One of the crime scenes

Saturday, June 28, 2008


Spring - Review.....
Summer - Preview




Columbia Journal - Volume 9, Number 3, May 2004


Columbia Journal - April 2004


Marketing Magazine - 2001


Vancouver Sun - 2004 by Kim Bolan


Vancouver Sun, Jan. 10, 2004 - by Lori Culbert and Jim Beatty


Canadian Press - Updated Mon. Apr. 3 2006


Hansard - March 3, 2004:



With the exception of an article noting the appointment of a new director for the UBC School of Journalism from last Thursday, the above is a list of the articles dealt with recently over at BC Mary's Legislature Raids. This is a credit to Mary, for continuing to dig for information relevant to the BC Rail Scam and the fantasy world dwelling trial that maybe someday will actually address the issues and charges stemming from the unprecedented Raids of December 28, 2003 at the Legislature in Victoria. However it is an indictment of both the lack of progress in the legal proceedings and the current dearth of coverage of what little does occur in what passes for a media in the "Greatest Place on Earth!" I wonder if the director of the J-School explicitly trains PR hacks to work for organizations such as the Asper Empire, or if they delude the students into thinking they will get to be journalists, only to enter the real world and have their dreams destroyed in order to obtain a mortgage and cool set of wheels.


There have been some rather explosive allegations and/or maneuvers in the Basi, Basi and Virk proceedings in the last few months. However they dribble out so piece meal and seem so irrelevant that it all seems like listening to the background noise of the universe via a giant radio telescope. Justice Bennett periodically activates her tape loop "demanding" that the crown provide disclosure, but no one is held accountable for lack of same. The battle over various forms of "privilege" continue to the point of true creativity as entirely new forms of privilege are created to fulfill any conceivable need for secrecy. Protocols to protect against undue (or really it should be ANY) political interference are changed or ignored at will and Wild Bill Berardino will go to the Supreme Court of Canada or the end of time, whichever comes first, to defend his right to have private sessions with secret witnesses whose identity and evidence is super duper top level above infinity secret. Maybe Wild Bill should consider the criminal defense bar, he could make whole crimes disappear through some kind of super secret privilege, it would seem.


By the way, Wild Bill theoretically works for US, the citizens of BC! I'll bet you never would have guessed.


Meanwhile, we may or may not have some court dates in July. The trial may actually begin and witnesses may even be sworn and actually answer questions - then again, Wild Bill may be too busy preparing his case for the Supreme Court of Canada - the one about how none of this is any business of either the defendants, their counsel or the people of British Columbia. Meanwhile, if there is a trial, the public MAY even be able to find out when and where, but don't count on it. The media might cover it, jeez, what was I saying? I wouldn't count on reading any new entries in Hansard before the next election.


Enjoy the Olympics, unless you are from the chosen circle, and thus making money from them, you will be paying for them for a long, long time. Oh yeah, and the new Minister of Foreign Affairs is looking for a safe riding, anybody got one, this side of Alberta?

2 Comments:

Blogger BC Mary said...

.
The significance of those old items, Koot ... is what should be noted.

What I keep remarking on -- over at my place -- is how bright, how concerned for the public good, those old news items are. Read them today and your scalp tingles.

That was a very special time -- right after the police raided the Legislature -- when we seemed to stand united with genuine concern for the public good.

We forgot our differences and, locked in an honestly shared anxiety, we faced our fears about a province which had fallen into serious danger. We didn't know what to do, where to turn. Remember?

What had happened to cause police to act so fast and so decisively? Drugs trafficking? In the corridors of government?

Even Vancouver Sun covered its entire front page with big black print, asking the famous "27 Questions", including one which said something like: "Can we be sure that our government hasn't been corrupted by crime?"

That's the importance of those old stories: their honest concern for the province.

Even Hansard zings with those debates about the raid. And the Campbell government was hedging even then and, in some cases (we now know), lying. Those were our first days of shock and awe -- and of decent journalism.

They present a stark contrast to subsequent news and op/ed stories which began, all too soon, trying to shrug it all off.

I think British Columbians have every right to demand that CanWest (with its near-monopoly on West Coast media) must pull up its socks and start producing real reports from an unbiased point of view, on the trial of Basi, Virk, Basi.

Stories much more like these old ones, written in the mood of our shared concern for the province of B.C.

.

Saturday, June 28, 2008 at 1:52:00 PM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There may still be hope at this site! Seems CanWest is in the throughs of taking it's last breath, if true! "What goes round comes round"
http://pacificgazette.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 9:15:00 AM PDT  

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