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Bob Mackin 

Just two weeks after being sworn-in, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is jetting off to Qatar to enjoy the FIFA World Cup.

Sim is said to be paying his own way for a trip booked before he was elected on Oct. 15. He will miss his first opportunity to chair the Vancouver Police Board at its Nov. 24 meeting. Neither Toronto Mayor John Tory nor Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell are traveling to Qatar, according to their respective press secretaries.

ABC mayoral candidate Ken Sim (YouTube)

Vancouver is one of 16 host cities for the 2026 tournament. City hall is already spending up to $25,000 to send an employee of the Sport Hosting Vancouver office and two police officers to observe the tournament for six to seven days each.

“We will not be disclosing the staff member’s name at this time for privacy and security reasons,” said Natasha Qereshniku of the city hall communication department. 

Sport Hosting Vancouver counts two employees: manager Michelle Collens and assistant manager Taunya Geelhoed. 

Sgt. Steve Addison said the two Vancouver Police officers are from the Emergency Operations and Planning Section and they will be away for a week in early December, including travel days. 

“As a 2026 host city, the Vancouver Police Department is responsible for safety and security at venues and throughout the city,” Addison said. “We expect World Cup 2026 will draw visitors from around the world and present unique safety challenges. It’s important for us to meet with and draw on the experiences of other host cities as we prepare.”

The cost to taxpayers for hosting five matches in 2026 is estimated at $260 million. 

Toronto city hall said it is sending the project manager of its 2026 World Cup secretariat, Dan Surman. Surman’s approved budget is $6,912.37 for travel, accommodation and meals during the Dec. 3-6 observer program.

The B.C. Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport is not sending anyone, but the Crown corporation that operates B.C. Place Stadium is.

Inside B.C. Place Stadium (Mackin)

“There are two senior team members participating in the FIFA observer program, both will be directly accountable for the planning and execution of FIFA World Cup 2026 at BC Place,” said B.C. Pavilion Corporation spokeswoman Meaghan Benmore. “One other staff member attended the field management observer program earlier this month. The estimated budget for all three participants will be $30,000, they will be in Qatar for five-to-eight days each.”

FIFA World Cup 2022 runs Nov. 20-Dec. 18 in Qatar. Canada qualified for the first time since competing at Mexico 1986. 

The 2010 naming of Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup sparked a major transnational corruption investigation that climaxed just before the 2015 Women’s World Cup, which ended at B.C. Place.

Australia, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. were the other bidders for a tournament that normally takes place in June and July. 

The tournament is estimated to cost the Arab nation of 2.8 million a record $220 billion. Qatar also gained attention for human rights and labour abuses related to the building of stadiums.

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Bob Mackin  Just two weeks after being sworn-in,

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Bob Mackin

The daughter of the woman Chu Ming Feng murdered in 2006 told B.C. Supreme Court in a victim impact statement Nov. 17 that the sorrow she felt as a teenager has never gone away. 

Feng and accomplice Guo Wei Liang used a belt to strangle 41-year-old Rong Lilly Li, who was a loan shark at River Rock casino in Richmond, and buried her body the next day at Jericho Beach in Vancouver.

Feng’s victim Rong Lilly Li (Richmond RCMP)

Feng was convicted of first degree murder in 2009. A judge and jury are considering his application for early parole under the so-called faint hope clause. Feng has served more than 15 years of a mandatory 25-year prison sentence and claims to be a changed man. He is eligible for full parole in 2031, but his lawyer wants the sentence reduced by five years.

“My family immigrated to Canada from China in the hopes of having better lives. When my mother was murdered, all I could think was I wish we never came, because if we hadn’t, I would still have my mom,” said the letter from Ahi Yan Chen, recited in court by Crown prosecutor Jeremy Hermanson. 

Chen, also known as Wendy, wrote that depression and anxiety caused her to quit school. She still finds it hard to cope with the overwhelming grief and feels revictimized by Feng’s bid to get out of jail sooner.

“Mr. Feng’s actions have caused me so much pain,” Chen wrote. “He took the most important person from me. This man was sentenced by a judge for the murder of my mom and I do not believe that he should be able to apply for parole until he has served his sentence that was imposed on him by the courts.”

