BC Government

Sleazy Members of BC Legislature double their own salaries, and still give nothing to homeless and disabled...

Massive raises for B.C.'s public service executives - J Fowlie, Vancouver Sun, August 08, 2008
Gordon Campbell's Liberal government has approved massive pay raises for executives within the public service.

As of August 1, the deputy minister to the B.C. Premier qualifies for close to a $100,000 pay raise, with the maximum salary in that position going to $348,600 from $243,936.

Other deputy ministers qualify for about a $77,000 raise, with the new maximum for that position rising to $299,215. Assistant deputy ministers go to a maximum of $195,000 from $160,000. [full story]

Want to see the list of 'big salary' BC civil servants? CLICK HERE Many make over 500k per year.

The Ministry of Children and Family Development, already under fire for underfunding programs that help sexually abused children, recently spent $560,000 on a deluxe remodelling of its boardroom and executive offices in downtown Victoria.

The ministry confirmed yesterday that it hired a consultant for about $40,000 to make the boardroom more welcoming to First Nations, purchased a two-metre cedar totem pole for $8,500, and bought additional pieces of art at a cost of $13,000.

Initially estimated at $200,000 last summer, the project came in at nearly three times that, according to documents obtained by Public Eye Online, which broke the story on its website yesterday. [read report]

Province blasted for inaction on child welfare - Nov 27/2007
One of Hughes's key recommendations was the creation of an independent watchdog to oversee the child-welfare system. But Turpel-Lafond, who now fills that post, said establishing her office is one of the few things that government has acted upon.

Top court reverses ruling on learning disabled - March 3/08
Judges find no discrimination against North Vancouver student with dyslexia
VANCOUVER -- The B.C. Supreme Court has quashed a landmark human rights tribunal ruling that advocates hoped would mean major changes for students with learning disabilities in B.C. schools.

In a written decision released Friday, the court overturned a 2005 ruling that the B.C. Education Ministry and the North Vancouver school board discriminated against learning-disabled students when it failed to give them proper support. [full report]

B.C. probes why public cash helped sex offender - Times Colonist, February 19, 2008
Physician who assaulted patients used taxpayers' money to get off registry

The B.C. government is probing why taxpayers' money was used to help a former Campbell River doctor get his name erased from the national sex offenders registry last year.

Health Minister George Abbott said a weekend story in the Times Colonist raised "an important point of public policy" about the help that Mark Walter Stewart received from the Canadian Medical Protective Association. The organization is subsidized with public money. [full report]

Study: Welfare recipients stay mired in poverty - Frances Bula, Canwest News Service, April 23, 2008
The province's welfare system makes people homeless, sometimes forces women to turn to prostitution and relies on food banks and charities to help provide the basics to its clients, according to an unprecedented in-depth study of welfare recipients.

The two-year study, partly funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, tracked a small group of people who are part of what the provincial government decided in 2002 was a serious problem -- people who stay on welfare a long time but are classified as "expected to work."

Researchers found that almost none of the 45 welfare recipients they tracked between 2004 to 2006 ended up better off. [full report]

Yet another example of government interference into every aspect of our lives, including our bad habits.
Look next for a special police unit that will makes sure you don't feed your children too much junk food, or greasy food... After all, the state owns your children - right?

So they are banning smoking (on our own property) in the interests of children's health, yet they won't pay for insulin pumps for children.... So maybe children's health isn't the real motive behind the smoking ban? We're just saying.. You make up your own mind....

Flash forward to September 2009, after YEARS of selling our resources at record high prices, all over the world, this government now wants you to believe that revenue is down. So far down that they under-rated the size of the deficit (something we should never have anyway, living in one of the richest regions on the globe) by 600 PERCENT!!!! We should be a lender, not a borrower....

And what were they doing during this period? Why giving themselves colossal raises WITH YOUR MONEY [see below graphics], while not even keeping the paltry welfare rate comparable to 1980 levels. This is criminal behaviour.

Health premiums going up six per cent a year for three years; more money [needed] for health care, welfare; HST rebate for home heating and power

The B.C. government unveiled a grim budget Tuesday that showed the province’s revenues in freefall and a deficit of $2.8 billion — six times higher than what was predicted only seven months ago.
The province’s economy is performing far worse than what was forecast in the last budget in February, when the government promised a deficit of $495 million...... [full report]

This government did not even get 20 percent of the total vote, per capita... and in fact the last election set a record for low voter turnout - people choosing not to even acknowledge any party as representative of their politics. So low was the turnout, that it was the major news story of the election... See below graphics.

Police investigating organized crime connections in the sale of B.C. marijuana say they came across a lengthy trail of various other crimes! A possible link to the Victoria Police Department has also been uncovered.

