All the News, that's -
Well......NEWS!

BC Mary recently stated over at the bible of all things BC Rail related that -

I've found more BC news in the past week, since discovering Terrace daily online -- THAN I HAVE IN THE PAST 5 YEARS OF READING THE 3 CANWEST DAILY NEWSPAPERS IN VANCOUVER & VICTORIA.

In an e-mail to me she later elaborated as follows:

It was a pleasant surprise to discover that besides TERRACE DAILY ONLINE, there's also KITIMAT ONLINE DAILY telling the news we should be hearing. Maybe there are other small, local news services like this which are keen to get their real stories out. To my way of thinking, it raises a new possibility for restoring British Columbia to good health.


Is it possible that we should be building a province-wide News Network instead of trying to revitalize one of the old political parties or trying to create a new political party? I'm hoping that some of you will agree. Then comes the hard part: organization. And after that, the local expertise to keep the news coming.


Already this week, these gentle little online services have told us important things we didn't know: that Gordo is implicated in buying off the Haisla on BC Hydro; that Alcan's Kemano project may soon be only an IPP power supply and not a smelter; and that when EuroCan shuts down, it will enrich the riding of the Forest Minister Pat Bell.

Considering the fact that this blog and her Legislature Raids were both started as a response to the frustration about the cone of silence that Canwest and the other so-called media in our province had lowered over the entire BC Rail issue, it shouldn't be surprising that she, and I, are gratified to find media that do recognize and report on these issues. She suggests some kind of network that incorporates these humble but "real" journalistic outlets, their readers and we of the blogosphere, to help counteract the toxic influence of the Asper and Public Affairs Bureau controlled "Lame Stream" media represented by Canwest/Global, CTVGlobemedia and all the rest who treat the Fraser Institute as relevant.

I've started a new category over to the right in my Links section, currently named "Genuine Newspapers." This section is for newspapers, often community based, that consider the issues affecting their readers more important than the latest Asper/PAB talking points memo and have someone wiser than Kirk LaPointe or Lucinda Chodan making the decisions about just what qualifies as news.

I invite readers to submit suggestions regarding other media outlets that remember the press can and should be an important part of democratic society. Canwest and Black affiliates most likely need not apply!


Recently in Real Papers

Is It Kemano Completion Time?

The only possible multi billion dollar investment, if that is what is coming, would be to do with the Kemano hydro electric power generation facilities. On Friday the BC Wilderness Committee released a news item on the BC Provincial Government ordering BC Hydro to purchase more power from private independent producers, 6000 gigawatt hours.

Government Orders Hydro to Buy Power

Requiring BC Hydro to purchase power that it doesn’t need is an idiotic decision and a gift to the private power industry. Three months ago, the BCUC said buying this power was not in the public interest, and yet the BC government is ignoring their own regulatory watchdog and ordering BC Hydro to spend billions of dollars on power we don’t need.

Kitimaat Offices Searched

BC Premier Gordon Campbell was implicated in the trial when Wilson acknowledged writing him a letter claiming he fulfilled his part of their conspiratorial arrangement to keep the Haisla from interfering with the electricity purchase agreement between Alcan and BC Hydro during the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) hearings.

Wilson also admitted the signature of the highest Haisla Hereditary Chief supporting Alcan in the BCUC application was a fake and the stamp used to fake his authorization was improperly used.

If the RCMP have now raided the Kitamaat Village Council offices; a BC legislative assembly, and if this has anything to do with Steve Wilson and the alleged fraudulent deal he had made with BC Premier Gordon Campbell, the entire Haisla First Nations Trial, which resumes Monday, may be a small precursor to the BC Rail sale to CN Rail 'Fraud trial', which resulted after the BC Provincial Legislature was raided.

Are the political leaders of BC really involved in corrupt, fraudulent activity? We will continue to dig and report on what turns up. We have been informed the RCMP wish to keep this quiet as their investigation is ongoing. The Haisla community consists of only approximately 750 people. Quiet is unlikely.

Lawyer Starts Laughing in Haisla Trial

During the arguments being made as to whether or not an aboriginal elder could provide testimony on the culture and traditions of their first nation group, which would be considered as expert by the Court in making decisions, the lawyer for the Plaintiffs (Steve Wilson and the Kitamaat Village Council), Roger McConchie, burst out laughing after the Judge, Justice Punnett stated his friend, the lawyer for the Defense, Daniel Burnett, “Just wants to establish that [the court] existed.”

