The BC Rail Scandal And The Robert Dziejkanski Affair: Some Strange Similarities

THE BC RAIL SCANDAL AND THE ROBERT DZIEKANSKI AFFAIR:

some strange similarities.

A few surprises come out of the Thomas Braidwood Inquiry Report (just released) on the death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver, B.C., International Airport in 2007.  The first surprise is that Mr. Justice Braidwood appears to have done a good and honest job. 

That is not what one expects from B.C. government (Gordon Campbell) appointed Inquiries, Reviews, Task Forces. (see below - the Special Prosecutor Review sham).

There are similarities – already shaping – between the Dziekanski Affair and the BC Rail Scandal (and the case against Dave Basi, Bob Virk, and Aneal Basi arising out of the larger Scandal).  We will look at them.

“Cover-up” people have jumped on the Braidwood Report to show how clean and pure and righteous they are.  Take Attorney General Michael de Jong who refuses to act on the scummy reputation of the Special Prosecutor appointment system (because it so useful to the Campbell group?)  And he refuses even to discuss the wrongful appointment of William Berardino as Special Prosecutor in the huge BC Rail Scandal and particularly the case – arising out of it - against three order-in-council appointed aides, now before the courts.

And then Michael de Jong (almost no one looking) appointed – in conflict of interest I insist – Stephen Owen, a UBC vice-president, to look at the Special Prosecutor system, both men already saying there really isn’t much that’s wrong to look at (!). Stephen Owen being the man in charge for UBC of good relations with governments is asked to (if necessary) chastise the Gordon Campbell group for wrongful governing. Fat chance.

Now de Jong wants to look like an angel of light bringing reform to British Columbia – because he is under the gun and can’t do anything else.

The appointment of Richard Peck as Special Prosecutor in the case of the RCMP officers who confronted Robert Dziekanski MAY BE a good choice.  Richard Peck (rightly) refused - not long ago - to bend to the wishes of then Attorney General Wally Oppal and begin a trial against the alleged Bountiful bigamists.  To show his contempt, apparently, for the Special Prosecutor process, Oppal went on shopping for a supine lawyer to prosecute the Bountiful people – and found one, it seems, in Terence Robinson. Oppal’s little game was only stopped in court when Madam Justice Stromberg Stein halted the whole thing as wrongfully initiated. Expensive.

That sparked the present civil case against Wally Oppal.

But Attorney General Michael de Jong thinks there is little wrong with the Special Prosecutor appointment system!  And so does Review appointee Stephen Owen.

Similarities are huge and daunting between the BC Rail Scandal and the Robert Dziekanski Affair..  The noisemaking of CanWest Press to obscure real issues floods on.  Smoke and mirrors are fuming and flashing– the CanWest specialty when the big rotten boys are involved.

Ian Mulgrew, law and justice columnist for the Vancouver Sun, weighs in on the Report by Thomas Braidwood (June 19 2010, A6). Six-shooter in hand, Mr. Mulgrew leads the posse full force against the four RCMP officers (still being paid!) who did the dirty deeds against Robert Dziekanski. Indignation flows from Mr. Mulgrew’s pen.  “That these four officers are still drawing public pay is an absolute disgrace” Wow!

Who does Ian Mulgrew think he’s kidding? 

Does anyone think the four RCMP officers could have even tried their cover-up, their testimony at the Braidwood Inquiry that Thomas Braidwood rejects almost out-of-hand,

their continued (apparent) attempts to fog the issue - without the support of senior officers all the way to Ottawa? Does anyone think the first pack of (alleged) forged stories the four officers told was not approved of by senior officers?

And didn’t William Elliott, RCMP Commissioner in Ottawa telephone the men to show his support for them when their actions were shriekingly in doubt?  And didn’t Gordon Campbell cosy up to B.C. Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass to express his warm sympathy for the force in the matter while it was still steaming with suspicion?

Mr. Mulgrew doesn’t say Gary Bass, top RCMP officer in British Columbia should be replaced … now.  He doesn’t say the clutch of top officers around Bass should go with him.  He doesn’t say William Elliott – Stephen Harper’s highly dubious appointment as Commissioner of the RCMP (national) - has fudged every step of the way – and should be removed. Now.

