Recent Posts
Connect with:
Saturday / April 26.
  • No products in the cart.
HomeStandard Blog Whole Post (Page 71)

For the week of Feb. 26, 2023: 

The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival is back for a 26th season.

On this edition of thePodcast, meet one of its headliners, Squamish, B.C. adventure racer Mark Sky. 

Last July, Sky and Swede Malin Ek spent 17 days completing a 575-kilometre hiking, cycling, climbing and kayaking journey they call the Sea to Sky Infinity Loop. It took them to Deep Cove, Cypress, Garibaldi, Black Tusk and the Tantalus Range. 

“During the COVID times, when we couldn’t travel anywhere, we were like, yeah we should really do something here,” Sky told host Bob Mackin.

Sky and Ek are featured on March 2’s Adventures in Canada night at Kay Meek Arts Centre in West Vancouver. Hear a preview on this week’s podcast. 

Plus, hear former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu’s reaction to the bombshell report by Canada’s spy agency about the Chinese government’s meddling in the 2021 federal election that cost Chiu his seat in Parliament. 

Plus Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim 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.

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
thePodcast: They took the longest, most-scenic way up, down, around and over Sea-to-Sky
Loading
/

For the week of Feb. 26, 2023:  The

Bob Mackin

Less than 24 hours after its board announced indefinite closure when the academic year ends in April, Quest University’s buildings and surrounding land are for sale.

“Operating university with extensive development potential,” says the Feb. 24-published flyer through NAI Commercial Associate Vice-President Marshall MacLeod.

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

MacLeod said the asking price is confidential and subject to a non-disclosure agreement for a serious bidder. 

B.C. Assessment Authority pegged the land at $15.08 million and buildings $54.168 million in 2022, for a total $69.256 million. 

The campus and sportsplex occupy 23 out of approximately 55 acres.

“Currently, a single legal title (lot 1), once subdivided, the remaining land will provide for an estimated 38 acres of gross development land for a number of identified uses which include market and non-market housing, commercial development, university uses, public elementary school and park dedication,” said the NAI Commercial flyer. 

MacLeod said the sale had been in the works for a while. The underlying information for the digital flyer said it was originally created Oct. 5, 2022. 

Primacorp Ventures Inc. paid $43 million for the land and university buildings to rescue Quest University 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.

Primacorp recently discontinued its agreement to provide comprehensive student recruitment, marketing and fundraising services to keep Quest going.

The board that oversees operations of the private university announced Thursday that it plans to restructure finances and operations, but did not provide an estimated timeline. Quest said it had been seeking additional funding to continue beyond April, but “the board concluded that it had no alternative but to make the responsible decision it has at this time.”

Quest University president Art Coren (Quest)

“The board’s first priority is to protect our current and prospective students,” said the statement. “It is not prepared to continue offering our innovative programming if the university cannot confidently deliver the full 2023/24 academic year.”

Primacorp, under chair Peter Chung, bills itself as Canada’s largest provider of private post-secondary education with 15,000 annual enrolments and has subsidiaries in seniors’ housing, commercial real estate and self storage in Canada and the U.S. Requests to interview Chung have not been fulfilled. 

Quest president Art Coren has not responded to repeated interview requests. It is understood that staff layoffs are already underway. 

In November 2020, then-Squamish Mayor Karen Elliott expressed “grave concern” over Primacorp’s takeover.

In her prescient statement, Elliott said the deal with for-profit Primacorp created “an uphill runway that will make it difficult for it to be viable.”

As of 2022, more than 1,000 students had graduated from Quest. It had an estimated 200 students to start this year. The Quest website says it charges Canadians $23,000 and non-Canadians $38,000 for annual  tuition. Room, board, travel and other fees are estimated at $15,000.  

B.C.’s Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills said Friday that it will make students whole if Quest University doesn’t, after the Squamish university announced a day earlier that it will close indefinitely when its academic year ends in April. 

The private liberal arts and science university that opened in 2007 receives no funding from the ministry, but the province’s role is to ensure programming quality and student protection. 

“The Ministry holds a financial security from Quest University to secure student tuition refunds, if necessary,” a statement from a representative of Minister Selina Robinson. 

The financial security ensures that if students paid for education they did not receive, that they are provided a refund. Quest pledged that refunds will be forthcoming and that Students not graduating in April will receive one-on-one counselling to transfer elsewhere. 