It was a classic case of theater watching this lawyer belittle all of the attempts to legitimize the Hereditary Chiefs and the aboriginal culture in a Canadian Court.

Justice Punnett even seemed amused as he chuckled along. He also, however, had to acknowledge the antics of McConchie continuing to jump up and object every time the defense team, Morris Amos and Burnett, started to ask a question or the witness on the stand began to answer, were becoming obstructive to the process

Lumber Giants Don't Like CN Anymore?

Now let’s see, these mills are complaining about a monopoly by CN rail but yet, want to have the government create one for them? That’s double speak operating at its finest.

It’s rather strange that a few rag tags with no lumber experience could see through the plan that CN put forward and the Liberal government tripped through its shorts to okay, but lumber barons who earn a million dollars a year couldn’t see the future. All the more reason that they shouldn’t be put in charge of our forests.

Eurocan Closing - Blow to the Entire North

Eurocan was not getting sufficient chips to enable it to operate efficiently, bearing in mind that the Port of Prince Rupert has been the area from which a lot of raw, round logs, are being exported . There are ships full of product heading out of the country to be milled overseas and there is little that either Eurocan, the Province or for that matter the federal government could do about it.

These local papers usually have engaged comment threads following articles dealing with items of local interest. It is illuminating to read comments by people involved and affected by the decisions of the Campbell Crime Family. By the time comments have passed the gamut of the Chodans and LaPointes of Canwest, there generally isn't much left but more of the same. Getting a letter published in the dead tree version of the Times-Colonist or Vancouver Sun may be more difficult than having an article published is for their (choke) professional journalists - of course we readers don't have the advantage of a Ms. Chodan or Mr. LaPointe pointing out what we are supposed to say (and not say)!

A Message
from Mary

Gordo packing for his Holiday Trip to Maui
early December 2003
BC Mary left the following comment on my last post here last night:

I went back to my place and checked out two of the most significant reports:

* There was time to destroy evidence before the raid, posted Jan. 16, 2008.

* Ken Dobell went through Cabinet files before police, posted May 15, 2008.

It's important and it's shocking.

Posted by BC Mary to House of Infamy
at Monday, September 21, 2009 8:50:00 PM PDT

I can only second her assertion that it is important and shocking. Well it maybe not so shocking to anyone who has been paying attention to the farce that has unfolded since the infamous Sunday afternoon raid on the Legislature during the Christmas Season of 2003. The shocking thing is how little attention the Assperson media that with the help of the Public Affairs Bureau controls the flow of information (and mis-information) in British Columbia has paid to the ongoing obfuscation, delay and apparent obstruction of justice that seems to be directed from the CEO premier's office.

It may be helpful for anyone with an interest and concern for our province to go back to the posts Mary mentions in her comment and I will make it easy for those who can't find the time or energy to search her archives or type URLs into the address bar of their browser.

* There was time to destroy evidence before the raid, posted Jan. 16, 2008.

This post is about some information brought forward by 3 Concerned Canadians and the CBC in 2004, before the CBC apparently joined the Assperson Media Monster in trying to ignore the entire issue. Here is an excerpt, but I recommend a trip to Mary's to read the rest.

During the month of December 2003, key people in the B.C. legislature knew that an unprecedented police raid was coming. The public ever since has been asked to assume that the Campbell government and staff sat meekly for 28 days, doing nothing to protect themselves. We question that assumption, in the light of the Special Prosecutor's continuing refusal or inability to disclose documents required by the Basi, Virk, Basi Defence.

Dec. 1, 2003 - B. C. Attorney General Geoff Plant is told by his staff that a case requires the appointment of a special prosecutor and may involve a search of the B.C. legislature.

Dec. 7, 2003 - Mandeep Sandhu is elected to the executive of the Liberals in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.

Dec. 9, 2003 - Police raid Mandeep Sandhu's home in Saanich. Police question Sandhu and seize a computer. Sandhu is later released. No charges are laid.

Dec. 11, 2003 - William Berardino is appointed special prosecutor to oversee an investigation involving a member of the Victoria police and appointees at the legislature.

From: IN DEPTH - B.C. RAIDS. CBC News Online, Sept 14,2004. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bcraids/

* Ken Dobell went through Cabinet files before police, posted May 15, 2008.