Feng initially denied his role in the May 26, 2006 killing. He has been in custody since September 2006, after he delivered a letter to the Richmond RCMP confessing to the crime. He did not testify at his trial in 2009, where he was convicted after his lawyer claimed Feng temporarily lost judgment because Liang gave him an intoxicating water. 

Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)

Feng testified Nov. 15 that he had become a gambling addict while working at a fish market with Liang. He owed $10,000 on a credit card and was motivated to participate in Liang’s scheme in the hope of splitting the $150,000 to $300,000 in casino chips that Liang said she usually carried. Li was carrying only $500 in cash and $2,000 in chips when she was killed. 

Feng’s lawyer, Eric Purtzki, said in his closing argument that his client had accepted responsibility and remorse for the murder and asked the jury to reduce his sentence from 25 years to 20.

“In the course of his marriage, he admitted that he lied to the spouse and, by his own admission, caused his marriage to fail,” Purtzki said. “He engaged in heavy gambling, which resulted in significant financial losses and he had debts. And, most importantly, reflecting his character, he decided to participate in the murder of a woman, Ms. Li, a woman we know nothing about, for the hope of some money.”

In his closing argument, Hermanson said Feng continues to minimize his responsibility and continues to to engage in impression management and cognitive distortions. 

“Somebody will likely find it hard to accept a direct line from a $10,000 credit card debt to participating in strangulation and disposal of a body,” Hermanson said. “His explanation of gambling may not ring true.”

For 15 years, Hermanson said, Feng refused to accept responsibility, continued to claim he acted impulsively and that he never meant to hurt anybody. 

“None of these claims is true. What does this tell you about him?” Hermanson said to the jury. 

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Bob Mackin The daughter of the woman Chu

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Bob Mackin 

A man seeking early parole for the 2006 first degree murder of a River Rock casino loan shark broke down during testimony Nov. 15 in B.C. Supreme Court.

Feng’s victim Rong Lilly Li (Richmond RCMP)

Chu Ming Feng was convicted in 2009 of the May 26, 2006 killing of Rong Lilly Li and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He did not testify at his trial, where his defence lawyer advanced the theory that accomplice Guo Wei Liang gave him an intoxicating water that temporarily clouded his judgment. 

During the second day of his faint hope clause hearing, Feng had been testifying in Cantonese through an interpreter, but switched to English for the emotional outburst. 

“I want to say sorry to the victim. Secondly, I want to say sorry to her daughter, because I killed her mom,” Feng said before Justice George Macintosh and a jury.

“She’s without her mom, growing up. She might hate me, I cannot stop her from hating me, but if I can, I would ask for [her to] forgive me.”

Feng and Liang abducted Li in a rented minivan in Richmond, strangled her with a belt and buried her body the next day at Jericho Beach. Feng has been in custody since September 2006, after he delivered a letter to the Richmond RCMP confessing to the crime and apologizing for lying to detectives. 

After 15 years in jail, Feng became eligible to seek a reduced sentence. The jury could decide to recommend the Parole Board of Canada free Feng earlier than his statutory 2031 release.

Court heard that Feng studied in jail for his high school diploma and took courses in English as a second language and level one first aid. He was moved to minimum security at Mission Institution in 2021. 

Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)

He explained that after he lost his appeal in 2012, he decided by 2016 to take responsibility for the crime and tell the truth.

“I couldn’t continue to live my life,” Feng said. “I have a lot of guilt in life.”

Feng told court that “gambling caused the murder.” 

He said he worked for $2,000 a month at a fish market with Liang and gambled every other day at a casino with $20 or $50. The addiction eventually led to a divorce and he went to a casino daily, often bringing $1,000 with him. He racked up a $10,000 credit card debt. 

Feng testified about the motive and the method. He said Liang predicted Li would have $150,000 to $300,000 in casino chips in her possession and he understood that he would likely kill Li after the robbery.

“He said that if I go to help him, then his plan would be for me to follow his signal. When he loosens up the seatbelt, then I will start to pull the woman’s hair and strangle her neck,” Feng said.

They were shocked to discover how little she carried at the time of the crime: $500 in cash and $2,000 in casino chips.

“That woman was so smart, she didn’t bring the money,” Feng said. 

Feng told court that he grew up an only child in Guangdong Province in China and worked in a relative’s garment factory after completing school. At age 22 in 1999, he moved to Canada, where an aunt lived in Surrey, in order to seek a better life.