“The Ministry will be available to support students as this transition continues.”

Meanwhile, District of Squamish said in a statement of its own that it is “saddened and disappointed” with Quest’s decision. The district admitted it had been secretly briefed by the board and knew the university was in dire straits. 

Since a June 2000 memorandum of understanding, the district waived property taxes for the university and spent $5 million on municipal services infrastructure.

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

Bob Mackin Less than 24 hours after its

Bob Mackin

Almost three months since a rush hour snowstorm stranded hundreds, if not thousands, of commuters overnight on bridges and feeder routes, a New Westminster city councillor is disappointed that the idea of a regional snow summit didn’t gain traction. 

Coun. Daniel Fontaine and Surrey Coun. Linda Annis proposed a high-level, multiparty meeting about the Nov. 29-30 debacle.

New Westminster City Councillor Daniel Fontaine (Zoom)

There were more dumps in December and fierce February flurries are forecast Saturday night, Feb. 25. Environment Canada has advised that 10 to 30 centimetres of snow will fall across Metro Vancouver, Fraser Valley and Sea to Sky.

Fontaine speculates there are likely internal reviews about brining, salting, sanding and plowing in various jurisdictions, “but it’s all out of public sight.”

“What we could have done better, or areas that we could improve, that was the main thrust and the main purpose behind the summit,” Fontaine said. “Bringing everybody together to discover what happened, and if there are ways for us to prevent it from from happening again.”

Documents obtained via Freedom of Information about the end of November storm show key arms of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and TransLink were not working as a team. 

A draft Nov. 29 memo from TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn outlined TransLink’s plans, while appealing for the region’s mayors to muster resources to deal with as much as 25 centimetres of snow. 

(TransLink)

“To ensure our transit vehicles can travel safely on the roads in the winter weather, I kindly ask that your engineering teams continue to prioritize the clearing and treatment of transit routes, especially major roads, bridges, and boulevards that could create bottlenecks for commuters of all modes. TransLink will be focused on rapid identification of trouble spots and will communicate with your staff as needed,” Quinn wrote. 

TransLink was calling in extra staff, deploying special anti-icing trucks for trolley wires, replacing articulated buses with standard 40-foot-long buses, running special de-icing cars on SkyTrain, preparing brass cutters to break ice on trolley wires and “snow socks” to install on bus tires for hilly routes in Vancouver, Burnaby and the North Shore. 

TransLink held a mid-afternoon conference call with more than two dozen managers Nov. 28 to gear-up for the next day. The situation was dire by mid-evening Nov. 29. 

“All municipalities are having clearing issues – Surrey is critical area. Heavy crowds at Surrey Central. City of Surrey, all snow mitigation assets have been deployed. Heavy delays,” said notes from the 8 p.m. conference call.

Contractors were having issues with traffic and a transit supervisor had been dispatched because coaches were stuck on the Alex Fraser Bridge. 

The 6 a.m. conference call notes mentioned 176 stranded buses, 30 of which were abandoned. 

“Team has a detailed list of bus locations and if there are passengers/drivers on board.”

“Escalated Concern: Passengers stuck on bus since 8 p.m. last night — everyone is safe and working to get them. Focus on recovery of operators and passengers.”

There had been 30 accidents, with one “pedestrian contact,” but no report of an employee injury. More than 90 operators were unable to come to work. There was an update during the call, that two buses stranded overnight with passengers had been returned. 

TransLink is best-known for bus, rapid transit, commuter train and SeaBus divisions, but it also oversees the 2,600 lane-kilometre major road network that connects local roads with provincial highways, four vehicle bridges (Knight, Pattullo, Golden Ears and Westham Island) and the Canada Line bike and pedestrian bridge. 

Yet the highest-profile problem areas were provincial — Alex Fraser, Port Mann and Queensborough bridges — and provincial staff had nearly 12 hours to react. 

“Rapidly accumulating snow will make travel difficult. Visibility may be suddenly reduced at times in heavy snow,” read the forecast in Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure snow and ice program manager Steve Robertson’s email box at 5:31 a.m. Nov. 29.

Port Mann Bridge snow clearing technicians (TranBC)

Snow and ice teams were mobilized before 9:30 a.m. to monitor the Port Mann and Alex Fraser. Maintenance contractor crews and rope access technicians were sent later. Seven ministry staff and four from contractor Mainroad met at 11:30 a.m. to plot strategy. 