This post is based on a rare Assperson published article critical of der Fuhrer Campbell by Michael Smyth, that was published in the Province. A year later, approaching the election, Smythe and the other Assperson drones weren't apparently allowed to publish anything that could bring attention to the duplicity and out right dis-honesty of Assper's white-haired boy from the West Side!

The shocking 2003 raid on the legislature created a bizarre and unprecedented situation for the police, prosecutors, politicians and parliamentarians.

Bashing down the door of a crack house or grow-op is one thing. But this was the legislature, the centre of our democracy, the people's house.

....../snip
The revelation that Dobell reviewed several of the most crucial cabinet documents in the case before releasing them to the police is mind-boggling. He was not covered by the Supreme Court protocol. He did not sign the undertaking not to discuss the evidence.

"This could jeopardize the trial," NDP justice critic Leonard Krog, who revealed Dobell's involvement, told me yesterday.

Now Krog has written to the deputy commissioner of the RCMP asking for a separate investigation into the Dobell bombshell.

The documents that Dobell reviewed were to be used by the police to conduct interviews with former cabinet ministers Gary Collins and Judith Reid and three senior bureaucrats, Krog notes.

"Mr. Dobell . . . at no time swore an undertaking not to disclose information about those documents and the use the RCMP intended to make of them," Krog wrote yesterday to RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass.

"Mr. Dobell, due to his unique position in the government, had greater day-to-day access to all the parties to the RCMP interviews than almost anyone in government.

"Given the gravity of the implications of these facts, I ask that the RCMP begin a separate criminal investigation immediately." {Snip} ...

I can't read these blasts from the past without being reminded of another seemingly immune "insider," namely Patrick Kinsella, who it seems could run two dozen gigantic grow ops with immunity because of his magical privilege and right to privacy, even when engaged in the public's business. During (in)Justice Bennett's last shameful performance down at the Erickson designed House of Mirrors at Robson and Smithe, she did rule that

"Kinsella’s lawyer had violated a court order not to provide access to transcripts of earlier hearings in the case and ordered that a list of the people who got access to the transcripts be released."

This being in direct violation of court protocol since Mr. Kinsella (Secret Agent for Gordon Campbell, BC Rail and CN and God knows who else) is almost guaranteed to be called as a witness, IF the Basi, Virk, Basi affair ever actually comes to trial.

Happy New Year
2004

Vancouver Sun - Friday, January 2, 2004

During the normally quiet days between Christmas 2003 and New Year's 2004, British Columbian's were stunned to watch the RCMP and the Victoria Police spend Sunday afternoon executing a search warrant on the Legislature and spend most of the day carting boxes and boxes of files and hard drives out of the offices of the Ministries of Finance and Transportation. As this was such an unprecedented event in the history of western democracies, the PR firms disguised as media could hardly ignore what had happened and GlowBall (or was it still CTV then?) and the local papers all covered the spectacle. The very first edition of the Vancouver Sun for 2004, published on Friday, January 2, (shown above) published twenty-seven questions in white letters on a black background. The question today, almost six years later, is whether ANY of these questions have been answered yet.

Here are the questions, and my thoughts on some of them.

The 27 Questions for British Columbians

1. What triggered this investigation?
   
   I keep thinking it must have been Chief Battershill, because the way they've been obfuscating ever since, it is not likely it was initiated by the RCMP! And it appears that Chief Battershill paid for his efforts to perform his duty to the people of BC and Victoria with his career.
   
   
2. How closely linked is the drug investigation led by federal prosecutor Robert Prior to the investigation led by special prosecutor William Berardino?
   
   This is territory that little attention has be given to in the last few years, indeed I didn't realize Wild Bill was "special" before the raids!
   
   
3. What if anything is the link between drugs, organized or commercial crime to staff in the B.C. legislature?
   
   Does the rigged auction of BC Rail count as commercial crime and how about members of the B. C. Legislature rather than staff?
   
   
   
4. To the federal Liberal party?
   
   
   
5. Who are the nine people recently arrested and why have none of them been charged?
   
   People had been arrested already by Friday?
   
   
6. What premises were searched on Sunday?
   
   Let's see, wasn't it Mark Marissen/Christy Clark's? and maybe Pilot House, but who knows for sure
   
   
7. Who was arrested Sunday and then released?
   
   Was anybody? Who would have been at the office on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's?
   
