Part Two: Canadian Surprises

In this National Post firing could it be that the Leonard Asper organization has been smitten with conscience about its unrelieved robot right propaganda? Or could we have been wrong about the Asper organization’s way of going about “news” reporting? Whatever the case, top honcho at the paper, Matthew Fraser, couldn’t be reached for comment. Surprise. (2) Gunning for leadership? Deputy Leader (and icon only slightly to the Right of Attila–the-Hun), Peter MacKay of the Canadian Alliance (Cons.) just has to see his chance to sink another knife in another back. After breaking a personally signed deal, double-crossing David Orchard and the Progressive Conservatives, the door is now open for Peter MacKay to get Stephen Harper. So, who – post-election – appears “reasonable”, “progressive”, “honest” and oh so moderate? Why Peter MacKay of course. Surprise. He expresses concern that “progressive people” in the Party (the ones he double-crossed and tried to erase) didn’t vote or voted against the Alliance. The Party he says (CBC, June 3, “The House”) needs “more discipline”. In Alliance-ese that means more lying about its real agenda. His advice to Stephen Harper as leader is to “stick it out” and to “get on with the job”. Was that the advice he gave David Orchard just before sticking a knife in Orchard’s back? (3) The RCMP: guarding the freedom of criminals? In 2000, Glen Clark was shabbily forced to resign as premier of B.C. on trumped-up fraud/bribery allegations said to have originated in Gordon Campbell’s constituency office. The RCMP investigation (STILL unexamined) was dubious, murky, probably lawless. For instance, a BCTV camera crew arrived WITH police officers who were serving a search warrant at Clark’s modest East Vancouver home! (The trial by Justice Elizabeth Bennett was equally questionable – but that’s another story.) I made a formal complaint in 2000 to the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP - the sham, rubber-stamp, RCMP “stooge” oversight organization headquartered in Ottawa. It calls itself “an agency of the federal government, distinct and independent of the R.C.M.P.” Its “findings” go to the RCMP for approval or dismissal, giving a new meaning to the words “distinct and independent”. I want the RCMP Clark investigation carefully, completely investigated by really independent people. On May 18, 2004, some three years after my complaint was filed, Brooke McNabb, vice-chair of the Commission sent me the “final Report” on his “findings” You may be excused for not believing what follows. He found that two senior RCMP officers chose IMPROPERLY to close off the investigation I requested: Inspector E.H. Malone of the Vancouver Commercial Crime Section and Sergeant R.C. Cardey, Acting Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge, Internal Affairs Unit, “E” Division. Brooke McNabb , vice-chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, found that no wrong-doing had been involved. Surprise. The senior officers merely forget or did not know a FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE of their duties as RCMP officers. Brooke McNabb did not insist – did not even recommend – that the investigation be reopened and pursued. He merely hoped (wanly) that the RCMP – in future – would train its officers to know their duty …. He sent his preliminary report to the top RCMP folk who agreed with him – training really ought to be improved … sometime. The close-off of the investigation I called for may very well have (a) prevented criminal information about RCMP officers from seeing the light (b) given RCMP officers in the region time to destroy evidence, (c) involved the two officers named in criminal wrong-doing, (d) and who-knows-what-else? More and more and more people are not only deeply unhappy with RCMP policing in Canada, many of them are becoming frightened that the force even exists. (In the next weeks I will make a formal Complaint to the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, asking that the original investigation I requested be re-opened, that Shirley Heafey’s role in the wreck of the APEC Inquiry be investigated, and that both E.H. Malone and R.C. Cardey be investigated for criminal liability.) Shirley Heafey, Chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, lost all credibility in the APEC Inquiry but goes on (and on and on) as Chair. Brooke McNabb has just demonstrated that he is a flunkey for the RCMP – or, if not, is so unaware of the implications of his reporting that he is totally unsuitable to be part of any serious Commission over-seeing the honesty of RCMP actions. Something must be done. I call the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP “the sham, rubber-stamp, RCMP ‘stooge’ oversight organization headquartered in Ottawa”. Are you surprised? (4) How corrupt can the B.C. Liberal Government get? Let’s begin where it matters. Doug Walls – who just happens to be a relation of Gordon Campbell – was appointed to the Ministry of Children and Family Development. So hot was his involvement with unregulated money there, that the Minister, Gordon Hogg, had to resign last January, and Deputy Minister Chris Haynes was fired. Big Stuff … involving $1.2 million of fudged money. (In that context, think of Svend Robinson, quickly set down for court trial after taking and admitting taking and returning a ring worth some thousands of dollars from an auction room.) The cabinet of Gordon Campbell began no court action in the Walls affair. In fact, it undertook a secret investigation! Then PricewaterhouseCooper (an auditing firm) was asked for a careful audit of the books of Children and Family Development. Key to Gordon Campbell’s political life was that PricewaterhouseCooper would find no evidence of “undue outside influence in Mr. Walls’ appointment….” And that’s just what the accounting firm found. Surprise. (Vanc. Sun, May 13, 04, B5) STOP. PricewaterhouseCooper is not a police organization. It has no police investigative powers, and is not able to say with any credibility that there was or was not “undue outside influence in Mr. Walls’ appointment….” They said they didn’t see any, which means absolutely nothing. Equally as important, I went through my refrigerator, my full laundry bag, and my medicine cabinet, and I can say I “found no evidence there of undue influence in Mr. Walls’ appointment….” The auditors did find competitive bids weren’t sought when they should have been, contracts were not properly evidenced and recorded, contracts were often written after work was in progress, and work often involved overpayment. Terrible. Relax. The cabinet found no fraud or misappropriation of funds in the matter. Moreover the earlier reported loan write-off of $400,000.00 wasn’t that at all, we are told. It was very, very different. It was, instead “the elimination of a $484,939.00 account receivable” (which is another name for a write-off). See. (The fact is that it was never reported as a loan write-off, so the smokescreen becomes more and more evident.) To bring in police, to open up – perhaps – a criminal trial against Doug Walls and perhaps others would not be good for Gordon Campbell going into an election year. If some people believe the PricewaterhouseCooper report, they may. Anyone who wishes to believe it is a load of garbage may believe that, too. The report has no standing in law, especially the finding of “no undue influence”.. Remember. In most of the huge fraud operations, from the Enron billions down, audits by big name, well-placed, highly regarded auditors WERE PART OF THE FRAUD OPERATIONS. Remember as well, the Canwest monopoly papers in B.C. [The Vancouver Sun, The Province, The Victoria Times Colonist, etc. etc.] found not the slightest reason to call the PricewaterhouseCooper report into question. Returning to Svend Robinson: no court trial is scheduled on even the most distant horizon for the fudgers of $1.2 million of taxpayers’ money in which Doug Walls was clearly involved. But Doug Walls is a relation of premier Gordon Campbell. See? (5) Media as Mafia. Discover www.canwestwatch, and use it. Media concentration in Canada is destructive of democracy. It is organized to keep news from Canadians. It is the expression of a sick corporate culture and governments moving towards dangerously pre-fascist conditions. Okay, what are pre-fascist conditions? They are conditions in which (a) information needed by the population to make informed democratic choices is smothered (b) press, police, government, and corporations work together to construct a virulent and false view of the society people live in (c) government releases police into criminality, press and media cover for police, corporations become more repressive and dictatorial (d) major assaults on fundamental rights and major policies to restrict the freedoms of the population are supported by all four forces. Pre-fascist conditions become fascist conditions when the pretence of democratic freedoms is stripped away and all four forces assume a criminal free hand in the society. Why has government not made and enforced tough laws to prevent media concentration? Why has government allowed the fake and dangerous Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP to – in effect - cover for police wrong-doing? The answer, I’m afraid is government believes it profits from those two situations. And that is because government is in the hands of the corporations to an increasingly dangerous extent. www.canwestwatch is a major development. If Canada isn’t going to descend into random political violence (which is certainly possible), and if the police forces in collaboration with press, government, and corporations are to be prevented from descending into greater and greater criminal activity, then organizations such as www.canwestwatch must be created and must thrive. Only then will MPs be forced to place media concentration and the supervision of police activity in priority position for legislation. The next public organization that desperately needs to be founded is one (based in a website) to chronicle all police wrong-doing and to demand legislation to control the flowering of police violence and its more subtle criminality. -------- Robin Mathews publishes on culture, politics, the arts, and Canadian Intellectual history. He lives in Vancouver with his wife, a potter. His column appears regularly on Vive le Canada. Comments: rmathews@sfu.ca