He doesn’t say that such randy, inappropriate, and untenable behaviour as the four men engaged in would NEVER HAVE HAPPENED if there had been anything like decent administration, supervision, and expectation by senior officers of the Force.

He doesn’t say that whatever is done to the four RCMP officers will be meaningless unless senior heads roll all the way to – and including – Ottawa.  He doesn’t say those things, I suggest, because CanWest is a private corporate giant that works with other private corporate giants to shape government by corporations in Canada. And since the top RCMP “boys” are in the pockets of the corporations – get the little guys, protect the big ones. 

Do a Basi, Virk, and Basi on the bad boys of the Dziekanski affair!  Get them.  Pretend the way they acted has nothing to do with the rot above them.  Pretend they acted wholly on their own – a bunch of guys going rancid all on their own.  Pretend they never were part of a rotting organization of cover-up specialists who made the policy that guaranteed

the actions of the little guys. Pretend.  Smoke and mirrors.

Basi, Virk, and Basi – rubbing  up against the Big Guys – Martyn Brown as well as  Campbell, Collins, Clark, Reid … cabinet ministers … somehow, all by themselves, began (it is alleged) to do dirty things in the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR.  Who believes that?  Who believes they weren’t directed in very much of what they did?  Probably the only person who believes that is the man I call “Gordon Campbell’s personal representative at the Vancouver Sun”, Vaughn Palmer.

Another CanWest’er columnist Miro Cernetig wrote the same day that Gary Bass – this very week – was discovered to have semi-denied the apology he made publicly to Robert Dziekanski’s mother.  The (internal) e-mail Bass wrote said “we are not apologizing for the actions of specific members or saying anything about specific actions”. 

Miro Cernetig doesn’t say:  “That’s the last straw.  Gary Bass has got to go.  Out!  Out! Get rid of this robot!”

No. No.  Being a solid CanWest’er, Mr. Cernetig says, in effect, that “gosh, gee, that doesn’t look very convincing in the ‘apology’ category”.

Why not finish with Vaughn Palmer in the same day’s Vancouver Sun?  What has the Vancouver Sun’s very finest ‘smoke and mirrors specialist’ got to say?

It’s not on Dziekanski.  It’s not on the BC Rail Scandal.  It’s the HST. Furrowing his brow, Mr. Palmer asks where the province can go for money if it doesn’t tax ordinary people?  In effect, he says ‘there just ain’t no money, there ain’t no sources of money.  The HST has to happen.  Period.  That’s all.”  Smoke and mirrors. 

We don’t have to talk about the two billion dollars in taxes corporations will be relieved of in order to ‘make B.C. economically competitive’ (which means ‘run by the private corporations’). Though we could talk about that it’s such an obvious boondoggle.

But let’s talk about what Vaughn Palmer pretends doesn’t exist.  How about the one million a year paid to the U.S. import David Hahn, B.C. Ferries CEO – (and what are his favourites paid?)  What about the obscene salaries paid to BC Rail executives who have almost no employees?  What about the obscene salaries of Campbell favourites all through the system? 

What about the money that should be flowing into General Revenues to cover governmental needs from a B.C.-owned BC Rail? From a gored and blasted and castrated and privatized BC Hydro?  From a river system being handed to private corporations urged to gouge ordinary British Columbians – with legislation set up to help them do so?  From a highly profitable BC Gas chopped up into unrecognizable pieces, privatized, opened to U.S. takeover … and … gone! Why isn’t Vaughn Palmer saying: “Get them back!  Get the people’s revenue creators back in the people’s hands?

Because we know who he is, who pays him.  We know who pays him.  We know, as well, that the credibility of the Mainstream Press and Media is sinking out of sight.  And we know the corruption that haunts British Columbia public business is shielded behind the smoke and mirrors of the Mainstream Press and Media. That’s why the Dziekanski Affair is beginning, already, to look like the BC Rail Scandal.