   
8. Have other arrests been made?
   
   None of the appropriate people, so far!
   
   
9. Were other search warrants executed prior to Sunday's action?
   
   As I recall there were, and also a couple of "polite requests" were made to "important" individuals, too special to serve search warrants on.
   
   
10. Have any criminal charges been laid in either investigation?
    
    Eventually three minor fall guys were charged.
    
    
11. If so, when and against whom?
    
    Basi, Basi and Virk, almost a year later
    
    
12. Does the government know more than the public is being told?
    
    DUH!
    
    
13. How is the suspension of Victoria police officer Ravinder Dosanjh linked to this investigation?
    
    I don't know, you tell me!
    
    
14. Why would RCMP spokesman Sergeant John Ward choose a press conference on the raids at the legislature to say that "organized crime is a cancer eating away at the social and moral fabric of British Columbia"?
    
    Maybe to divert attention from the real issues and actual (as yet un-indicted) criminals?
    
    
15. Does the fact so many individuals have connections to the BC Rail deal mean anything?
    
    Again .......DUH!!!
    
    
16. Has the investigation uncovered evidence that government policies or decisions may have been illegally or inappropriately affected?
    
    It seems likely, but disclosure seems to be a foreign concept in the BC (in)Justice System
    
    
17. Were phones at the legislature or politicians' private phone lines tapped?
    
    Basi's cell, at least...........
    
    
18. Are there connections to Indo-Canadian gangs?
    
    Is/was Basi connected to Indo-Canadian gangs, other than by blood to his Indo-Canadian cousin who was recently sentenced to a long stretch in prison for being the king-pin of the Island drug trade -(almost secretly, as no one would have heard about this without the diligence of BC Mary).
    
    
19. Other criminal groups?
    
    Does the Gordon Campbell government count?
    
    
20. Does it mean anything that so many of the individuals have links to the federal Liberal party, Prime Minister Paul Martin's organizing team in B.C. and his leadership campaign?
    
    Nobody seems to want to go there (or anywhere, really)!
    
    
21. Why did a 20-month investigation come to a head on a Sunday between Christmas and New Year's?
    
    Perhaps somebody thought nobody would notice, they would all be home celebrating with family? Or perhaps the cops needed some super overtime to pay for Christmas? OK I give up, you tell me!
    
    
22. Why was Dave Basi fired and Bob Virk only suspended?
    
    This one always puzzled me, especially since Mr. CampBULL and his chief of staff knew NOTHING!
    
    
23. Why would the government fire someone who has not been charged with any crime?
    
    This is the same as 22, just worded differently, and I still don't know the answer.
    
    
24. Have the province's $28-billion operations been compromised?
    
    The whole province has been compromised since the Campbelloids came to power, so yes!
    
    
25. How long will this investigation cast a shadow over B.C.?
    
    Almost six years so far AND COUNTING!
    
    
26. With so many unanswered questions, can the citizens of this province be confident in the government's ability to function effectively?
    
    I'm not, how about you - have you noticed how on top of things Ida Chong and Colon Handsome Sneer are looking lately? But that was sure a nice 1/2 million dollar party in Richmond earlier this year, sorry I wasn't invited.
    
    
27. Will this affair adversely affect the province's economy and reputation?
    
    What reputation - as the leading banana republic north of Nicaragua?
    
    

After publishing this eye-catching edition and asking the questions above, the drones of Canned Waste soon lost all interest in the Legislature Raids and the subsequent, still ongoing by fits and starts, kafkaesque legal farce that may or may not actually lead to a trial someday. Herr CEO Campbell has been re-elected twice with this cloud hanging over the head of him and his government. Of course with the help of the tax-payer funded propaganda machine, the Public Affairs Bureau, and the Liberal Campaign Firm otherwise known as CanWest/Global, this has joined all other important issues in BC as being irrelevant and unmentioned, especially during election campaigns.

If anyone has any answers to any of the questions above, please tell me about them in the comments. One reason I numbered them (they were un-numbered in the Sun) was to make it easier for folks to respond to individual questions, if they so chose. More recently it seems to me someone came up with a list of eighty some questions regarding this affair, and those too seem to be mostly unanswered. I really think the citizens of British Columbia deserve better and it is long past time for the Campbell Crime Family to live up to its claims of transparency and co-operate with the courts in disclosing information and complying with court orders for disclosure. It would also be nice to try and stop destroying potential evidence in a criminal case, it should go without saying.

