Long-awaited BC Rail corruption case will start in late April or sooner for 8 to 10 weeks; likely to be heard by jury

BASI-VIRK

Trial by jury could begin earlier in April at judge's request

By Bill Tieleman, 24 hours columnist

The trial of three men facing corruption charges in the B.C. Legislature raid case will begin in late April or sooner for eight to 10 weeks, a B.C. Supreme Court justice heard Monday.

And David Basi, Bob Virk and Aneal Basi – the three former B.C. Liberal government aides facing charges connected to the $1 billion sale of B.C. Rail in 2003 – want a jury trial, defence lawyers say.

Justice Anne MacKenzie said she wants the trial completed by summer, prompting Special Prosecutor Bill Berardino to suggest starting earlier in April might be possible.

Outside court Michael Bolton, representing David Basi, said: “The accused want a jury trial.”

Bolton also said the defence will not likely a change of venue to Victoria.

David Basi and Virk face breach of trust and fraud charges for allegedly accepting benefits from lobbyists representing one of the bidder for BC Rail in exchange for providing confidential provincial government information about the sale. Aneal Basi faces money laundering charges connected to the alleged payment of benefits.

Lobbyists Erik Bornmann and Brian Kieran of the now-defunct Pilothouse Public Affairs company will both testify as key Crown witnesses and do not face charges themselves. OmniTRAX, the US-based railway company they were retained by, face no charges and has denied any wrongdoing.

UPDATE 1

In court Berardino told MacKenzie that the defence and Crown had made further progress to attempt to eliminate all pre-trial motions.
Berardino said the exception was for a small number of pre-trial third party applications by those with an interest in the case.

Lawyer Ed Montague, representing 13 BC Liberal MLAs subject to a court disclosure order, appeared on their behalf Monday.

Montague said he has reviews summary descriptions of possible evidence before it is disclosed to the defence to determine if his clients wish to object.

"The general category is draft and pending legislation and communications between MLAs," Montague told MacKenzie.

Berardino said afterwards that there may still be one to three days of pre-trial hearings needed on third party applications regarding disclosure.

BC Rail lawyer Robert Deane told MacKenzie that his client has reviewed its database and the only possible outstanding evidence deals with documents where third parties may object to its disclosure but which have been made available to the defence.

"If the defence wants to use these documents in open court notice has to be given to two proponents who have claimed confidentiality," Deane said without naming the third parties.

Defence lawyers have alleged in court that Patrick Kinsella, former BC Liberal Party election co-chair in 2001 and 2005, was working for both BC Rail and CN Rail - the winning bidder in 2003 - at the same time.

Kinsella was paid $297,000 by BC Rail for "business advice" between 2001 and 2005.

The court will reconvene on Wednesday February 10 at 10 a.m. to set the trial date, with the accused required to be in court.

Aneal Basi's lawyer Joe Doyle requested that he be allowed to appear by video link from Montreal, where he is currently employed. MacKenzie agreed if that can be done - otherwise he must appear in person.

Outside court Bolton refused to speculate on why the defendants are requesting a jury trial nor would he suggest how many witnesses, if any, the defence would call, saying that would be made clear after the Crown has presented its case first.

Bolton called Berardino's suggestion the trial will take eight to 10 weeks to complete a "reasonable estimate" but would not say how long the defence would need to present its arguments.

Earlier in court provincial government lawyer George Copley requested and received two orders from MacKenzie regarding email backup tapes and privilege claims - both the Crown and defence consented.

A version of this story will be printed in Tuesday's 24 hours newspaper

Basi-Virk - confirmed for short hearing Monday February 8 at 10 a.m. - may set trial date then

I have confirmed that there will be a short - less than 30 minutes - pre-trial hearing in the BC Legislature Raid case at BC Supreme Court on Monday February 8 at 10 a.m.

<- David Basi

At that hearing the Special Prosecutor and defence counsel for David Basi, Bob Virk and Aneal Basi - the accused former BC Liberal government aides facing corruption charges connected to the $1 billion privatization of BC Rail in 2003 - will report on progress in moving towards a trial.

The date for that trial may be set on Monday or may be put over to another scheduled hearing on Wednesday February 10 at 10 a.m.