But it wasn’t enough, the weather had the upper hand. Next morning, Robertson provided a statistics report to staff. 

The snowpack between 2 p.m. and 6 a.m. was 20 cm, but actual snowfall amounts were higher as the snowpack was settling while the snow was falling. 

“With the high precipitation rates we saw, I would expect 25-30 cm fell in some areas,” Robertson wrote.

Between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., it came down at a rate of 3-4 cm per hour, increasing to 5-6 cm per hour and then 7-11 cm between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. The accumulations continued until 10:30 p.m.

Port Mann temperatures started at -2.5 Celsius and ended at 0.5 Celsius when precipitation stopped in the morning. High winds, throughout the first three-quarters of the event, were steady from the east at 30-40 km-h, gusting to 60 km-h between 2 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

“This blowing snow greatly affected the roads by reducing visibility and depositing snow drifts on the roads,” Robertson wrote.

Meanwhile, the NDP government’s freedom of information office has decided to delay the release of internal correspondence about the pre-Christmas storm response in the Lower Mainland and the Christmas Eve bus crash that killed four people on the Okanagan Connector to March 21 and March 28, respectively.

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

Bob Mackin Almost three months since a rush

Bob Mackin 

Trouble has returned to Quest University. 

The private Squamish liberal arts and sciences university was under court protection from creditors in 2020 before a New Westminster company threw it a lifeline. Three years later, the board of governors announced Thursday that it voted to suspend classes indefinitely following completion of the current academic year in April.

Quest University president Art Coren (Quest)

The board made the move public at 5 p.m. Feb. 23, after meetings with staff and faculty. 

“This action is being taken so the board and the executive can focus on restructuring finances and operations,” said the Quest statement. “The university will continue current operations through the spring and then undertake an evaluation as to when it may be able to resume future enrolments and full academic programming.”

The announcement comes after Quest President Art Coren and Vice President Academic Jeff Warren and several other senior members of staff and faculty ignored repeated phone calls and emails from a reporter for more than a week. Board chair Arthur Willms also did not respond.

The news release said “several factors” contributed to the decision, but the factors were not detailed. 

Glacier Media reported Feb. 22 that Quest landlord Primacorp Ventures had discontinued providing the student recruitment, marketing, fundraising and other support services that it committed in the October 2020 agreement to acquire the land and buildings. 

Primacorp, under chair Peter Chung, bills itself as Canada’s largest provider of private post-secondary education with 15,000 annual enrolments and has subsidiaries in seniors’ housing, commercial real estate and self storage in Canada and the U.S. Requests to interview Chung have not been fulfilled. 

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

Thursday’s statement said Quest had been seeking additional funding to continue beyond April, but “the board concluded that it had no alternative but to make the responsible decision it has at this time.”

“The board’s first priority is to protect our current and prospective students. It is not prepared to continue offering our innovative programming if the university cannot confidently deliver the full 2023/24 academic year.”

The spring graduation will proceed on April 29 on campus. Students not yet eligible for graduation will receive one-on-one help to transition to other schools under transfer agreements, while prospective students who have paid application fees or enrolment deposits for September 2023 will receive refunds. 

The workforce at Quest, however, is in limbo. The statement said they would be advised “in the coming days” about their future. 

Quest opened in 2007 under former University of B.C. president David Strangway. As of 2022, more than 1,000 students had graduated from Quest. The Quest website says it charges Canadians $23,000 and non-Canadians $38,000 for annual  tuition. Room, board, travel and other fees are estimated at $15,000.  

In January 2020, Quest sought court protection from creditors under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act after the Vanchorverve Foundation, a charity registered by Vancouver lawyer Blake Bromley, demanded repayment of $23.4 million.

In November 2020, then Squamish Mayor Karen Elliott issued a public statement expressing “grave concern” over Primacorp’s takeover. The district had supported Quest since a June 2000 memorandum of understanding and later waived property taxes for the university and spent $5 million on municipal services infrastructure.

Elliott said the deal with for-profit Primacorp created “an uphill runway that will make it difficult for it to be viable.”

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

Bob Mackin  Trouble has returned to Quest University.  The

Bob Mackin 

Staff and students at Quest University Canada could learn the future of the Squamish institution this week. 