 
 
 
Click on image at left to see the complete front page with other articles and advertisements.

Good Bye and
Good Riddance

When it was announced, shortly after our imaginary/issue free election that Justice Elizabeth Bennett was to be elevated to the BC Court of Appeal and the Patrick Dohm was of the opinion that not only did she have to abandon the ongoing travesty of justice that has been the BC Rail Trial but that he already had her replacement all picked out, I thought it was just one more affront to the people of BC. It had all the earmarks of an election victory gift from Stevie Harper to his brother in the neo-con blood, Gordo the Greedy.

But after the second ruling in a row that makes Bennett appear to be representing the interests of Mr. Kinsella more than those of justice or the people of BC I find it hard to discount the notion that no new judge could do worse on this case. My only thought about incoming Justice MacKenzie is that with her background in family (not criminal) law, her talents might be better utilized in sorting out our dear leder's complex family matrix, than a complicated case involving alleged criminal acts and complex business dealings after five years of evidence accumulating in the fashion of Chinese Water Torture.

Patrick Kinsella - about 100 years ago
photo - probably originally black and white and colourized by hand

I find it fascinating how shadowy are certain major players in the ongoing crime spree that we refer to as the BC liaR administration. Searching online for pictures of people like Lara Dauphinee, Ken Dobell, (in)Justice Elizabeth Bennett and Patrick Kinsella yield little or nothing. I have only seen three pictures published of Mr. Kinsella and unless I go to court (Appeal Court now) I will never have any idea what Elizabeth Bennett looks like. Earlier this spring we all went batty trying to find a photo of the elusive, but influential, Lara Dauphinee, apparently the true first lady of BC, both politically and in the black heart of Herr DickTater Gord. For this post though, maybe the photo of Mr. Kinsella at Hastings Park racetrack would have been more appropriate as it would be symbolic of the perfect tri-fecta that seems to be Mr. Kinsella.

There appears to be no doubt that Mr. Kinsella has worked for the Liberal Party of BC and Gordo the Greedball, BC Rail AND CN. Indeed the only question is did he actually work for all three or two of the above at the same time? It is accepted and not even denied that he ran the Gord campaigns in 2001 and 2005, and there is little doublt that he received $6,000 per month for almost three years from BC Rail for ???? Then in documents that have been painfully extracted through the constipated process that is disclosure in this trial there are numerous references to a relationship between CN and Mr. Kinsella. It seems very likely that we have here a double-or-triple dipper and what would appear to be an extremely high probability of conflict of interest SOMEWHERE. It is virtually indisputable that there is reasonable perception possible of conflict of interest - the threshold for further investigation in jurisdictions that are not banana republics with tin-pot dictators.

So for Justice Bennett to say (as Keith Fraser points out in the Province)

.... that the defence had produced nothing to prove that Kinsella played a major, political role in the sale.

is patently absurd after she had previously denied the defence the right to cross examine him. What would be sufficient to justify making him answer questions or produce documentation (both of which would erase the cloud of suspicion surrounding him, if indeed it is not deserved)? Would it be necessary to catch him, red handed, cashing pay cheques from the Liberally Lying Pary of BC, BC Rail AND CN at the same time. It is pretty hard to prove anything if you can't see any evidence or ask any questions of anyone in a position to know any answers. Of course then there is the issue of whether an oath means anything at all to people at a certain level of entitlelment and privilege.

From even deeper in Alice's rabbit hole, (according to the CTV website)

In her ruling, Justice Elizabeth Bennett said, "a third party has no legal obligation to assist an accused."

In just eleven words Madame Justice Liz manages to obfuscate, mislead and I think turn reality and justice on its head in more ways than I have the time to even contemplate. For starters the trial of Basi, Virk and Basi is ALL ABOUT the BC Rail deal, no matter how much Gordon Campbell would like us to believe otherwise. Mr. Kinsella AT THE VERY LEAST was consulting (or something!) for BC Rail during the time under examination here and BC RAIL WAS A PUBLIC ASSET at that time. Justice and the court system though framed in an adversarial process is SUPPOSED to be about truth and justice, and aside from the fact that I think it is a stretch to refer to Mr. Kinsella as a "third party" in this case, to testify or produce documents that even Justice Bennett herself at one time considered "likely relevant" is hardly "assisting the accused" as much as an effort to get at the truth of what happened. If the truth happens to help the defendants so be it. Of course the "Special Prosecutor" is supposed to represent the interests of the people of BC, not just the Premier of BC. We have to pay for all of the highly paid lawyers in this pretend trial/pre-trial so far - it would certainly seem only fair if AT LEAST ONE of them represented the interests of the public.