River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond (Mackin)

“Because there’s a lot of corruption in China. It was not a very good society,” he said. 

By 2004, he became a Canadian citizen, intrigued by Canada’s differences, such as democracy and warm-hearted people. 

“They are not like people in China, they always just think about money,” he said.

Feng said his parents still live in China, but he last communicated with them in 2012 or 2013, when they told him never to contact them again. 

“Just think that we never have this son, you are useless,” he said they told him. “I bring shame to the family.”

Crown prosecutor Jeremy Hermanson asked Feng about his interview for an October 2020 psychological assessment, in which he said that he declined Liang’s initial proposal and claimed “it just happened” after he agreed when Liang called him a second time. 

Under cross-examination, Feng admitted to Hermanson that the crime was not spontaneous, that it had been planned for three weeks.

Feng also testified that Liang was a loan shark who had worked with Li, but later clarified that Liang had been a debt collector for a loan shark and was only working at the fish market when the crime happened.

“You never inquired what your cut would be?” Hermanson asked. 

“No,” Feng replied. 

“You were prepared to kill somebody without knowing what you would get in return?” Hermanson asked.

Feng replied: “I was hoping that he would give me half.”

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Bob Mackin  A man seeking early parole for

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When record rainfall deluged Southwest B.C. a year ago, causing farmland floods and highway landslides, a senior bureaucrat in the NDP government demanded to know what the province’s flood experts knew in advance.

Megan Harris (LinkedIn)

Megan Harris, the assistant deputy minister of communications operations, urgently emailed the head of the River Forecast Centre on Nov. 16, 2021. 

“What I’m asking for is for information only and not for public consumption,” Harris wrote in an email, obtained via freedom of information. “Can you let me know when the RFC received the first flag of rising waters that would be a concern, when the RFC sent their first notification to local governments, and how many notifications in total? Is that possible? Is it possible to get this before noon today? We have a comms briefing at noon where this would be helpful.”

RFC is a division of the Ministry of Forests tasked with assessing weather forecasts, monitoring river conditions and issuing flood warnings. 

Its department head, David Campbell, responded in detail to Harris, about the challenges of predicting a disaster.

“Internally there was planning and monitoring going on behind the scenes at the River Forecast Centre throughout the week,” Campbell wrote, emphasizing that it communicated Nov. 5 with Environment Canada’s atmospheric river analysis team about storm potential for Nov. 11-15.

“Weather modelling through week was varied in terms of timing, location and intensity of forecast storm, and was split between multiple events (including heavy rainfall on Remembrance Day).”

His staff issued 16 advisories, warnings and updates beginning at noon Nov. 13. But, Campbell stressed, the forecast event did not appear significantly different from the three to five other heavy rainstorm/atmospheric river events that happened before mid-November. “Modelled/interpreted flows were forecast in the two-to-five year range,” he wrote.

Campbell explained to Harris that a high streamflow advisory means river levels are rising or expected to rise rapidly; major flooding is not expected, though minor flooding is possible for low-lying areas. A flood watch means river levels may approach or exceed their banks. A flood warning is just that, river levels are expected to exceed or have already exceeded bankfull. 

David Campbell of the River Forecast Centre (BC Gov/YouTube)

Campbell recounted the steps his group took, including communication with U.S. officials about the potential overflow of the Nooksack River to the Sumas Prairie. Moderate, not extreme, flooding was predicted Nov. 13 and reiterated the next afternoon. 

“Further communication at 4:52 p.m. on Sunday gave first indication of potential for more significant flooding on Nooksack,” he wrote.

RFC issued a high streamflow advisory at noon Nov. 13 for the South Coast and Vancouver Island in recognition of the significant atmospheric river and potential high flows. 

It upgraded the Englishman River to flood watch at 9 a.m. Nov. 14, with several river modelling forecasts released a half-hour later. At that time, there was no significant indication of flood risk for the Coldwater/Tulameen Rivers, but significant flows were forecast in the South Coast/Fraser Valley/Vancouver Island regions. 

A series of flood watches were upgraded Nov. 14 for Chilliwack, the Fraser Valley and Fraser Canyon and flood warnings for Tulameen, Coldwater and Coquihalla. More modelling led to additional warnings between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Nov. 15 for Cowichan, Similkameen, Englishman and Fraser Valley.