Meetings are expected as soon as today, after the university’s landlord stopped providing services under its late 2020 agreement to rescue Quest.

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

Three years ago last month, the private liberal arts and science college sought court protection from creditors under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act. Quest’s biggest lender was the Vanchorverve Foundation, a charity registered by Vancouver lawyer Blake Bromley, which demanded repayment of $23.4 million.

In October 2020, New Westminster-based Primacorp Ventures Inc. announced it would buy the campus building and lands, lease them to Quest and provide comprehensive services for student recruitment, marketing, fundraising and other support.

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

However, the relationship appears to have suddenly changed. 

Melissa Davis, director of marketing and communications for Primacorp, did not respond to phone calls, but did say by email that “Primacorp is no longer involved in Quest outside of the support with buildings and land.” 

She did not respond to followup email or phone calls, seeking to know when Primacorp discontinued providing the broad range of services. 

Former University of B.C. board of governors chair Michael Korenberg was the vice-chair of Primacorp, in charge of Quest. 

“I am no longer associated with Primacorp in any way,” he said by email. Like Davis, Korenberg also did not answer followup phone calls and email.

Quest President Art Coren and Vice President Academic Jeff Warren ignored repeated calls and emails. Board chair Arthur Willms also did not respond.

Quest University president Art Coren (Quest)

Academic dean Halia Valladares Montemayor was the only faculty member to reply, but she deferred comment to the marketing and communications department, which has not responded.

Quest opened in 2007 under former UBC president David Strangway. As of 2022, more than 1,000 students had graduated from Quest. The Quest website says it charges Canadians $23,000 and non-Canadians $38,000 for annual  tuition. Room, board, travel and other fees are estimated at $15,000.  

In November 2020, then Squamish Mayor Karen Elliott issued a public statement expressing “grave concern” over Primacorp’s takeover. The district had supported Quest since a June 2000 memorandum of understanding and later waived property taxes for the university and spent $5 million on municipal services infrastructure.

“We are deeply concerned that the agreement signed does not reflect the district’s interests, creates an uphill runway for Quest that will make it difficult for it to be viable given the ongoing challenges related to the pandemic, possibly reduces student refunds and faculty severances as unsecured creditors, and leaves a for-profit company controlling the lands, instead of a university of significant standing should Quest not succeed,” Elliott said.

Armand Hurford became mayor last October. Instead of responding to a reporter, he deferred to the district’s communications director Christina Moore, who sent a prepared statement. 

“The district’s early investments were made, and ongoing support provided, because of its shared vision that a reputable and ground-breaking university on those lands would bring social and economic benefits to the community. This is therefore a relationship and a situation that we have great interest in and will continue to follow closely,” said Moore’s statement.

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

Bob Mackin  Staff and students at Quest University

Bob Mackin

Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu said he does not feel vindicated after raising the alarm since September 2021 about his defeat in Steveston-Richmond East.

Kenny Chiu Official Portrait

On Jan. 17, the Globe and Mail reported on leaked documents from Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, that the People’s Republic of China meddled in the last federal election with the goal of seeing a Liberal minority government. The newspaper said then-Vancouver Consul General Tong Xiaoling even boasted she helped defeat two Conservative incumbents: Richmond Centre’s Alice Wong and Chiu, who had been elected in 2019.

Neither of the Liberal MPs who won election, Parm Bains (Steveston-Richmond East) nor Wilson Miao (Richmond Centre), responded for comment. 

The website for the Consulate-General quickly responded with a statement on Friday that said it “has never interfered in any Canadian election or internal affairs in any way.”

“For the past year-and-a-half, I’ve been kind of reliving, whether am I hallucinating, or whether it is truly?” he said. “The amount of evidence, the number of pointers has been so much that I cannot refute that it is a significant contributing factor to the defeat, not just for myself, but also for the Conservative Party.”

He said he does not feel vindication because Canada remains a target of disinformation, hacking and espionage by the Chinese Communist Party.  

“The fact still remains that Canada has not enacted anything to protect itself, we are still presenting ourselves as the weakest link, not just to the People’s Republic of China, but also all the other dictatorial, aggressive predatorily regimes that are interested in, in influencing us, be it Russia or Iran or other nations,” he said. “We’re sending a very bad message here.” 