As Robin Matthews, the only person often in the courthouse for these hearings with the interests of the people of BC at heart, recently stated at BC Mary's, after Madame (in)Justice Bennett denied the defence request to cross-examine Mr. Kinsella:

In this case she might say the highly active Liberal, the clearly involved cabinet policy associate, the person employed to advise B.C. Rail, the twice election campaign manager for the Gordon Campbell forces cannot be deemed a private citizen in ordinary terms. To name him that would be an absurdity that no reasonable Canadian could accept.

So Goodbye Lizzie, don't let the door.........you know how it goes!

Omnivore...
OmniTRAX ™

Omnitrax was in the news this morning, in the Kootenays at least. It seems that Omnitrax ("the largest privately held rail services company in North America" - source),wants to pull rail service from Grand Forks. This is being resisted by the town, but usually the railroad eventually gets it way. It gets to remove service AND keep any gifts of real estate that were originally given to encourage the development of rail service. Anyone paying attention has seen this process happen to community after community at terrible cost to the local economy and the planet's evironmental health.

In Grand Forks the loss of rail cars to connect to anywhere in North America will most likely result in the closure of the slag processing industry that cleans up old smelter waste from what was once "the largest non-ferrous copper smelter in the British Empire" providing local jobs and income at the same time. The old slag is processed to be used for abrasive products, sandblasting applications, and granules to coat asphalt shingles. To ship the current output would put 4,000 semi's on the secondary highway at greater cost both financially and in carbon emissions. The loss of service would have a negative effect on shipping forest products when demand returns for these south of the border.


Kettle Falls International Railway
At a time when we shouldn't be tearing out old railroad infrastructure, but building more to move goods and people, those running government and the corporate elite (the same crowd, eh?) only see the short term profits to be made by real estate development of the associated right of ways and switching yards. Omnitrax, "an affiliate of The Broe Companies (www.broe.com)," says on its website that it has a vision concerning:

"We are an active buyer and manager of transportation-related assets, and we assist industry in site selection--ensuring multiple transportation options that create long-term value"

And in the Central Valley of California, they brag of this project:

An example of our innovative approach to business development is the creation of Eco Transport, a container-on-barge service and satellite container terminal that links importers and exporters in the Central Valley of California with major West Coast ports. The project anticipates removing over one million truck trips from the highway system, reducing traffic congestion and harmful air emissions.

But here in the colonies, Omnitrax wants to remove trains and ADD TRUCKS to often already inadequate and poorly maintained highways. Just as CP has pulled out of much of Southern BC, leaving a legacy of shopping malls and condos, courtesy of Marathon (and Gordon Campbell - erstwhile Marathon Man), Omnitrax will gravitate to the profit centers and leave the rest of Canada to move their goods by dogsled or canoe, if necessary.

Just a couple weeks ago the CBC had this news item, about Omnitrax wanting to abandon a line serving northwest Saskatchewan.

Last fall, the Carlton Trail Railway, owned by OmniTRAX Inc., announced it would be decommissioning the rail line, tearing up the track that links Meadow Lake to Prince Albert.

That's about 320 kilometres of line running through 12 communities.

It was bad news for Meadow Lake's struggling forest industry, which used the rail line to transport its product. The local group started negotiating with the company to purchase the rail line.

Who Is Pat Broe?

Pat Broe is the founder and head cheese of the Broe Group.

Real Estate Transportation & Energy Investment Development

* Diversified value investor
* Buyer & builder of businesses
* Focused on asset based companies

We acquire, develop and manage commercial real estate assets, own and operate diverse transportation businesses centered on rail, maritime and terminal management, and explore natural resources--all as independent business platforms. Each has its own dynamic growth strategy. Over the last 35 years, we’ve built a multi-billion dollar asset base and a world-class management team through direct investment in and development of each of these business groups.