(City of Abbotsford)

“Extreme rainfall events are extremely difficult to assess for potential impacts and there is a high degree of uncertainty which makes it difficult to provide accurate forecasting well in advance,” Campbell cautioned Harris. “Generally, once heavy rainfall rates have been observed, does the scale of the event present itself — for example South West B.C. has experienced several atmospheric river events this fall that have all had the potential for significant flooding which failed to materialize.”

The RFC was established after the Fraser River flood of 1948. A November 2010 review of the RFC for the government by Mattison Enterprises found B.C. had only 5.5 full-time equivalents working in the office, compared to 24 in Alberta’s Environment River Forecast Centre and 16 at the U.S. Geological Survey Northwest River Forecast Centre.

The provincial staff directory shows the RFC has four hydrologists, two river forecast hydrologists, a river forecast technician, manager and a section head, for a total of nine. 

The NDP government’s 2022 budget included $83 million for a climate preparedness and adaptation package that includes expanding RFC and buying new equipment to measure streamflow, groundwater and snowpack levels.

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Bob Mackin When record rainfall deluged Southwest B.C.

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Bob Mackin 

The Pakistani student who leads a network of protest groups notorious for blocking B.C. highways and bridges pleaded guilty in Vancouver Provincial Court Nov. 15 to mischief under $5,000 and breach of a release order.

Muhammad Zain Ul-Haq, a Pakistani national outside the North Fraser Pretrial Centre (Save Old Growth)

Muhammad Zain Ul Haq was scheduled to go on trial for his role in Extinction Rebellion’s March 27, 2021 protest against old growth logging that blocked the Cambie Bridge. He was also charged for failure to comply with bail conditions after Stop Fracking Around’s anti-pipeline protest blocked Cambie Bridge traffic on Aug. 15.

Judge Jennifer Oulton asked Haq if he was aware he was giving up his right to a trial. He agreed and answered “guilty” to both charges. 

Haq’s defence lawyer, Abdul Abdulmalik, asked for a pre-sentence report. Prosecutor Ellen Leno said two or more hours would be needed for a sentencing hearing and that date could be decided next week. 

Haq’s appearance came, coincidentally, the day after a new survey released by the University of Pennsylvania that found non-violent roadblock and art vandalism protests backfired. 

Shawn Patterson Jr. and Michael Mann of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media found the public generally disapproves of such tactics. 

“A plurality (46%) report that such efforts decrease their support for their cause,” the survey found. “However, these efforts have minimal effects on people’s perceptions of the dangers of climate change.”

Last January, Haq and four others incorporated Eco-Mobilization Canada, a federal not-for-profit behind Extinction Rebellion splinter group Save Old Growth. 

In the most-recent SOG protest, five people were arrested Oct. 20 for blocking the Lions Gate Bridge. They timed the protest for the morning after the NDP disqualified environmentalist Anjali Appadurai and and made former Attorney General David Eby the successor to Premier John Horgan.

Muhammad Zain Ul-Haq resurfaced as a central organizer of Stop Fracking Around (Instagram)

SOG’s website says the group receives most of its funding for recruitment, training, capacity building and education from the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF). The California-based charity’s board includes an heiress to the Getty oil fortune and was co-founded by the chairman of natural gas-from-trash and agricultural waste marketer WasteFuel. 

The New York Times quoted Haq saying that SOG had received US$170,000 in CEF grants. 

Last February, Haq spent nine days in jail for contempt of court for blocking a Trans Mountain Pipeline construction site in September 2021 in his role as the national action and strategy coordinator for Extinction Rebellion. 

Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick expressed concern about Haq’s comments in the media about the potential for violence stemming from the pipeline. 

“He refers to ‘forcing government change’. He refers to the government actions as being ‘treason’. These are very troubling comments, in my view,” Fitzpatrick said. 

In an Instagram video shot outside the North Fraser Pretrial Centre after his release, Haq joked about spending his time in jail watching Seinfeld reruns. He also suggested Prime Minister Justin Trudeau be tried and sentenced for crimes against humanity. 

In June, Canada Border Services Agency held Haq in custody for violating the terms of his student visa. Neither CBSA nor the Immigration and Refugee Board commented after Haq’s closed-door hearing. Haq resurfaced in August as the central coordinator of Stop Fracking Around. 

