Robin Mathews
to the Rescue

Amazingly enough, folks in the Mainstream Media are talking about the BC Rail Scam again or still. Not all of them, according to the Three Amigos, Dean Vaughn, Keith Balderdash and Bill "not so" Good, there is still nothing to see here, after all we had a trial (barf - two witnesses couldn't seem to remember anything beyond their name) and the bad guys sucked it up and took a plea, for the bargain price of six million dollars. Michael Smyth, some other folks as CKNW and MetroNews have at least acknowledged the release by Alex Tsukamis of another "Memo to File" from 2003 written by the head bad guy, Dave Basi, and notarized by one of his attorneys - though still compared to Glen Clark's deck in East Van, the entire BC Rail Theft and subsequent miscarriage of justice is small potatoes or non-existent to Glow Ball, CeeTeeVee and even the CBC. I guess this would go to prove the meme that the media has a liberal bias, if it weren't for the fact that the BC LIEberals are far from actual Liberals and more like an amalgamation of HarperCons, frustrated SoCreds and recently relocated "the Conservatives aren't right wing enough for us" Wild Rose adherents, who've moved to BC to escape the Socialist Alison Redford regime in Alberty.

Imagine my surprise and joy when I checked my email this morning to find a new essay by Robin Mathews. So I've already posted it over at BC Mary's Blog so hie thee on over and check out Little Moral Moments in the Corrupt Swamp of B.C. Politics? at her place.

We've had the Blues since 1970

I've often referred to Hansard and even used excerpts from it here at the House, but yesterday I learned that the Campbell government actually did something admirable early in their reign of terror. I had only ever sought out Hansard entries from the last ten years or so, especially those days when Joy and Jenny had the unenviable task of trying to hold 77 BC liaRs somewhat accountable for their systematic raping of British Columbia. I knew that Hansard had started being published in BC around 1970, but didn't think that any of those sessions would be online from before the internet even really existed. But lo and behold with a little research yesterday I discovered that in 2002 the government initiated a project to bring into the digital age all of Hansard going right back to January 1970.

About the Old Hansards Web Project

British Columbia Hansard Services has had electronic versions of transcripts and indexes available to the public on the Internet since the mid 1990s. In the past, access to these products has been limited to those documents produced since the 35th parliament. Public access to Hansard documents published prior to 1991 has been restricted to the bound volumes held by a limited number of university and regional libraries.

In January 2002, an initiative was undertaken to convert Hansard transcripts from the 29th to 34th parliaments into an electronic format for publication on the Internet. The project required electronically scanning over 78,000 pages cut from bound Hansard transcripts and converting these images into over 2,200 text documents using optical character recognition software. This web-conversion process resulted in documents that are about 98% accurate. To provide our clients with a product that is 100% accurate, the page numbers in the transcripts have been hyperlinked to the image files for each page. This gives the user the ability to search and copy from a text file with the added advantage of being able to view an exact facsimile of the original published page.

I applaud the first term Campbell government, a government then and since not noted for transparency, for this effort. Of course, the blues from 1970 to 1995, don't really reveal any of their many secrets, but they are are wonderful resource for anyone interested in the record of the B.C. Legislature going all the way back to the last couple years of W.A.C. Bennett's twenty year run.

 Click here to peruse Hansard from the first sitting of the 29th Parliament on January 22, 1970 when the House consisted of:

Alberni	Howard Richmond McDiarmid.
Atlin	Frank Arthur Calder
Boundary-Similkameen	Francis Xavier Richter.
Burnaby-Edmonds	Gordon Hudson Dowding.
Burnaby-North	Eileen Elizabeth Dailly.
Burnaby-Willingdon	James Gibson Lorimer.
Cariboo	Alexander Vaughan Fraser.
Chilliwack	William Kenneth Kiernan.
Columbia River	James R. Chabot.
Comox	Daniel R.J. Campbell.
Coquitlam	David Barrett.
Cowichan-Malahat	Robert Martin Strachan.
Delta	Robert Wenman.
Dewdney	George Mussallem.
Esquimalt	Herbert J. Bruch.
Fort George	Ray Gillis Williston.
Kamloops	Philip Arthur Gaglardi.
Kootenay	Leo Thomas Nimsick.
Langley	Hunter Bertram Vogel.
Mackenzie	Isabel Pearl Dawson.
Nanaimo	Frank James Ney.
Nelson-Creston	Wesley Drewett Black.
New Westminster	Dennis G. Cocke.
North Okanagan	Patricia Jane Jordan.
North Peace River	Dean Edward Smith.
North Vancouver-Capilano	David Maurice Brousson
North Vancouver-Seymour	Barrie Aird Clark
Oak Bay	George Scott Wallace.
Omineca	Cyril Morley Shelford.
Prince Rupert	William Harvey Murray.
Revelstoke-Slocan	Burton Peter Campbell.
Richmond	Ernest A. LeCours.
Rossland-Trail	Donald Leslie Brothers.
Saanich and the Islands	John Douglas Tisdalle.
Shuswap	Willis Franklin Jefcoat.
Skeena	Dudley George Little.
South Okanagan	William Andrew Cecil Bennett.
South Peace River	Donald Albert Marshall.
Surrey	Ernest Hall.
Vancouver-Burrard	Harold James Merilees
	Bert Price.
Vancouver Center	Harold Peter Capozzi.
	Evan Maurice Wolfe.
Vancouver East	Alexander Barrett Macdonald.
	Robert Arthur Williams.
Vancouver-Little Mountain	Leslie Raymond Peterson.
	Grace Mary McCarthy.
Vancouver-Point Grey	Patrick Lucey McGeer.
	Garde Basil Gardom.
Vancouver South	Ralph Raymond Loffmark.
	Agnes Kripps.
Victoria	William Neelands Chant.
	Waldo McTavish Skillings.
West Vancouver-Howe Sound	Louis Allan Williams.
Yale-Lillooet	William Leonard Hartley

"K. L. MORTON,

"Chief Electoral Officer

and Registrar-General of Voters."