Police raided the B.C. legislature offices of two senior cabinet ministers Sunday [December 28/03] after an organized-crime probe turned up information of more potential wrongdoing, RCMP said Monday.

Police raided the legislature offices of B.C. Finance Minister Gary Collins and Transportation Minister Judith Reid on Sunday.

Ward said the raid was based on information specifically related to an organized-crime drug case, as well as unrelated information discovered as a by-product of a 20-month drug investigation.

"In addition, a search warrant was executed at the home of one of those officials," he said.

RCMP also executed search warrants at the home offices of two people living in Vancouver and at the offices of a company doing business in Vancouver and Victoria, he said.

Bob Virk (who works with Transportation Minister Judith Reid in photo above) and David Basi (with B.C. Finance Minister Gary Collins) are related by marriage and are among Indo-Canadian Liberal activists who also happen to support federal minister Paul Martin. [The Feds just finished increasing the penalties for growing marijuana which experts all conclude served only to raise the value of the natural herb; particularly in the US where the drug is traded pound for pound for cocaine]

What began 20 months ago as a joint RCMP-Victoria police investigation into the sale of B.C. marijuana in the U.S. has ballooned into a massive police probe that reaches into the highest ranks of the provincial Liberal party.

Details are slowly beginning to emerge about an investigation that has already involved some of the biggest names in provincial and federal politics, including the husband of Deputy Premier Christy Clark.

While some of those involved so far are well-known Liberal activists at provincial and federal levels, Ward stressed the parties themselves are not under investigation at the moment.

Ward said an investigation was launched by police in the spring of 2002 into the involvement of organized crime in the sale of B.C.-grown marijuana in the U.S. in exchange for cocaine, which was then re-sold in Canada.

But in the course of its investigation, Ward said, police came across evidence of other crimes -- which led to Sunday's raid on the offices of two ministerial assistants at the legislature.

"As a result of our drug investigation into organized crime, other information came to light and another investigation was begun," Ward said.

Both Basi and Virk were political appointees given their jobs by cabinet.

Basi is a prominent organizer for provincial and federal Liberal parties and is a well known supporter of Minister Paul Martin.

The legislature was just one of several premises searched by the RCMP and Victoria police during the weekend.

Also searched was the home office of Mark Marissen, husband of Deputy Premier Christie Clark, and Pilothouse Public Affairs Group, a private lobbying firm doing business in Victoria and Vancouver.

Marissen, who is a long-time supporter of Paul Martin confirmed Monday that police visited his home, where he operates Burrard Communications, his personal business.

Marissen, who was Martin's campaign chairman in B.C. and will now lead the federal election campaign here, would not comment on the ramifications to the federal Liberal party of key insiders being drawn into the scandal.

He said only that the B.C. chapter of the party "has to figure out what our next steps are."

While her husband talked to police Sunday, Clark said she "has not been questioned or interviewed".

Also raided over the weekend were the two offices of Pilothouse Public Affairs Group.

Pilothouse's two directors are Brian Kieran and Erik Bornman.

Kieran has an office in Victoria while Bornman works out of his home in Vancouver.

According to Pilothouse's Web site, Bornman has more than "a decade of political experience inside both the B.C. Liberal party and the Liberal party of Canada."

"I've been made aware of the concerns that these circumstances have raised. I don't fully understand all the issues, and at this time I am simply trying to collect further information that I will be discussing with our advisers," said Bornman, who worked as an aide for Martin when the "prime minister" was finance minister.

Bornman is currently communications director for the B.C. chapter of the federal Liberal party.

RCMP Sgt. John Ward said nine search warrants were executed on Sunday. Ward said the information that police presented to the courts to obtain the search warrants has been sealed.

While no arrests have been made in connection with the weekend raids, Ward said nine people -- three in Toronto and six in Victoria and Vancouver -- were arrested "about 10 days ago" in connection with the sale of marijuana.

Victoria police chief Paul Battershill confirmed the drug investigation is connected to the suspension with pay on Dec. 15 of Victoria police Constable Ravinder Dosanjh.

Battershill said there is an "indirect relationship" between the suspended officer and either Virk or Basi.

The drug probe is targeting a suspected influential Victoria trafficker related to Victoria Police Officer Dosanjh.

The alleged trafficker is also a relative of a Vancouver resident who has worked on provincial and federal Liberal campaigns and was involved in Martin's B.C. campaign.

Speaking by phone from Maui, Hawaii, Premier Gordon Campbell said he is concerned about the investigation and the taint it could have on his government.

"Obviously it's troubling to everyone," he said.