Chiu defeated incumbent Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido in the October 2019 election by a 2,747 vote margin in a campaign that featured allegations of foreign influence. 

Peschisolido’s campaign team included Eileen Chen, CEO of CYC Royal International Group, an events production and advertising company with offices in Richmond and China. Chen was front and centre, waving a Chinese flag and shouting slogans during a pro-China protest near Vancouver city hall in August 2019, countering a rally in support of democracy in Hong Kong. 

In 2021, there was evidence of Bains courting pro-China voters in his bid to unseat Chiu. 

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

In a front page ad on the pro-Beijing Rise Weekly, Bains echoed the build harmonious society slogan used by the CCP since the mid-2000s. He also appeared in an interview on the publication’s YouTube channel where he opposed Chiu’s proposal for a foreign agents registry. “To me, it looks like a very discriminatory type of policy,” he said.

A video surfaced on Chinese language social media of Bains addressing a group wearing Chinese Canadians Goto Vote Association T-shirts and holding signs bearing the society’s “Your Vote Matters” slogan. 

The group included James Wu Jiaming, executive chairman of the Canada-China City Friendship Association, and Wang Dianqi, honorary chairman of the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations. The Metro Vancouver organizations are related to the CCP’s United Front foreign influence and propaganda program. 

Bains, who won by 3,477 votes, denied Wu and Wang had a role in his campaign. 

The latest revelations follow Global News reporting in November that China meddled in the 2019 election. It sparked an emergency meeting of the Procedure and House Affairs committee, which agreed Tuesday to expand its probe of foreign interference in elections.

Parm Bains (foreground) and Wang Dianqi (centre) (WeChat)

“Think about it,” Chiu said. “I mean, this is CSIS, people they have, they have become so frustrated that they have to be a whistleblower, leaking documents to the outside. You know, Canada, it’s at peril if we don’t act immediately.”

Chiu was disappointed that, during the committee meeting, Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell (Pickering-Uxbridge) accused the Conservatives of “Trump-type tactics to question election results” — ironic, since U.S. authorities found Russian meddling in favour of Trump during the 2016 presidential election. 

He is also still shaking his head after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seemed more concerned last Friday with finding the whistleblower than safeguarding Canada’s democracy. 

“For somebody who has an admiration for, you know, the Chinese Communist regime, on one hand, we’re not surprised that he would be ideologically friendly to the CCP regime,” Chiu said, referring to comments Trudeau made in 2013, two years before becoming PM. “But at the same time, he had in that same question, in the answer that he provided, it revealed that he is somebody who enjoys the unchecked authority.”

Chiu said he is concerned there won’t be the same level of discourse about the tainted 2021 election in Richmond, where it happened, because it has one of the highest-rates in the country of non-English speakers.  

He said members of the diaspora are exploited and threatened by the foreign regimes from which they left, whether it’s China, Russia or Iran. Those regimes will all be watching Canada closely and adjusting their tactics accordingly. 

Chiu still hasn’t made up his mind about his political future; the next election must happen by 2025. But the new revelations have only accelerated the campaign for what he originally proposed: a registry for lobbyists acting on behalf of foreign governments. 

“Yes, it is unfortunate that I’m no longer in office. But on the other hand, if, as a result of that, Canada can actually have protection for our community, for this country, and have something like what the Australians have, the Americans have, I think I have done what I wanted to do in 2019 and I’m happy about that.”

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

Bob Mackin Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu said

Bob Mackin 

A man convicted Jan. 27 of holding a man against his will in Richmond, and using weapons to coerce the victim to commit bestiality, pleaded guilty Feb. 21 to obstruction of justice. 

In B.C. Supreme Court, before Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes, Taymour Aghtai, 28, waived his right to a trial. He will be sentenced May 5.

Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)

After Holmes read the charge against Aghtai, he agreed that he used threats, bribes or other corrupt means in a bid to persuade another person, whose name is covered by a publication ban, to not testify at his trial. The offences happened between Jan. 19, 2021 and April 13, 2021. 

“As I understand it, you were in custody at the time and you made phone calls to your mother and, essentially, asked her to relay messages, either directly or indirectly to [the witness]. Is that correct? 

“Yes,” Aghtai said. 

“And the purpose of your doing that was to try to cause [the witness] not to testify in the trial.”

“Yes,” he said. 