Putting Pat Broe into the search box over at BC Mary's Legislature Raids might make you think that Mr. Broe is pretty well connected in B.C. for a guy from Denver. Omnitrax is of course one of the elephants that hangs out in the courtroom down at Robson and Smithe. Omnitrax, the rail division of Broe Group, that excels perhaps in closing rail lines (to make real estate development possible?) and pretending to be in auctions for other railroads (ie BC Rail) in return for "consolation" railroads. The consolation railroad, with no trains, is happily being run by a feller making approximately a cool 1/2 Billion per annum - think what he would have to be paid if he actually had to run some trains!

Omnitrax seemed to be quite involved in the RCMP surveilled dinner at Villa Del Lupo and appears to have retained the infamous Pilot House Lobbying group to promote its agenda in British Columbia. It seems to this hickster in the sticks that Mr. Broe and Mister Campbell are just two birds of a feather flocking together to line their nests even plusher than they already have been lined.

An Affiliate of the Broe Group, OmniTRAX ™ also has the unique capability of offering customers specialized industrial development and real estate opportunities, both on and off the OmniTRAX ™ rail network

B.C's Own
Rose Mary Woods?

Nixon had Rose Mary
....Gordo has Rosemarie

Back in 1973, after enjoying a landslide victory in the election of 1972, Richard Nixon found himself increasingly cornered by the constant drip of Watergate allegations, evidence and questions. Although the botched burglaries that started it all had happened before the election the previous fall, CREEP (Nixon's appropriately named re-election committee) had managed to keep the whole incident from becoming an election issue.

This is reminiscent of our recent spring election where Gordo the Greedy and his Gang of Co-conspirators managed to keep almost all relevant issues from having any effect on their re-election, with the apparent collaboration of the supposed opposition NDP. The true state of the economy, the true nature of Campbell's environmental exploitation policies, fish farms, ruin of the river projects and the dictatorship imposed by Bill 30's removal of any sort of local input or control of development were not as important as Carole James' inability to pick a day with good weather to take reporters for a small plane flight, or the hand of an NDP candidate on the clothed breast of a friend in a private photo were much more relevant to the Canned Waste/Glow Ball media enablers, so sorely lacking in any potential Carl Bernsteins or Woodwards. Instead we had to listen to the pontifications of our Vaughn Palmer and Keith Baldrey who by rights should be just receiving their checks from the mighty Public Affairs Bureau along with most of the rest of the journalists and communications experts employed in British Columbia.

Rose Mary Woods

As the steady drip of Watergate picked up its pace, Rose Mary Woods (seen at left performing the famous "stretch") took her place as a "person of interest" or significant character in the ongoing drama that led to the first resignation of a sitting Preznit of the Excited Snakes.

For those too young (or too senile) to remember those heady days when even the Preznit was held at least somewhat accountable here's some of what Wikipedia has to say about Rose Mary Woods, who worked for Richard Milhouse Nixon from 1951 until his fall from grace.

....she moved to Washington, D.C. in 1943, working in a variety of federal offices until she met Nixon while she was a secretary to the Select House Committee on Foreign Aid. Impressed by his neatness and efficiency, she accepted his job offer in 1951.

....../snip

Fiercely loyal to Nixon, Woods claimed responsibility in 1974 grand jury testimony for inadvertently erasing up to 5 minutes of the 18 1/2 minute gap in one of the Nixon audio tapes (specifically, the one from June 20, 1972) that were central to the scandal. Her demonstration of how this might have occurred—which depended upon her stretching to simultaneously press controls several feet apart (what the press dubbed the "Rose Mary Stretch"[3]) was met with skepticism from those who believed the erasures, from whatever source, to be deliberate. Later investigators identified five to nine separate erasures. The contents of the gap remain a mystery.

Rosemarie Hayes

In this morning's Globe and Mail, former Leaden Gyro winner, Gary Mason, breaks the story of the woman who could turn out to be Gordon Campbell's very own, and maybe not so fiercely loyal, Rose Mary Woods, or more accurately, his own Rosemarie (definitely a touch more Canadian, eh?)

Tapes containing the e-mail correspondence of B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and members of his cabinet that lawyers in a government corruption trial have insisted are critical to the defence of their clients were ordered destroyed in early May, The Globe and Mail has learned.