Two members of the group splashed maple syrup on an Emily Carr painting and glued their hands to the wall in the Vancouver Art Gallery last Saturday. One of those who took responsibility, Erin Fletcher, also hurled buckets of black paint last May on the exterior of the Prime Minister’s Office on Parliament Hill. The incident was part of the Haq-involved Stop the Project campaign to demand a ban on new offshore oil projects.

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Bob Mackin  The Pakistani student who leads a

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A man sentenced to 25 years without parole for the 2006 first degree murder of a loan shark who worked at River Rock casino is asking a jury to recommend his jail term be reduced.

Chu Ming Feng killed Rong Lilly Li after he and accomplice Guo Wei Liang abducted her in a  rented minivan on May 26, 2006 in Richmond. Feng and Liang used Liang’s belt to strangle Li, who they buried the next day at Jericho Beach in Vancouver. Feng was convicted in B.C. Supreme Court by a jury on Oct. 28, 2009.

River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond (Mackin)

Justice George Macintosh and a jury heard Nov. 14 that Feng becomes eligible for escorted leave from jail in September 2028 and full parole in September 2031. However, under the Criminal Code’s so-called “faint hope clause,” a first degree murder convict has the right after 15 years to to ask the court for a reduced sentence. Feng is in his 16th year of custody.

Feng’s lawyer, Eric Purtzki, told the court that Feng is “not the person he was when he committed the murder in 2006, and not the person he was when he stood before this court in 2009.” 

Purtzki said he would call witnesses who work at Mission Institution and a psychologist who say that Feng has behaved behind bars, was transferred to minimum security and is not a risk to reoffend. Feng is also scheduled to testify. 

“At the end of the day, and based on all the evidence that you hear, it will be up to you to determine whether Mr Feng’s parole eligibility should be reduced and by what amount,” Purtzki told the jury. “That is, you may collectively decide to reduce the 25-year period and give Mr. Feng an earlier opportunity for parole, by any amount that you see fit.”

Feng’s victim Rong Lilly Li (Richmond RCMP)

Crown lawyer Jeremy Hermanson conceded that the jury will “hear about an individual that could be described as a model prisoner,” but the jurors will need to consider all the facts, including the written impact statement of Li’s daughter, who was a teenager when Feng murdered her mother.

Feng was born in Guangdong Province in China in 1977, emigrated to Canada in 1999 and became a Canadian citizen in 2004. Court heard from an agreed statement of facts that Liang had incurred significant gambling debts after loans from Li and came up with a plan to abduct and rob her. Feng agreed to participate after Liang offered to split whatever money they could steal. 

After Li was killed, Liang searched LI’s purse and took $500 in cash and gave Feng $2,000 in casino chips, which he cashed in the next day at River Rock. Detectives were unable to find Liang, but spoke several times to Feng from early June to mid-July 2006. 

He initially denied any involvement in the murder, but eventually delivered a written confession to an RCMP officer at the Richmond detachment on Sept. 8, 2006, in which he apologized for lying to police. Feng claimed he temporarily lost all reasoning on the night of the crime when allegedly Liang gave him an intoxicating water. He participated in a voluntary re-enactment of the crime and directed police to the where Li was buried. 

Feng did not testify at his trial. In 2012, a B.C. Court of Appeal tribunal rejected Feng’s appeal. 

Feng’s faint hope clause hearing is scheduled for 10 days.

Law Courts Vancouver (Joe Mabel)

Evidence at the Cullen Commission into money laundering in B.C. included a 2006 memo that identified loan sharking as a problem in Richmond. The Richmond RCMP was confident that its “close working relationship” with River Rock, B.C. Lottery Corp. and RCMP’s Integrated Illegal Gaming Enforcement Team (IIGET) would prevent such crime by “sending the message that such criminal activity will not be tolerated in Richmond.”

The undated memo said there had been five kidnappings to date in Richmond, three of which involved possible extortions involving gambling. 

“We have a current investigation regarding missing Vancouver woman Rong Lilly Li that also includes direct links to loan sharking,” the memo said. “In 2005 there were 11 kidnappings, two cases of which were involved extortions involving gaming. Since 2005, there have been two suicides related to gambling debts and/or money owed to loan sharks.”

Despite Li’s murder and other loan sharking crimes connected to River Rock, then BC Liberal Solicitor General Rich Coleman disbanded disbanded IIGET in 2009, six months before Feng’s conviction. 

