Does B.C. Cabinet Corruption Continue –With “A Yankee Fix”?
The search, Christy Clark says, in the government propaganda video, was “extensive”. It wasn’t. An “extensive” search was made, she says, for an independent police monitor for B.C. He may be called a Chief Civilian Director for Independent Investigations of police misdoings.
Then premier Christy Clark and Attorney General Shirley Bond - in the same propaganda video - modify the statement to say appointee Richard Rosenthal will deal with “some” police misdoings – explicitly, deaths allegedly caused by police, and/or the use of physical violence. Some time later … much later … he might get to other things.
Other things? Well, he might get to police collaboration with Special Prosecutors appointed by the Attorney General to destroy, to bury, or to fabricate evidence on behalf of cabinet members and their corporate friends. He might get to the refusal of the RCMP (as top B.C. RCMP officer Gary Bass refused) to act on formal requests to investigate alleged criminal actions by members of the cabinet (including then premier Gordon Campbell).
But he probably won’t get to those things … at all.
In fact, Richard Rosenthal is instructed, he is ordered, he is PAID – not to look at any police misdoings before December 7, 2011. Richard Rosenthal has agreed to those terms, throwing both his credibility and his integrity into doubt from Day One.
What are the specific terms of Richard Rosenthal’s appointment? Neither Clark not Bond has attempted to tell the public. How much is Richard Rosenthal being paid? We have not been told. Why not? Will he be paid $1 million a year like the other Yankee appointment, David Hahn, head of B.C. Ferries?
Was Richard Rosenthal hired for the same reasons David Hahn was hired? To go around the people of B.C. and serve a corrupt cabinet by doing special dirty work?
If the search was “extensive”, and a Canadian was sought, why didn’t we know about it? Why didn’t we see ads in the Globe and Mail? Why didn’t we see an announcement of the search on the Attorney General’s website? Why didn’t Christy Clark announce in press conferences that the government was looking for a tough, independent, Canadian of irreproachable integrity to begin work as police monitor and to build for B.C. a tough, truly independent, public oversight body with real teeth?
I suggest we didn’t see those things because Christy Clark did not want that kind of person anywhere near corrupt police activity in B.C. and its intimate link to the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark cabinets.
Because there was not an “extensive search”, we may ask why a U.S. person was chosen – who doesn’t know Canada, doesn’t know B.C., doesn’t know Canadian law, doesn’t know the culture he is entering, and doesn’t know any ordinary Canadians in B.C. with whom he can chat and consult – even off the record?
Let us not fool ourselves. Let us not be gulled by Christy Clark and Shirley Bond. To set up an independent, B.C., non-police, public body with real power to oversee police behaviour is NOT Rocket Science. It requires some care and decent enabling legislation. The best person to undertake the task is a B.C. Canadian with integrity. I suggest Christy Clark and Shirley Bond would be terrified to appoint a B.C. Canadian with integrity.
The reasons they would choose someone from the U.S.A. become, upon reflection, clearer and clearer. Let us count some of the ways.
The first reason must be that, though belatedly, the new NDP leader Adrian Dix is on the record as believing there needs to be a Public Inquiry into BC Rail (the BC Rail Scandal).
Those with careful memories remember (reason #2) that Christy Clark was Deputy Premier through the dirty years when BC Rail was corruptly transferred to CN Rail. We remember, too, (reason #3) that during some of the dirtiest cover-up months when key email correspondence was being buried or destroyed in the BC Rail Scandal trial of Basi, Virk, and Basi, Shirley Bond was Deputy Premier of British Columbia.
Ms. Bond (reason #4) was elected in 2001 and has been in cabinet (sharing “cabinet responsibility”) through years of the corrupt administrations of Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark.
Reason #5 has to loom large. Not only was Christy Clark Deputy Premier during the early BC Rail Scandal years, she was much more. We know a police search of the home of her brother Bruce Clark turned up confidential cabinet documents allegedly delivered to him by the men convicted in the Basi, Virk, and Basi case. He appears to have been an agent for a party interested in the sale of BC Rail.
Bruce Clark was never charged with anything. Christy Clark was familiar with and had conversations with the convicted men. Those conversations need examination. Erik Bornmann, Liberal activist and self-confessed briber in the case against Basi, Virk, and Basi, was – especially – exempted from charges as a Crown witness. Bornmann was a partner with Brian Kieran, also never charged with anything and – in fact – apparently never thoroughly investigated. Christy Clark, it is alleged, was a friend or acquaintance of all those men.