According to several sources, the person responsible for managing the government e-mail delivery service has filed an affidavit in court that contains the potentially politically explosive information.

In her affidavit, Rosemarie Hayes, director of Messaging and Collaboration Services, Workplace Technology Services (WTS), states that at the beginning of May of this year, her department requested that backup tapes of government e-mails created prior to May of 2004 be expunged from the system. The e-mails are the subject of a legal proceeding and as such should not have been deleted, according to the government's own guidelines.

..../snip

The new information would appear to contradict statements made in court last month by government lawyer George Copley.

Mr. Copley said that executive branch e-mails from 2001 to 2005 could not be recovered because backup tapes were kept for only 13 months.

..../snip

if e-mails that were potentially damaging to the government of Mr. Campbell existed as recently as this May and were ordered destroyed, demands for a probe into the matter could grow even louder and spark calls for an obstruction-of-justice investigation.

There is more over at Gary's piece in the Globe and Mail, especially some description of legislation and policy that pertains to the retention of information, particularly in cases of potential legal proceedings. Unsuprisingly the comments board for this article wasn't just closed down early, but if any were ever left they too are inaccessible to be even read, at least when I visited the article myself, fairly early this morning (PDT of course for this westerner).

I can visualize Gordon Campbell and his creepy, greedy co-horts as they are running around and around a huge container holding all their dispicable and incriminating secrets trying to frantically plug the leaks as the existing leaks keep growing and new leaks pop up top, bottom and sides. I can only try to keep the faith that TRUTH WILL OUT, in the end....and in this case perhaps the truth can set us free from the ongoing crime spree that we have been victimized by for the last eight years by the largest and most successful criminal organization in the province - The BC liaR Government.

I've been grasping at the memory of the Fall of Nixon after the 1972 landslide since that gross evening of May 12. Thinking of Nixon, Harper, Campbell, Bush the Lesser and DickHead Cheney, I can't help wondering why it is that the voters are so inclined to actually elect and entrust with our concerns such obviously psychologically DAMAGED individuals - frankly the ones mentioned are all sociopaths as far as I am concerned.

Land of the Lost
LAND!

Gordo's Backroom
Real Estate
Bucket Shop

Monday the thirteenth, an unlucky day for citizens of BC. Tomorrow morning the ownership of 2,509 parcels of property including waterfront property along the sea to sky and parcels in North Vancouver, West Vancouver and all along the old BC Rail right away up to the Peace River region will have been transferred to CN, for the princely sum of $1.00. Or at least this is the case as well as those who care to pay attention can conclude from the negligible amount of information that has been made available to date (over FIVE YEARS) about this supposedly "great deal" for British Columbians. One would suppose that if this transfer wasn't part of the deal, someone would deny it and show documentation to prove otherwise, but nothing of the sort has occurred in FIVE YEARS!

Well, maybe if you happen to be a British Columbian named Maclean (the CEO of CN) or own stock in that American company known as CN it is a good day for you. I, and I'm confident some others, find it thoroughly disgusting to live in a paradise being dis-assembled by a corrupt and criminal government, aided and abetted by an equally compromised justice system and RCMP.

I wouldn't be surprised if Campbell and his gang weren't even interested in governing after 2013. There will be little left to sell give away, and lots of newly freed up real estate to get richer by developing. Or another way of looking at it is that maybe the same people will be "running" B.C. but will in the future be doing it from the boardrooms of the Corporations that were recipients of the Campelloid's largesse. Then the Legislature Buildings may as well be privatized to serve as a bed and breakfast or other private business. Perhaps I should take down the crime scene tape in the picture at the top and put up a "for sale" sign instead!

Even the loyal (to whom?) opposition is complicit in the ongoing crime spree at worst or negligent in their duty to the people at best. Many people have been calling and writing their MLAs, the justice critic and Carole "don't rock the boat" James for weeks now. Finally this morning SOME MLA's and that dog, Leonard Krog are sending out the most pathetic letter detailing how "they don't like the deal either" but apparently they don't dislike it enough to even attempt to do anything about it. I guess that would take time away from counting the money they get with their new, and not donated to charity anymore, salary increases.

Each letter (that I have seen) from an MLA is the exact same letter attributed to Mr. Krog, with the only original touches being the particular MLA's typos and/or mis-spellings of the salutations and/or signatures.


It's a disgusting day to be a British Columbian!