Travesty
of (in)Justice

Province of British Columbia RAILROADED
by (in)JUSTICE SYSTEM!

This morning yielded an immediately shocking denouement of the BC Rail Corruption Trial - shocking at first, but hardly unexpected after all the questionable delays, obstruction of justice and blatant bias from the bench that has been displayed in this case for the last seven years or so. Well, the delays, and obstruction of justice has been there from the start, but the blatant bias from the bench only began to be evident with the replacement of the apparently too even-handed Elizabeth Bennett with Campbell functionary Anne MacKenzie.

First, not surprisingly, on the intertubz with the news was Gary Mason, who it would seem had a heads up and had his story pre-written. Or maybe he isn't a complete idiot and was merely prepared for this eventuality in a similiar fashion to the way newspapers have prominent people's obituraries on file, just waiting for the occasion to publish. After the reformed sports writer's (Mason) piece hit the toobz from the Globe and Mail, others like the Vancouver Stun and Winnipeg Free Press and even the Colonial Water-Carrier from Victoria chipped in with shorter and ofter error ridden pieces - anxious to share the news that their allies in the Campbell Crime Family appear to have dodged a bullet that has been heading their way for years.

Some highlights (or more appropriately lowlights) of the preliminary coverage are:

From the Winnipeg Free Press:

"Dave Basi and Virk were accused of fraud and breach of trust for allegedly leaking secrets surrounding the $1 billion sale of BC Rail to OmniTrax."

This appears at first to be just more Lamestream Media absence of fact checking, as one could be forgiven if they intepreted this sentence to mean that Omnitrax now owns what used to be BC Rail. But upon second or third reading it is clear that it is a matter of shoddy, careless grammar and syntax. Of course according to the flunkies of the "real" media, only we bloggers are guilty of lack of fact checking or poor usage of language - YEAH.......RIGHT!

Meanwhile the Colonial Campbell Crime Family Water Carrier from Victoria gets close to what this is really all about with:

Davi Basi was ministerial aide to Finance Minister Gary Collins and Virk was ministerial assistant to Transport Minister Judith Reid. Aneal Basi was a low-level political aide in the transportation ministry.

The guilty pleas were unexpected, abruptly ending the drawn-out case that was due to hear testimony from Collins who left government several years ago to work for private industry. The trial, which began last May, was expected to continue until next March.

Of course the man who so far seems to have the inside track on the info, Gary Mason(according to some reports Wild Bill Berardino is still considering sentencing recommendations, while according to Gary Mason, it's a done deal) goes even more in the direction of the real forces at work with:

The astonishing development comes on the eve of what was expected to be explosive testimony by former finance minister Gary Collins. Mr. Collins was going to be the first of several high-profile political figures who were scheduled to take the stand in this case. The defence had hinted there was a chance Premier Gordon Campbell was going to be called to testify, along with a long list of politicians past and present.

Also according to Gary, Dave Basi and Bobby Virk won't face any jail time.

Defendants Dave Basi and Bob Virk agreed to change their plea to guilty on a reduced number of charges. The deal will allow the pair to avoid jail time but they will be placed under house arrest.

Well now that the pretend trial that has eaten up years and millions of dollars is over and the fix that was in from the start has become visible as even almost useless Leonard Krog has pointed out - THE CAMPBELL GOVERNMENT CAN ANSWER QUESTIONS REGARDING THE SALE/LEASE/GIVEAWAY OF BC RAIL, SINCE IT IS NO LONGER BEFORE THE COURTS.

A person with a tendency to dream they were in a democracy with a genuine justice system might even suggest that now that this distraction is out of the way the REAL CULPRITS who are guilty of betrayal of the public trust be charged. More likely will be another Kabuki performance of a "public inquiry" (results of which need not be made public) and I'm betting on the co-commisioners of inquiry being named as Judith Reid and Gary "Ferret" Collins - after all, they're not busy like all the former solicitor-generals, back benchers trying to grow hair or various oh so special prosecutors.

I can't wait to hear what Robin Mathews has to say about this affront to the people of British Columbia.