Campbell said he has every confidence in Collins and Reid and doesn't believe they need to return to B.C. from their vacations, as the NDP [Themselves decimated in the last election for their own numerous brushes with criminal activities involving high level Ministries] allegedly "demanded".

Coleman said he didn't think the raid would damage "his consistent message about getting tough on crime". [That would lower the price of the bud after all]

Ward guessed that the province's marijuana industry alone is worth about $6 billion a year. A figure which reflex the self-serving policies produced by both the police and various levels of federal and provincial governments which experts admit only serves to make the product highly lucrative to organized crime. See link for related story

Over two dozen officers -- including uniformed Victoria police and plainclothes RCMP -- were involved in Sunday's search of the legislature.

The officers took several hours to search the large offices of Collins and Reid, and the smaller offices of their entire staff, before emerging with nearly three dozen large cardboard boxes that needed an entire [white] van to carry.

Vancouver lawyer William Berardino has once again been appointed "an independent special prosecutor" in the case, which is a common procedure when criminal investigations may involve politicians. This makes cover up easier, when you have a 'go to guy' we can rely on - said a crown source who wished to remain anonymous.

Police Chief Battershill said the investigation is "likely to take several months".

"We're in for a lengthy investigation," he said. "It will take several months to develop before the entire file is presented to the special prosecutor."

Basi and Virk are important political appointees, hired directly by the Campbell cabinet. Both are key Liberal Party insiders. Both had input into some of the most sensitive and important files in government.

As Collins' right-hand man, Basi was involved in critical budget preparations. Collins is also the government house leader, making Basi a central steward of the Liberals' legislative agenda as well.

Make no mistake: Dave Basi was one of the most important, well-connected and ambitious staffers in the legislature. The raid on his office and seizure of his personal files is a devastating blow to the Campbell government (not to mention the federal Liberal Party, where he was also an important power player in B.C.)

Virk was less influential than Basi, but he was a key government contact for one of Campbell's most controversial policy initiatives: the privatization of B.C. Rail.

Significantly, it was also revealed yesterday that the Vancouver office of lobbyist Erik Bornman was raided. Bornman is listed in the government's official lobbyist registry as a "representative of an American railroad company" that had sought control of B.C. Rail.

Police sources had suggested that much of the trade of BC Marijuana is done via train, where off loading of product is done in remote areas only accessible by train and four wheel drive vehicles or helicopter

Liberal tried to 'sway' police - May 16/07
RCMP told that charges against aides would embarrass party, defence tells corruption trial

The head of the B.C. Liberal party told police in 2005 he didn't want charges laid against senior aides to Liberal cabinet ministers because it would be embarrassing for the party, a defence lawyer alleged Tuesday.

The politically explosive defence allegation, which suggests the party weighed in on an active police investigation, is the latest bombshell to emerge at the pre-trial proceedings of three former government aides. They're accused of fraud, breach of trust and money laundering in connection with the government's controversial $1-billion privatization sale of BC Rail four years ago. [Click headline for full story]

RCMP think they are above the law, and provide defence key to defending corrupt politician.

VANCOUVER -- The RCMP inadvertently eavesdropped on a private conversation between B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and then-finance minister Gary Collins in 2003, B.C. Supreme Court was told yesterday.

The RCMP had sought the wiretap in November 2003 to monitor the conversations of David Basi, Collins' former top adviser. At the time, Basi was the subject of a police drug investigation that eventually resulted in a police raid of the legislature.

But, according to Basi's lawyer, Kevin McCullough, he found out that police ended up listening in on Campbell and Collins -- likely because Collins used Basi's phone, something he said is a common practice in politics. McCullough
made the revelations in court yesterday, where Basi is fighting charges of influence-peddling to help a company mount a $1-billion bid for the publicly owned B.C. Rail.

McCullough said the premier and Collins never knew the phone was tapped. No details of the conversation were given and neither the premier nor Collins were ever suspects in the case.

But McCullough used the incident to take aim at the RCMP, who he accused of doing a poor job of disclosing evidence that he needs -- and is entitled to -- to mount a defence.

The defence is alleging "significant errors" have "plagued the disclosure" of evidence in the prosecution of the once-influential Liberal insider Basi, along with Bobby Virk and Aneal Basi.

McCullough also alleged yesterday that after being refused twice by the courts for permission to tap a B.C. government cellphone, the RCMP pushed through a third request in 2003 by not telling the judge the phone was actually registered at the legislature.

In their first two tries to have Basi's government phone wiretapped, investigators were stymied by two judges on the grounds it would impinge on "parliamentary privilege" because a ministerial phone was involved, said McCullough. But on the third try, McCullough said, the RCMP changed the address on the wiretap application from the legislature to another address. He said they never told the judge their previous wiretap requests had been turned down by the court.