Watch this blog for a full report Monday as soon as possible.

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Fight HST launches BC citizens Initiative after approval from Elections BC!

I am very pleased to tell you that Fight HST's citizens petition has been approved by Elections BC, it was announced today. The Initiative signing period of 90 days will run from April 6 to July 5, 2010.

I am working with former BC Premier Bill Vander Zalm and a wide range of other people from every political persuasion - or none - to try to stop the unfair 7% Harmonized Sales Tax from being imposed by the BC Liberal government.

Below is today's news release from Fight HST - a photo from the news conference is above with myself, Chris Delaney and Sal Vetro pictured - please sign up in your riding!

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FIGHT HST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, February 4, 2010


BC CITIZENS’ INITIATIVE APPLICATION BY FORMER PREMIER BILL VANDER ZALM TO KILL THE HST APPROVED BY ELECTIONS BC FOR APRIL


Vancouver, BC – A British Columbia citizens’ Initiative petition to kill the BC Liberal government’s proposed 12% Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on virtually all goods and services in BC, has been approved by Elections BC, former Premier, Fight HST leader and petition applicant Bill Vander Zalm announced Thursday.

Fight HST, the group started by Vander Zalm, said the Elections BC approved citizens’ Initiative can begin signature collection on April 6, 2010.

If implemented on July 1, 2010, the HST announced last year by Premier Gordon Campbell would add an additional 7% tax on everything from restaurant meals, haircuts, bicycles, and gym memberships to golf fees, airline tickets, funeral services, new homes over $525,000 to professional fees like accounting and much, more.

Vander Zalm is currently travelling on business in California but issued a statement.

“The citizen's Initiative petition is our first move and it is the people's opportunity to tell the governments that we are still a democracy and not totally an elected dictatorship,” Vander Zalm said. “The Initiative is also the people's opportunity to kill the HST.”

Fight HST spokesman Bill Tieleman said that: “The citizens’ Initiative petition is a legally-binding petition, which if successful will require the government to either conduct a province-wide referendum on the HST or to present an Act to repeal the HST in the legislature.”

Tieleman explained that the Fight HST group must collect the signatures of 10% of registered voters in all 85 BC electoral districts in 90 days to be successful.

“We will have to collect all those signatures between April 6 and July 5. We have over 1,500 volunteers from across the province who have already agreed to canvass for signatures, and we expect that number to increase dramatically as we approach the start date and people see that the HST can indeed be stopped,” he said.

Chris Delaney, Lead Organizer for Fight HST, said that the proposed legislation for the citizens’ Initiative would nullify the HST agreement between the federal government and the province, thereby extinguishing the HST in BC.

“We would return to the Provincial Sales Tax as it was applied before the surprise HST announcement,” said Delaney. “Our legislation would be effective retroactively from June 30, 2010, the day before the proposed implementation of the HST. This means the government will have to refund all extra HST revenues they collect over and above what they would have received under the PST, to British Columbia taxpayers. It’s their money after all,” said Delaney.

Delaney said Fight HST is calling on Premier Campbell to tell British Columbians whether he will abide by the voters wishes and repeal the HST if the petition is successful.

“British Columbians deserve to know if their Premier, the same man who has repeatedly expressed support for grass roots democracy and effective Citizen Initiative legislation, will abide by it when it is applied to his government.”

NO BC HST disappears from Facebook for 3 days - what happened to BC's largest group? And why?

- Photo courtesy Lost In Scotland

Bill Tieleman's 24 hours/The Tyee column

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

HST Fighting Facebook Group Vanishes

Who, or what, made the 130,000-member 'No BC HST' group blink off for days?

By Bill Tieleman

Please note that is not technically possible to hack a Facebook group."

- Facebook

Who killed British Columbia's biggest Facebook group with over 130,000 members -- NO BC HST -- for three days?

And how was it miraculously brought back to online life, with no explanation from Facebook or notice?

So far, I have no idea, even though I created and administer the protest group against B.C.'s planned seven per cent Harmonized Sales Tax and reported its complete disappearance to Facebook authorities.

It's a disturbing mystery without many clues.