Defence counsel alleged during the years of pre-trial and trial that the three accused men were “targetted”, the charges against them “tailored”. If the allegation is true, those things could not have happened without the close collaboration of the RCMP and the Special Prosecutor illegitimately appointed to the case by the Attorney General’s office. We may say with some confidence that the cabinet very much wanted convictions against the three accused. One may argue (reason #6) that Premier Christy Clark and Attorney General Shirley Bond do not want any police activity looked at that occurred before December 7, 2011.
In such a case – where thick clouds of suspicion hang over government leaders, over their wealthy and powerful corporate friends, over the police, and over significant members of the judiciary – what can political power do?
Political power can pretend it wants a clean slate, a Brave New World – and that it wants to bring back The Rule Of Law to the land. If it is successful in its sham display – the mountain of crimes it has allegedly already cooperated in can be buried, or at least pushed out of sight.
How can political power carry that off?
It can do so by finding someone to create a brave, new beginning -who will live in a bubble – talking only to mostly corrupt politicians, their mostly corrupt corporate friends, to mostly corrupt police officers, and to some corrupt members of the judiciary, and to members of the media – mostly bought servants of the corporate class. Political power can do so by having the person brought from afar to live in what is an almost completely closed world. It can do so by having the terms of the person’s appointment so narrow that he can only cover up or block access to past misdeeds.
Where can someone like that be found? Why, in another country, of course. But what country? The U.S.A. might be a good country because many Canadians are indoctrinated to believe Yankees are, somehow, always superior to Canadians. Why not, then, a Yankee, right out of the U.S.A.?
Perfect. Get him. Pay him well. Give him his orders. Make him answerable only to his corrupt employers. Restrict his meetings with real Canadians. And … let … him … go.
Most important. Have him set up – as fast as he can – barriers to the investigation of crimes police are alleged to have committed with and for corrupt politicians, their wealthy corporate friends, corrupt members of the judiciary, and corrupt members of “the oldest profession” – the press and media.
If he succeeds, all the criminals working in B.C. in “the BC Rail Scandal” before December 7, 2011, will get off scot-free. Except, of course, for the three non-white men, the three Sikhs chosen to take a pratfall so, hopefully, they disguise the endless list of real, serious, heavy-weight, white-skinned criminals.
When things got hot and heavy for the real criminals in the trial – the trial of Basi, Virk, and Basi – the more than seven year fabrication collapsed in hours. It collapsed with the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark cabinet paying every cent of lawyers’ fees, court costs, and all … all the rest. That payment was so odious the Auditor General of B.C. is investigating and having to go to court to force answers from squeaky-clean Premier Christy Clark and Attorney General Shirley Bond.
Richard Rosenthal should never have been hired to B.C. from Denver, Colorado. Richard Rosenthal should never have accepted the terms of his appointment. He should be invited to leave British Columbia, now. Whenever Richard Rosenthal appears in public, Canadians should have one thing to say to him, and one thing only: “Yankee Go Home”.
Stumble It!
Having just come back from the States, I can sympathize with Robin. That's not to say that I'm taking a "holier than thou" stance, but the "milk of human kindness" has definitely curdled in that fair country.
Hmmm, on what basis do you make such a sweeping statement? I recall statistics stating that Americans rank quite highly with regard to donations to charity and other philanthropic endeavours. I will admit that Americans tend to be skeptical of the effectiveness of governments in solving complex social problems using the blunt instuments of social engineering and wealth redistribution. Of course, given my observation of the Canadian experience with these tools, I can sympathize with our American neighbours.
How about 46,000,000 living below poverty line (and growing), despite being "philanthropic".....?
To suggest that a person should not be hired simply because of their nationality, well how can that not be considered bigotry? Would Robin have had a problem with a European being hired? Or someone from Latin America? I'd still disagree with a protectionist/nationalist stance that excluded all foreigners, but at least it would be more defensible.
HAHN definition:
From the Middle High German "han" or "hane" meaning cock or rooster, Hahn was originally a nickname for a proud, cocky individual.
Seems that any nationality, when screened through the filter of America, is capable of screwing up anything.......