In another revelation, which the defence said it only learned about after months of requests, McCullough revealed the RCMP met with then-Speaker Claude Richmond in a hangar at the Kamloops airport. They wanted to explain the reasons for the raid on the legislature and Richmond asked for a written note, court documents show.

The RCMP had to get permission for the legislature raid from RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zacardelli. The defence wants to see his correspondence. The defence is also arguing it should be allowed into the RCMP's "Project Room" to inventory tens of thousands of pages of documents and wiretap transcripts.

It also argues it didn't receive an inventory of the evidence and that evidence has been "misfiled" or overlooked, making it difficult to mount a defence.

Victoria police officer Ravinder (Rob) Singh Dosanjh has been found guilty of obstruction of justice in a case linked to the December 2003 police raids on the B.C. legislature.

In North Vancouver provincial court yesterday, Judge Carol Baird Ellan found Dosanjh counselled his cousin to lie about the ownership of $35,000 in suspected drug money found in his cousin's home during an undercover operation. He dismissed claims by Dosanjh that his taped telephone conversation with his cousin Mandeep Sandhu on Dec. 9, 2003, was an attempt to console him and give him "false hope" that he would get the money back.

The conversation came after police raided Sandhu's home earlier that day and confiscated the cash and three ounces of marijuana.

According to evidence, Victoria police had suspected Sandhu of being a drug dealer since the late 1990s, and friends within the department had warned Dosanjh -- who was on the force 13 years -- to stay away from his younger cousin. By early 2003, the police department came to fear that Dosanjh was leaking information to Sandhu and set up an undercover operation with the assistance of the RCMP's anti-corruption unit.

That operation led to the December 2003 raid. A drug charge laid against Sandhu as a result of the raid has since been stayed.

After hearing about the verdict yesterday, Victoria police Chief Paul Battershill said that members of the force "are sad for Rob and his family. He was well regarded here."

But, he added: "There's also some realization that the department was able to deal with it properly when it came to our attention."

Dosanjh, who was suspended without pay from the Victoria police department in January 2005, still faces a Police Act investigation, which will eventually be reviewed by the police complaint commissioner.

"The police act has to proceed because of his employment status," said Battershill. "He's still technically a police officer."

According to the judge, although Dosanjh was given a dozen opportunities to feed false information to his cousin and other associates, there was no indication Dosanjh crossed the line.

The investigation wound down in the fall of 2003, but wiretaps were still in place on both Sandhu and Dosanjh's phones. The wiretaps captured their conversation concerning the raid on Sandhu's home.

A transcript shows Dosanjh asking his cousin if the police found anything. Sandhu tells him they found more than $30,000 in cash. Dosanjh tells Sandhu he shouldn't have kept the money at home and tells him to say it belonged to his father. He later advises Sandhu to say it belongs to his uncle or to say he'd been saving it up over the years.

Ellan said it was clear from the conversation that "Dosanjh believed the cash was proceeds of crime."

"At the end of the conversation, Dosanjh left Sandhu armed with advice that if accepted and acted upon would obstruct justice," said the judge.

Dosanjh left the courthouse yesterday with tearful family members. He told reporters he had nothing to say.

The investigation of Dosanjh and Sandhu was part of a large police probe that also led to the Dec. 28, 2003, police raids on the legislature after which drug charges were laid against several people. Those were followed by breach of trust charges against former ministerial aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk, whose offices at the legislature were searched. Their trial date has been delayed until December.

Note in below story, paragraph 6 (six) that Const. Dosanjh can still remain on the job as a Victoria Police Officer, despite a criminal conviction.

Solicitor general resigns amid police probe - Friday, March 28, 2008
News of land deal investigation came as "rude surprise," John Les says; questions about his actions while mayor of Chilliwack
Jeff Rud, Times Colonist

B.C. Solicitor General John Les resigned his cabinet post last night, shortly after news broke that an independent special prosecutor has been investigating his actions while mayor of Chilliwack.

The province's Criminal Justice Branch released an early-evening statement saying that special prosecutor Robin McFee has been examining whether Les "improperly benefited from any commercial transactions involving land developers." [full report]

Les has connections throughout the secretive police syndicate, heavily controlled by masons, so don't expect him to be convicted of anything substantial. His own "special prosecutor" is a fellow mason, and it is exactly for these situations that they set up the "special prosecutor" system, so as to control the flow of evidence behind a trusted wall of exclusivity and secrecy. His resignation is merely a formality of the political process, and will also allow him to steer the investigation from a safe distance.