The Cullen Commission final report released in June indicated that, from 2012 to 2015, B.C. casinos received $376 million of suspicious cash. One high-profile cash facilitator, Paul King Jin, even set-up shop in an 11th floor room at River Rock’s hotel to serve high rollers. Cullen heard testimony that Jin wasn’t charging interest to high-level borrowers and their debts were often repaid in China.

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Bob Mackin A man sentenced to 25 years

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For the week of Nov. 13, 2022:

It was a fifth of November to remember, five years ago, in 2017. 

That is when theBreaker.news Podcast debuted. 

Celebrate the fifth anniversary with a special edition featuring clips from some of host Bob Mackin’s favourite interviews, including: 

Late IntegrityBC government watchdog Dermod Travis, former Speaker Darryl Plecas and his chief of staff Alan Mullen, former investigative reporter Sean Holman, sports economist Victor Matheson, late investigative journalist Andrew Jennings, Tiananmen Square massacre survivor Zhou Fengsuo, Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, ResearchCo pollster Mario Canseco and Simon Fraser University city program director Andy Yan. 

Plus a commentary on revelations that the Chinese Communist Party infiltrated Canada’s federal election and headlines from the Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest.

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 Nov. 13, 2022: It

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A cybersecurity briefing for Premier John Horgan earlier this year said attempts to hack into B.C. government computers and systems had skyrocketed.

Premier John Horgan in the $15,000-a-month virtual studio (BC Gov)

“The B.C. government faced a near tenfold increase in unauthorized access attempts in 2020 over 2015, with 372 million/day or 4,000/second today,” said the March 4 Cybersecurity Update presentation, obtained via freedom of information.

The presentation from the Ministry of Citizens’ Services said cyber breaches erode trust and are costly to remediate and cited a 2021 IBM report that estimated the total cost per breach had risen 20% to $6.7 million. The incidents result in losses of data, productivity, service, intellectual property and public funds. They also harm organizational interconnectedness, lead to lawsuits and threaten public safety.

The presentation also quoted the Canalys Cybersecurity Report that estimated there were more breaches and records lost across industry and government in 2020 than the previous 15 years combined, despite a 10% growth in cybersecurity spending. 

The Ministry claimed B.C.’s “cybersecurity posture” was stronger than ever and the government is a leader in privacy, security and digital identity. It said it was challenged to keep systems secure while the pandemic forced it to transform to hybrid work and cloud computing. 

The report said government spends $25 million on information technology security annually. In 2021, it updated mandatory security training for public servants and implemented advanced security systems to prevent email-based attacks. 

British Columbia, however, has not gone unscathed. 

Ministry of Health contractor LifeLabs in 2019 and TransLink in 2020 were both targeted by ransomware gangs. In May 2021, StudentAidBC and LearnLiveBC websites were hacked by the a group called RT3N/Guardiran Security Team.

On Thursday, U.S. officials announced an Ontario man with Russian and Canadian citizenship had been charged in New Jersey with conspiring to intentionally damage protected computers and to transmit ransom demands. 

Mikhail Vasiliev, 33, was allegedly involved in the LockBit ransomware campaign and could face five years in jail and a $250,000 fine if convicted. 

The Department of Justice said LockBit emerged in early 2020 and the FBI began to investigate in March of that year. LockBit members made at least $100 million in ransom demands. 

Vasiliev’s alleged victims were not identified, but one of LockBit’s recent targets was in B.C. The Sunshine Coast Regional District lost email and website service for 16 hours on Sept. 8-9. 

Nov. 10 is, coincidentally, the second anniversary of a cyber incident at the Legislative Assembly. 

The Legislature’s website was taken down Nov. 10, 2020 and replaced with an image that claimed it was subject to “unscheduled maintenance.” The Clerk’s office finally admitted nine days later that it had been hacked, but downplayed the severity and said no data had been lost.

The all-party Legislative Assembly Management Committee (LAMC) and Clerk’s office did not release the report into what went wrong. Then-BC Liberal house leader Peter Milobar expressed frustration at a July 2021 meeting over increasing IT costs and continuing network outages at constituency offices stemming from the incident. 

“Our own ability to service our constituents has been eight months of complete frustration that seems to not be getting any better — if anything, getting worse,” Milobar said.