Most of us are familiar with Hurtig referring to people who support closer ties with the U.S. as "sellouts", "traitors", "compradors", etc. Similarly, on this site we've had Robin Mathews compare Stephen Harper to Adolf Hitler and refer to Harper as a "psychopath". With that kind of rhetoric, I can only imagine how many potential allies they've turned off, or otherwise dismiss them as cranks. How do they, especially Mathews, expect anyone to take them seriously, much less listen to what they have to say, if those are the statements they're making?!?
Too often, the valuable points people like Hurtig and Orchard are trying to make end up getting lost in the negativity they spew. As Hurtig has pointed out, the results of all the tax cuts and foreign takeovers we've seen in Canada over the past 10-15 years have been extremely mixed, at best, while Orchard illustrates some of the major flaws in NAFTA. These can and should be some of the main points that are worth tackling, and that most Canadians can relate to much more easily. As an Albertan, I'm aghast that my province would agree to support anything like the proportionality clause in NAFTA, while people like Peter Lougheed, Diane Francis, Rudyard Griffiths and Gordon Nixon now find themselves having the same concerns about NAFTA and foreign ownership that people like Hurtig, James Laxer and Mel Watkins have been raising for years. One could easily ask Prairie ranchers or B.C. lumberjacks about the supposed "benefits" of NAFTA when the agreement proved to be utterly ineffective in stopping the American protectionist measures. When I was at a sustainability conference in southern Alberta a few years ago, I was surprised at some of the opinions people expressed-one young woman, a sixth generation farmer who was a devoted supporter of Stephen Harper, also vehemently expressed her opposition to the idea that Canada should become more integrated with the U.S. With all the U.S.'s woes right now, we can and should be asking if it's such a good idea to even be getting too tied up with them in the first place, especially when most of these broad, sweeping trade and border agreements have been negotiated behind closed doors with little scrutiny by the public, Parliament or the American Congress.
All of these things could, in my mind, raise some major alarm bells with Canadians. In fact, in some respects they already are and the concerns cross partisan lines. However, there's a distinction between criticizing our current trade regime or the tax system, and shouting "Yankee Go Home" at every American influence that crosses into Canada. I've eaten at McDonald's dozens of times, I've shopped at Wal-Mart, I've consumed American culture like Spider-Man comics and the Simpsons cartoons, and I've formed friendships with dozens of individual Americans. To my mind, American investment in Canadians companies (as opposed to foreign takeovers of existing Canadian companies) and American companies setting up stores and factories in Canada are all perfectly welcome and can provide a lot of benefits. Nor does it mean that I think people whose views differ from mine are necessarily acting in bad faith-they just have a different view of how things should be, that's all.
In my case, it's not America in and of itself that I and I suspect most other Canadians have a problem with. Rather, it's the exceptionalism and triumphalism that some Americans have expressed over the years, as if their way of doing things is the only viable one that bother me, as well as the much harsher sink-or-swim individualism that tends to prevail down there. Canadian conservatives ranging from Preston Manning to Individualist himself, on the other hand, have expressed support for at least some kind of social safety net to help people in genuine need, a belief that remains expressed in the Conservative Party's founding principles. It might be much more limited than what Liberal or NDP supporters might prefer, but it still exists. By contrast, I have a much harder time finding a similar statement from the current crop of candidate running for the Republican nomination for the American presidency. The closest thing I can think of is Ron Paul's response to the question about people without health insurance, wherein (if I recall correctly) he said that the community can and should support those people voluntarily through charitable donations.
My response would be that individual charity and support, for all its very real value, can't provide as much support to as many people as can a combination of individual charitable support and government action through social programs, tax credits or what have you. To my mind, society has always thrived the most when individual initiative works with collective action, as each can play off each others' strengths while keeping each others' limitations and weaknesses in check. That's been the core message that people like Hurtig have tried to express-when he was profiled on this summer's edition of "Ideas" on CBC, Mel outright said that he wasn't in favour of nationalizing private companies, and alluded to the National Party having been to the right of the NDP-but it's frequently been lost in the invective. Unfortunately, as I said before that too often seems to be lost in talk about traitors and sellouts, telling the "Yankees" to go home, and in general often attacking anyone who dares to disagree. Which is sad, really, because some of the core aspects of the Red Tory narrative are still to my mind very much a part of who we are in Canada, and it continues to play an often overlooked role even in my home province of Alberta.