But answers are needed, not just because this group temporarily vanished but because any Facebook group from any political perspective could disappear without a trace too.

In fact, another group I created that has over 8,000 members -- Axe The BC Gas Tax -- has also gone missing and not reappeared by press time. UPDATE - the Facebook group Axe The BC Gas Tax is now back online Tuesday morning!

And so has an Edmonton group of 30,000 members that also vanished on Friday, formed to support a seriously ill baby. UPDATE - that site has now also reappeared.

'We may never find out': expert

One expert is not surprised, nor does he have any comforting advice on how to avoid Facebook group problems.

Dale Jackaman, president of Amuleta Computer Security, says the disappearance of NO BC HST has only three possible explanations. 


"The common link is you, so the question is whether Facebook had a technical issue with your account, or a security issue, or was one of your computers hacked," Jackaman said in an interview late Sunday.

Since this incident I've been scanning all my computers, changing passwords and trying to figure out what went on, without any answers.

But given that two of the five Facebook groups I administer -- the two that are the largest and most damaging to the B.C. Liberals -- were made to disappear, it's hard not to think that it was a politically-motivated attack, not a strange coincidence.

Meanwhile, Jackaman wasn't very encouraging about discovering what happened, based on past experience with Facebook.

"We may never find out. You can try contacting Facebook for security and personal account issues but it's very difficult to do," Jackaman said.

I intend to try, despite the lack of response from Facebook to date -- and to previous media inquiries I made to the Palo Alto, California-based corporation.

BC's biggest Facebook group

But this story is not about me, it's about you.

I've been honoured by the amazing response to NO BC HST since I created it in July 2009, shortly after Premier Gordon Campbell and Finance Minister Colin Hansen made the surprise announcement that B.C. would add an extra 7 per cent tax that will apply to a wide range of goods and services that previously only had a five per cent GST.

It's clear that the phenomenal growth of NO BC HST is solely due to the fact that so many people on Facebook told their friends, family and co-workers to sign up. It had a viral response last summer, with over 1,000 people a day joining.

At over 130,000 members, NO BC HST is actually bigger than the Vancouver Canucks official fan page on Facebook, with just under 121,000 supporters, and much larger than other political pages -- like Campbell's with 2,500 or Hansen's with 300.

What happened on Friday is that someone, somewhere -- either by accident or by malicious intent -- took away the legitimate voice of over 130,000 British Columbians who publicly stated their opposition to the HST, people who included their names and photos in democratically protesting this unfair tax.

This is our online community and we have a right to know it is a safe place that cannot be stolen from us -- not by any technical failures and definitely not by political hackers.

And now you can once again join NO BC HST.

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Why did BC's biggest Facebook group - NO BC HST - suddenly disappear completely on Friday January 29?

UPDATE 3 6:25 p.m. Sunday January 31 - NO BC HST has suddenly and miraculously reappeared online, with all 130,000 plus members intact!

I have no idea what happened - I have no word from Facebook authorities or anyone else - but I intend to find out.

Thank you sincerely for all the expressions of support and concern - it really means a lot to me.

The group Axe The BC Gas Tax, however, is still missing.

Meanwhile, it's time for a stiff drink!

UPDATE 2 January 31 : A supporter has re-registered the name NO BC HST as a Facebook group and offered to turn it over to me - but how can that have happened? I am determined to find out how a 130,000 plus member Facebook group can disappear without my knowledge or involvement.

UPDATE 1 January 30: Another large Facebook group I created in 2008 - Axe The BC Gas Tax - has also completely disappeared! I have again filed an inquiry with Facebook but this is looking more ominous indeed.

On Friday afternoon NO BC HST - the biggest Facebook group in British Columbia, with over 130,000 members - suddenly disappeared without a trace!

It's a total mystery and to date inquiries to Facebook have not explained what has happened. Links to the group on Facebook have also disappeared and external links like the one above only lead to a Facebook home page.

The page was "unavailable" once before for about a day due to Facebook "maintenance" but then reappeared without further explanation.

I can only hope there is a technical problem at Facebook which could explain this - and I will keep you posted here, on my Facebook page and through Twitter.

But a 130,000 member HST protest group can't simply be made to disappear - can it?