At trial, Holmes heard that once Aghtai arrived at the apartment near the Richmond Olympic Oval on Sept. 4, 2020, he hit the victim on the head from behind, and restrained him with handcuffs and zap straps. The victim testified that Aghtai and others assaulted and humiliated over the course of 30 hours until he escaped. The man testified that Aghtai “was not the main aggressor, but played a very significant role,” Holmes said in her verdict.

Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the B.C. Supreme Court.

Aghtai denied the charges, but Holmes found the evidence showed beyond a reasonable doubt that Aghtai kept the man restrained physically and sometimes used threats and intimidation against the victim.

Holmes found Aghtai guilty of sexual assault with a weapon, assault with a weapon, extortion, unlawful confinement and use of an imitation firearm in relation to the unlawful confinement.

Aghtai had known the victim since they were teenagers and was in the business of buying and selling merchandise from his home. 

Aghtai was also sentenced Feb. 7 in North Vancouver Provincial Court to time served for public mischief and conveying a false message with intent to alarm. 

He had pleaded guilty in December 2021 to making 63 malicious crank calls to four managers, six nurses and two administrators at the Lynn Valley Care Centre early in the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. 

He also pleaded guilty to a hoax phone call to a Parksville Fields store and RCMP detachment in November 2019, claiming that a black man was shooting people in the store. Police attended and found no such incident. 

Judge Patricia Janzen chastised Aghtai for putting others at risk of harm in both incidents, especially any black men near the Fields store and senior citizens and staff at the Lynn Valley Care Centre. She said the senselessness of his crime was only matched by its cruelty. 

“Your criminal record is appalling,” Janzen said.

A 2014 psychological assessment provided to the judge concluded that Aghtai was a narcissistic, anti-social alcohol abuser with psychopathic tendencies. 

Aghtai has a criminal record dating back to 2008 for making hoax phone calls that falsely alleged heinous crimes or impersonated police officers. He also has a record of assault, robbery, break and enter, confinement and weapons offences, and violating court orders.

In 2020, he stole personal protective equipment from a seniors care home and escaped lawful custody at Richmond Hospital where he assaulted two corrections officers by threatening them with a contaminated syringe. 

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

Bob Mackin  A man convicted Jan. 27 of

For the week of Feb. 19, 2023: 

The former Liberal Party insider who sat as a one-man commission decided Justin Trudeau was correct in declaring a national emergency over last year’s trucker convoy blockades.

When Paul Rouleau handed down his Public Order Emergency Commission report on Feb. 17, he acknowledged there were many Canadians exercising their free speech rights to disagree with how governments handled the pandemic, but a small number was intent on causing others harm. Oddly, Rouleau conceded the factual basis for his decision was not overwhelming and “reasonable and informed people could reach a different conclusion than the one I have arrived at.”

On the same day, Canadians woke up to a Globe and Mail front page blockbuster. A leaked report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said Communist China had meddled in the 2021 federal election, in favour of a Liberal minority government. It even said then-Consul General Tong Xiaoling boasted of helping defeat Conservative incumbents Kenny Chiu and Alice Wong in Richmond, in favour of Liberal rookies Parm Bains and Wilson Miao. 

“This foreign, authoritarian government wanted to see Justin Trudeau as prime minister, because they knew that he would work for their interest, rather than Canada’s interest,” said Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. “That’s why he has covered up this information for so long.”

Hear the highlights on this edition of thePodcast. 

Plus Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim 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.

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

theBreaker.news Podcast
theBreaker.news Podcast
thePodcast: Trucks, tricks and Trudeau -- sounds from a February Friday
Loading
/

For the week of Feb. 19, 2023:  The

Bob Mackin

Telus is on Vancouver Whitecaps jerseys through 2027, taking the place of original sponsor Bell. 

But don’t expect a Telus sign to replace the marquee on B.C. Place Stadium.

Whitecaps’ star Ryan Gauld modelling the new Telus-sponsored jersey (Whitecaps/MLS)

When the stadium reopened in 2011 after undergoing a $514 million renovation, signs reading “Telus Park” were supposed to be installed as part of a $40 million, 20-year agreement. 

The Whitecaps had insisted on using the “Bell Pitch” monicker on match days, which made an already complicated situation even more so. In June 2011, the BC Liberal cabinet suddenly had cancelled bids from across the industry on nine government contracts, including Crown corporations and health authorities, and bundled it all for Telus on a $1 billion, 10-year term, plus extensions. That agreement is scheduled to expire this July. 

