.”

Steve McLennan, total fund management leader for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, testified about pausing direct investments in China over heightened risk. He cited declining Canada and U.S. relations with China, regulatory changes by the Chinese government and shifting economic trends due to the pandemic.

“As risk increases, we need to re-evaluate how much exposure we wanted to have in China, from a top-down perspective, and that really led to the decision to pause that particular set of activities,” McLennan said. 

Garnett Genuis (House of Commons)

Rob Oliphant (Liberal, Don Valley West) asked Garant if he agreed with McLennan’s analysis and whether BCI considered a similar pause.

“We actually have made the same decisions at BCI,” Garant replied. 

BCI manages $250 billion worth of investments for 2.5 million B.C. workers and 715,000 pension plan beneficiaries. Garant said BCI has a team of 16 environmental, social and governance experts to screen investments. 

“In our due diligence, we simply do not invest until and unless a complete ESG and risk review is done,” Garant said. “There are no exceptions.”

In addition to Hikvision, the 2022 BCI inventory also disclosed investments in China Merchants Bank Co. Ltd. ($106.67 million in shares), China Mobile ($86.12 million) and China Construction Bank Corp. ($72.61 million).

Hong Kong Watch’s June 2021 report on Canadian pension fund investments in China singled out BCI for investing in Hikvision, calling it an example of “bankrolling the oppression” in Uyghur prison camps in Xinjiang.

Hikvision 7-inch 4 MP 25X camera (Hikvision)

In February 2021, by a vote of 266-0, the House of Commons declared the Chinese government was committing genocide against Uyghurs. 

Hong Kong Watch also drew attention to BCI investments in China Communication Construction Group Company, CNOOC Ltd. (China National Offshore Oil Corp.), China Railway Construction Corp., China State Construction Group and China Telecommunications Corp.

In March of 2022, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, BCI said it was actively working to sell the remaining $107 million of Russian securities under its management.

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A B.C. Supreme Court judge refused May 11 to order Simon Fraser University to reverse the April 4-announced decision to cancel the football program. 

Players Gideone Kremler, Kimo Hiu, Andrew Lirag, Ryan Barthelson and Dayton Ingenhaag had petitioned the court for an injunction, which was heard on May 1.

SFU President Joy Johnson (SFU/YouTube)

But Justice Michael Stephens said their lawyer, Peter Gall, failed to satisfy legal requirements. 

“The court is cognizant of the plaintiffs’ understandable deep disappointment at SFU’s termination of the football program,” Stephens wrote. “This court does not trivialize the hardship they feel from the cancellation of the football program and associated cancellation of the upcoming football season.” 

The players alleged binding contracts existed with SFU, to provide both education and the football team on which they played. 

“The plaintiffs further contend that it was an implied term of the alleged recruitment contracts that SFU would give reasonable notice of the university’s decision to eliminate the football program, and that it failed to do so,” Stephens wrote.

“The plaintiffs provide no previous case authority where a student has successfully established that an oral contract existed with a university that contractually committed the university to provide reasonable notice of the termination of a varsity sport program—despite the cost or risks to the university of running such a program, nor the potential impact on student athletes.”

Since 2010, the 1965-established team had played in NCAA Division II. In 2022, the Red Leafs were 1-8 in their first year in the Texas-based Lone Star Conference, which decided in January that SFU would not be invited back in 2024. SFU also lost in the Shrum Bowl to the University of B.C. Thunderbirds.

(SFU Football)

Athletic director Theresa Hanson’s affidavit said SFU considered other avenues to play in 2023. Two other NCAA Division II conferences were not accepting new members and playing as an independent was not feasible, nor was going to Division III, which does not permit scholarships. 

Hanson also swore that SFU contacted the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and U Sports, but “concluded SFU did not meet the membership requirements of the NAIA or U Sports bylaws.” She claimed that the university did not have confidence in safely and effectively running a team in 2023. 

Gall told the court that SFU should be ordered to have a football season, by reinstating coaches and trying to find a new conference or an alternative schedule. 

“The plaintiffs contend it would be just, reasonable, and equitable in all the circumstances to order SFU to, in good faith, do so,” Stephens wrote.

However, he ruled that there is a high bar to obtain a mandatory injunction and the players’ lawyer fell short.

“What is sought here by the plaintiffs is a mandatory injunction that would, in effect, order SFU to reinstate and run a currently cancelled varsity program. The plaintiffs have failed to satisfy the legal requirements under governing case authorities, including the test of strong prima facie  [self-evident] legal merit, and they have not satisfied the Court that a mandatory injunction is available at law, just, and appropriate in the circumstances.”

Richard McLaren (UWO)

Stephens departed from standard practice and ordered each side in the dispute to pay their own costs. 

“The court is cognizant of the plaintiffs’ understandable deep disappointment at SFU’s termination of the football program,” Stephens wrote. “This court does not trivialize the hardship they feel from the cancellation of the football program and associated cancellation of the upcoming football season.” 

In a video message produced before the court verdict, but published midday, SFU president Joy Johnson apologized. 

“I’m sorry about the impact and stress that the end of our NCAA football program has caused for those affected, especially football student-athletes, staff and alumni,” said Johnson, who has said little about the controversy since the April 4 announcement.

She also said what hasn’t changed is that SFU has no place to play in the NCAA. 

“There are challenges to address and we want to find a solution together,” she said, in announcing the hiring of special advisor Bob Copeland to determine if, when and how to resurrect football at SFU.”

Copeland and McLaren Global Sport Solutions will work with student-athletes, staff, the SFU Football Alumni Society, and others to explore options for football on Burnaby Mountain.

“The work begins immediately, Mr. Copeland, along with McLaren CEO, Richard McLaren, will be at SFU next week to convene preliminary meetings,” said the SFU announcement. 

McLaren is a University of Western Ontario sports law professor known internationally for investigating state-sponsored doping at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. Copeland is the former associate vice-president at the University of Waterloo, where he was also director of athletics. 

Terms of reference include exploring whether to restart the football team and whether it should join U-Sports, NAIA or another organization. A final report will be ready in September.

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Bob Mackin  A B.C. Supreme Court judge refused

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