None of this means that I necessarily have anything against someone like Individualist who has a different opinion. He simply sees things a different way. Nor do I have anything against Americans or their country in general-whatever issues I might have with some aspects of their political culture, I have nothing but respect for their passion for progress and innovation, and the contributions that same passion has led them to make to the world's art, science and culture.
NOTE: Individualist, if you're a woman please let me know and I'll stop using the male pronouns to refer to you. I haven't seen any posts of yours where you express your gender, and I've had to use the male pronoun in its generic sense, when it refers to someone whose gender is unknown.
How about 46,000,000 living below poverty line (and growing), despite being "philanthropic".....?
I'm sure Robin dislikes them too. At the very least, he wouldn't want any of them immigrating to Canada.
As a Canadian nationalist and someone who strongly supports a lot of the principles of Red Toryism, I think that there's been a serious problem with the way my fellow nationalists like Hurtig, Orchard et al. have been commmunicating over the last several years.
Hurtig and Barlow are different from Orchard and Laxer. I don't think the former really hate or dislike Americans per se. I think the real object of their hatred and scorn is the so-called "continentalists" like D'Aquino or Manley. For them, it's more of an internecine squabble with fellow Canadians than a battle against a foreign power. Hurtig and Barlow are more Axworthy/Copps Liberals than anything further to the left.
I believe Orchard and Laxer, on the other hand, are more genuinely anti-American, based if nothing else of the fact that both have written books attacking the US and American culture. Laxer has made kind of a career of it, in fact. It's more of a smug, Avi Lewis kind of anti-Americanism however than the rabid, visceral kind of a Robin Mathews.
Orchard is perhaps the worst example of Red Tory anti-Americanism, but people like Dalton Camp weren't really much better.
Once again Jared, I appreciate your intervention. Before I started coming to Vive, I pretty much thought that all (or most) Canadian nationalists thought like Robin Mathews. I committed what for someone like me is an unpardonable sin. I collectivized nationalists. Mea culpa. Thankfully, I now see the nuances and variety of viewpoints within the nationalist tent.
I resented Red Tories for a long time because I thought them the authors of much of the Central Canadian apparatus that kept the non-Laurentian regions of Canada in mercantilist servitude. I resented as well their habit of smothering more populist strains of conservatism. Once again, I have moderated my views over time.
And finally, I don't care much about pronouns. But "he" and "him" are perfectly fine.
http://melhurtig.ca/2011/01/19/rip-keith-davey/
It also cuts the other way, too. Ron Dart is a close friend of Robin Mathews, and in reading his book "The Canadian High Tory Tradition" I've noted the way he takes Canadian leftists to task for simply aping the tactics and statements of prominent American leftists like Noam Chomsky.
In my case, while I greatly admire St?phane Dion for a variety of reasons, I couldn't bring myself to vote for him in 2008. For me, the Green Shift was the dealbreaker. When I was having lunch with my former graduate thesis supervisor last year and I mentioned that to him, my former supervisor was more than a little surprised and said that I'm probably more conservative than I thought. In part, that explains why I strongly support Stephen Harper's judicial reforms, particularly when Canadian judges give absurdly lenient sentences to sickos like this guy:
http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/ ... /311309965
To me, Canadian nationalism and sovereignty aren't just about social programs and foreign ownership restrictions anyway. Those can be part of it, sure, but I also very strongly support the way the Harper Conservatives are rebuilding the Canadian military. Not only is it unfair to the Americans to expect them to foot the entire bill for defending North America, but I also like having a strong military that can stand on its own two feet. Same thing with Harper's efforts to commemorate the War of 1812 (which ties into our very proud but sadly neglected military history), his Arctic sovereignty initiative (which can itself be an important assertion of Canadian sovereignty over our northern territories), and his favouring immigrants who speak good English and/or French over those that don't (which reinforces English and French as our official languages). Whatever other issues I might have with Harper, his government has made a number of very useful bread-and-butter reforms in a number of areas where attention was long overdue, and if you ask me it's been those kinds of reforms that have gotten him his majority in Parliament.
I believe he hasn't addressed his remarks against anyone earning less than $200K in the US, so I couldn't say if "hates" the American poor as much......
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Whether they're corporate executives, university professors, Beat poets, Vietnam-era draft dodgers or Iraq War deserters, Robin considers Americans to be infected with individualism, and thus anathema to Canadians.