Parliament Buildings, VIctoria, on Aug. 13, 2020 (Mackin)

The $5.8 million allotted for IT in that year’s budget was the biggest line item in Legislative Operations.

At LAMC’s August meeting, Clerk Kate Ryan-Lloyd told the all-party committee that work was one-third complete to replace the constituency office network.

In late September, numerous B.C. government websites, including Horgan’s website, the DriveBC highways monitoring and incident reports site and government employee directory, went down for nearly 12 hours. The Ministry of Citizens’ Services blamed a scheduled firmware update involving Advanced Solutions and Hewlett Packard Enterprise that went awry. 

The NDP government budgeted $173.4 million for enterprise services this year, up from $146.1 million last year. The budget includes information technology infrastructure and network and data services.

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Bob Mackin A cybersecurity briefing for Premier John

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Federal and B.C. officials are keeping secret their budgets for travel, accommodation and hospitality at United Nations climate change conference in Egypt.

B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman (BC Gov/Flickr)

NDP Environment Minister George Heyman, Climate Action Secretariat Assistant Deputy Minister Jeremy Hewitt and one support staff member are attending the annual Nov. 6-18 green gabfest, according to a prepared statement sent by the ministry’s David Karn. 

However, the UN’s official provisional list of registered participants shows two Heyman aides registered, Danielle Monroe and Kelly Sather, but Karn did not explain by deadline. 

“No contractors or [non-government organizations] are being funded by the ministry to attend,” the ministry said. “The trip is funded out of the ministry budget. Final costs will be released after all expenses are tabulated.”

Environment and Climate Change Canada spokeswoman Samantha Bayard said there are “around 335 members” on the Canadian delegation, including cabinet ministers, senators, opposition members of parliament, provincial and territorial politicians, business executives, union leaders and representatives from civil society, Indigenous and youth organizations.

By comparison, Canada sent 277 people to the Glasgow conference.

During Liberal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s teleconference from Egypt on Nov. 10, a reporter asked him to reveal the approved total budget for the entire federal government delegation and for his own travel and accommodations.

“In terms of costs, as you know, all public dollars must be accounted for and disclosed in a very transparent manner,” Guilbeault said. “So I don’t have those figures, but they will be published.”

Guilbeault leads a delegation in Sharm El Sheikh with Canada’s Climate Change Ambassador Catherine Stewart and Chief Negotiator Steven Kuhn. The registration list includes Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan, five MPs, including Laurel Collins (NDP-Victoria), and Senators Mary Coyle, Patricia Bovey and Rosa Galvez.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not attending. 

Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault with U.S. climate envoy John Kerry in Egypt (Guilbeault/Twitter)

Also registered are 11 deputy or assistant deputy ministers, 10 negotiators,  eight communications/press/social media staffers and seven policy analysts. Guilbeault was asked whether the government’s strategic goals could be achieved with a smaller entourage. 

“In terms of the size of the delegation, these are complex issues. There’s 195 countries participating in in these proceedings,” he said. “I’ve spoken about few of the negotiating issues, but there are dozens of them. So we need to have the right people here in terms of the footprint of these meetings.”

Bayard said the government is working with all delegates “to ensure that carbon emissions associated with traveling to and from COP27 are being offset.”

According to the Flight Free USA flight emissions calculator, the round-trip distance from Ottawa to the conference site in Egypt is 18,496 kilometres and causes the per-passenger equivalent of 6.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions 2018 report said aviation emissions account for roughly 3.5% of total human-caused warming of the planet. A World Resources Institute working paper on business travel and climate released in October 2021 said that, based on total emissions from in 2018, air travel would have been equivalent to the sixth-largest carbon emitter in the world, between Japan and Germany. 

The UN COP 27 list said 33,449 people had registered to represent 195 states, 1,919 organizations and 1,306 media in Egypt as of Nov. 6.

Documents obtained under freedom of information about B.C. spending at the 2021 UN climate conference in Glasgow showed that Heyman and Sather booked airfare and accommodations for $9,071, four months in advance. They also arranged for a car and driver at a cost of $450 to visit a train station outside Glasgow where an electric train had been converted to hydrogen power. 

The freedom of information disclosure also showed that a committee of eight bureaucrats, including Sather and Hewitt, strategized last fall on whether to answer a reporter’s questions about the budget for Heyman’s travel to the conference. After 10 days, they finally settled on the line: “The trip is funded out of the ministry budget. Final costs will be released after all expenses are tabulated.”