In March 2012, however, cabinet decided it would remain B.C. Place and the lost revenue opportunity would be made up from ad sales. 

Jill Schnarr, Telus’s chief communications and brand officer, was asked in the wake of the Whitecaps’ Feb. 16 announcement whether Telus would revisit its original proposal for naming rights or whether it has been in any negotiations since the cabinet cancelled the deal in 2012. 

Schnarr didn’t respond, but director of public relations Donna Ramirez offered a flat: “The answer is no to your questions.”

The Whitecaps announced Bell’s departure on Jan. 9, which wasn’t a surprise after Major League Soccer sold league-wide broadcast rights to Apple TV for 10 years at US$2.5 billion, a vast improvement on the US$90 million a year from ESPN, Fox Sports and Univision.

Bell Media isn’t entirely out of the picture. TSN will carry 14 matches in 2023, kicking-off with the Feb. 25 home opener against Real Salt Lake. 

Whitecaps’ captain Jay DeMerit (left) and Premier Christy Clark at the Sept. 30, 2011 reopening of B.C. Place Stadium (Whitecaps)

After the naming rights controversy died down 11 years ago, taxpayers spent $15.2 million to compensate Telus for the StadiumVision TV system, telecommunications network and external video boards. Telus sourced equipment from Cisco Systems, Avaya Canada and Siemens Enterprise Communications. 

Before the 2017 change in government, B.C. Pavilion Corporation (PavCo) had negotiated a sponsorship addendum to the Whitecaps’ original 15-year tenancy, aimed at resolving the long-simmering naming rights feud. It was finally released under freedom of information after the Whitecaps lost a B.C. Supreme Court challenge in 2020.

The Whitecaps sought the amendment for advertising and sponsorship activations outside of the stadium’s inner bowl. PavCo retained the right to sell naming rights for the stadium itself, but committed to engaging with the Whitecaps on the issue “in a collaborative and integrated manner.” Whitecaps were to pay PavCo $225,000 annually through 2021, then $25,000-a-year increases, maxing out at $325,000 in 2025.

A year-and-a-half after the NDP minority government took over in 2017, PavCo went back to the market in February 2019 to find a naming rights sponsor.

It was looking for the right partner with the right brand and activation strategy, community engagement plan and, most importantly, fees and term. Ian Aikenhead, chair of the Crown corporation at the time, hoped to have a deal by summer 2019. 

The industry was still abuzz after Scotiabank agreed to a 20-year, $800 million package in 2018 to rebrand the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors.

B.C. Place Stadium was supposed to become Telus Park, but Clark nixed the naming rights deal.

Next door to B.C. Place, Rogers took over naming rights of the Canucks’ home from General Motors in 2010 for a reported $60 million over a decade (since renewed to 2033). 

National and international brands responded to the B.C. Place request for proposals, partly because it is the last big stadium north of Mexico without a sponsor’s name affixed to the building and/or playing surface. 

A source said one of the companies that showed interest was Huawei. At the time, the Chinese tech company was expanding in Canada and running a significant advertising campaign to counter publicity from chief financial officer Meng Wenzhou’s Vancouver house arrest while contesting extradition to the U.S. to face fraud charges.

PavCo deliberations went on longer than expected. Then the pandemic hit, wreaking havoc for corporate marketing budgets and temporarily shutting down the event industry and the project was shelved. 

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

 

Bob Mackin Telus is on Vancouver Whitecaps jerseys

Bob Mackin

A human rights activist said it was “very alarming and disheartening” to see a Richmond civic politician in a video from a private Lunar New Year party with a campaign donor who supports China’s military. 

Ivy Li of the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong said Coun. Alexa Loo “crossed another threshold” when she attended the house party to ring in the Year of the Rabbit.

Richmond Coun. Alexa Loo (left) with James Wu Jiaming at a Lunar New Year party. (WeChat/Wu)

The full, nearly three-minute video posted Jan. 23 to Liberal MP Joyce Murray’s WeChat account shows Loo talking in the kitchen and later dancing in the living room with party host James Wu Jiaming of the Canada-China City Friendship Association and Dawa News publisher Zaixin Ma.

Music includes the traditional new year song “Gong Xi, Gong Xi” and “Never-Setting Sun on the Grasslands,” which praises Mao Zedong, whose policies led to the deaths of as many as 45 million people.  

Also present was Wang Dianqi, the honorary chair of the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations (CACA), a Richmond organization that participates with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office — an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front foreign influence program. 

Before the September 2021 federal election, Wang and Wu were part of a group that campaigned with Liberal Parm Bains, the eventual Steveston-Richmond East winner.

At the Lunar New Year party, Wang wore a traditional red silk jacket and handed out red new year envelopes inside the front door. His name appears in Loo’s Elections B.C. campaign finance disclosure as a $500 donor to her 2022 re-election.

Loo did not respond to requests for comment. A reporter reached Loo by phone on Feb. 16 and introduced himself, but Loo then said “oh, sorry, I can’t hear you very well” and disconnected. She did not answer subsequent calls, text or email messages. 

“So what kind of support she wanted to show by attending this private house party?” Li asked. “To show support to the host, who is a well-known United Front figure, to give face to the donor of her campaign? Does it mean that the councillor felt certain obligations to this donor?”

Richmond Coun. Alexa Loo with Chinese diplomats and campaign donor Wang Dianqi (Phoenix TV)

A 2019 report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians warned that one of the United Front’s aims is to influence foreign politicians to adopt pro-China positions. CACA did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Loo finished fourth in the race for Richmond’s eight council seats last October, with 13,485 votes. She was eighth-place in both 2014 and 2018. As a BC Liberal candidate in 2020’s provincial election, Loo fell 179 votes shy of the NDP’s Henry Yao in Richmond South Centre.

Two weeks before civic election day in 2022, Loo waved Chinese and Canadian flags in front row seats at a Chinese national day event outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. Deputy consul general Wang Chengjun was seated to Loo’s left and Wang Dianqi to her right. 

Loo told the Richmond News that she was unaware of the 4th Chinese Culture and Arts Festival’s connection to CCP supporters. “My goal is to bring people together,” she said.

Richmond Coun. Alexa Loo (right) with Wang Dianqi at a Lunar New Year party. (WeChat/Wu)

Wang Dianqi visited China twice in 2019: for the May gathering of the World Chinese Association, where he reportedly met President Xi Jinping, and in October to celebrate 70 years of CCP rule, where Xi headlined a grand military parade.

Wang told the Overseas Chinese Network website in 2017 that he had paid nearly 2 million yuan ($390,000) to “children and soldiers of the motherland.” In the same year, he brought supplies to soldiers in his hometown in Zhejiang, China.

In 2016, Wang toured a People’s Liberation Army Navy ship in Victoria with Chinese diplomats and toasted the vessel’s officers at an Empress Hotel reception. Lahoo.ca reported he said “the strength of the Chinese army is a strong guarantee of world peace and stability.”

Loo’s city council duties include chairing the community safety committee. Chief Supt. Dave Chauhan, officer in charge of the Richmond RCMP, told the December meeting that a national security investigation was underway into allegations the Wenzhou Friendship Society operated an overseas Chinese police station.

“Local government representatives get invitations from all types of organizations throughout the Lower Mainland,” said Kash Heed, the former B.C. Solicitor General elected to Richmond city council last October. “It’s incumbent upon any of these elected members to do their due diligence, to ensure they’re not caught up in any other foreign influence political moves.”

Wang Dianqi at a Chinese consulate countdown to Beijing 2022.

Loo rose to prominence with Canada’s snowboarding team at the Turin 2006 and Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. She attended a Beijing 2022 countdown event in Richmond in January 2022 with then-Consul General Tong Xiaoling and also appeared on a Phoenix TV program called “Political Differences Cannot Hinder the Beijing Winter Olympics.” 

The Canadian government endorsed a diplomatic boycott of Beijing 2022, due to China’s mass-incarceration of Uyghur Muslims. Loo told pro-Beijing Phoenix TV that she disagreed with the idea of athletes criticizing a foreign government’s human rights record.

A reporter asked Loo at the time to comment about her televised remarks, but she said she had no time for an interview. 

Last November, Loo spoke at the swearing-in of CACA’s new board and sat in the front row with Bains and new Consul General Yang Shu.

Support theBreaker.news for as low as $2 a month on Patreon. Find out how. Click here.

Bob Mackin A human rights activist said it