In addition to Canada’s core federal delegation, various other Canadian entities are registered for COP 27, including Climate Action Network Canada (22 delegates); University of B.C. (8); Canadian Nuclear Association (6); United Church of Canada and Climate Equity Reference Project Canada (five each); David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and Canadian Foodgrains Bank Association Inc. (three each); Engineering Institute of Canada and Electricity Canada (two each).

Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg attended the previous two UN climate summits but is boycotting Egypt due to what she called “greenwashing, lying and cheating.”

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Bob Mackin Federal and B.C. officials are keeping

Business, News

Bob Mackin 

Judge Reginald Harris said Nov. 9 that he would announce the verdict in ex-Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum’s public mischief trial sometime during the week of Nov. 21.

Harris originally said he could deliver the judgment in a week’s time after McCallum’s defence team and the special prosecutor finished closing arguments in the Surrey Provincial Court trial.

Doug McCallum on Sept. 4, 2021 (Provincial Court exhibit)

He agreed to the delay due to lawyers’ schedules and estimated he would need a two-hour session to recite his reasons. 

McCallum, who lost the mayoralty to Brenda Locke in the Oct. 15 civic election, pleaded not guilty when the trial began Oct. 31. He did not testify.

Special prosecutor Richard Fowler said Nov. 9 that if McCallum’s foot had been run over in a Save-On-Foods parking lot last year, then he exploited an obvious accident to seek revenge against a Keep the RCMP in Surrey [KTRIS] protester. 

“This is not a trial about whether or not Mr. McCallum’s foot was run over,” Fowler told Harris. “This is a trial about whether or not Mr. McCallum, with the intent to mislead, made false statements to the police, with the intention of causing Ms. [Debi] Johnstone to be suspected of having committed offences she had not committed.”

McCallum originally accused Johnstone of driving over his foot and speeding away in her Mustang convertible on Sept. 4, 2021. He was instead charged with public mischief. There were no eyewitnesses to the incident and video evidence was inconclusive, because a shrub obscured McCallum’s lower leg and Johnstone’s rear wheel. 

Fowler told Harris that he had proven the charges beyond reasonable doubt, because evidence disproved McCallum’s allegations that Johnstone drove towards him, pinned him to his vehicle, ran over his foot and sped away. 

McCallum called 9-1-1 more than two hours after the incident, after going grocery shopping and speaking to KTRIS leader Ivan Scott at a petition kiosk outside the store. He spent two hours at the Peace Arch Hospital emergency ward, where a doctor found no fracture or visible swelling, only a contusion on the top of his left foot. McCallum then attended a 45-minute interview with an RCMP officer.

“Mr. McCallum’s statement, or statements were not spontaneous utterances at the scene of an accident, the side of the road, they were not simply reckless hyperbole,” Fowler said. “They weren’t statements that were made in the heat of the moment, with no time to quietly reflect upon what had just happened, or what the statement maker had just experienced.”

Surrey Provincial Court (Mackin)

Instead, McCallum told an RCMP officer in a video recorded interview 11 times that Johnstone had pinned him to his vehicle. 

“He was pinned by no one and pinned by nothing,” Fowler said. 

Video evidence played in court showed that McCallum originally responded to Johnstone by walking 15 feet from his car to where Johnstone had stopped, swore at him and urged him to resign. Fowler said McCallum chose to stand beside Johnstone’s vehicle during their one-minute verbal exchange before she drove away slowly and carefully. 

“He walked to the car and nothing stopped him from walking away,” Fowler said. 

Earlier Nov. 9, one of McCallum’s four lawyers, Eric Gottardi, closed the defence case by saying that McCallum neither wasted police resources nor sought revenge against Johnstone. 

He said McCallum should be acquitted because he never veered from the main thrust of his complaint that Johnstone singled him out, yelled profanities at him, drove over his foot and got away. He said McCallum endured a frightening experience. If McCallum exaggerated any details, Gottardi argued that is irrelevant under case law.

“He’s not literally trying to communicate the idea that she burned rubber and left marks on the ground and nor is he trying to communicate the idea that he was literally and physically mechanically pinned between two vehicles,” Gottardi said. 

“The core complaint is she ran over his foot and drove away.”

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Bob Mackin  Judge Reginald Harris said Nov. 9

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