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David Loukidelis move from FOI Commissioner to Deputy Attorney General is wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong

Bill Tieleman's 24 hours/The Tyee column

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Mr. Transparency Now Will Guard Secrets

Four reasons FOI Commissioner Loukidelis was wrong to jump to BC deputy Attorney General.

By Bill Tieleman

"Secrecy feeds distrust and dishonesty. Openness builds trust and integrity."

- Gordon Campbell, 1998

The man who has been responsible for ensuring that the provincial government fulfills Freedom of Information requests since 1999 is now deputy attorney general for the B.C. Liberal administration.

David Loukidelis will go from being the independent appointee responsible for ensuring openness and transparency in a government that flagrantly violates FOI rules to being one of the top bureaucrats assigned to keeping documents secret from the media and the public.

And that is seriously wrong in at least four ways.

Reason 1: Reversing roles

Loukidelis has an admirable record as information and privacy commissioner, including fighting B.C. Liberal government funding cuts that have reduced citizen and media access to information that should be readily available.

But the government should not have offered him the deputy attorney general’s position, nor should he have taken it.

Reason 2: Railgate optics

What's more, Loukidelis takes over as the senior administrator responsible for dealing with FOI and other requests for government documents in the B.C. Legislature Raid case -- a disquieting prospect given that he has been ultimately responsible for FOI requests previously made by defence lawyers for David Basi, Bob Virk and Aneal Basi -- who face serious corruption charges.

Who recruited Loukidelis? The former deputy attorney general Allan Seckel, who is now Campbell's own deputy minister.

Reason 3: FOI office shutdown

And the government neglected -- through either sheer stupidity or malicious intent -- to appoint an acting commissioner until Monday afternoon, forcing the entire FOI office to bring all its activities to a halt until then.

You decide which -- because commission executive direct Mary Carlson was forced to write an urgent letter to B.C. Speaker Bill Barisoff Friday after an earlier letter to Premier Gordon Campbell went unanswered.

Only when media attention was focused on the lack of an acting commissioner did the government belatedly appoint B.C.'s conflict of interest commissioner Paul Fraser to temporarily fill in.

Reason 4: A dangerously slippery precedent

But here's what's most important of all. If the FOI commissioner can suddenly take a job in the B.C. government without any restriction, how can the public trust the next person who gets that job won't do the same thing?

And that means the next FOI commissioner may well be a lot more cooperative with the government than their position demands -- in order to seek another and potentially more lucrative job in government afterwards.

Loukidelis is an honourable public servant, and I believe he will continue to act in that manner in his new position.

But let's be clear. He reports directly to both attorney general Mike de Jong and Campbell; he is an Order In Council appointee and can be dismissed without cause at any time.

Anyone who serves as the independent FOI commissioner should be disqualified from subsequently serving in a government position to ensure that the integrity of the office is unquestionable.

As someone who has filed dozens of FOI requests, including several appeals to the commissioner when FOI documents were withheld unfairly and unnecessarily to prevent government embarrassment, I know this government is the most secretive in the country.

Now Loukidelis, the man who often bravely attempted to force Campbell to live up to his own promise that the B.C. government would be the most "open and transparent" in Canada, is part of that same administration that seriously weakened FOI legislation while slashing the commissioner's budget to further hurt access.

And that is beyond regrettable.

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BC Legislature Raid trial will finally happen! Crown and defence to set trial date in early February for later this year

BASI-VIRK

Political corruption trial date to be set in early February, over six years after 2003 police raid on B.C. Legislature

By Bill Tieleman, 24 hours columnist

A trial date in the political corruption case that begin with a police raid on the B.C. Legislature in 2003 will finally be set in early February for later this year, a Special Prosecutor said in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday.

Bill Berardino said lawyers for the accused – former B.C. Liberal government aides David Basi, Bob Virk and Aneal Basi – have made such substantial progress working with the Crown on outstanding defence applications that a trial date can be set on either February 8 or 10.

Berardino said the Crown will call seven to 10 core witnesses in efforts to convict David Basi and Virk of breach of trust and fraud and predicted that would take eight to 10 weeks in court.

The two former ministerial aides are alleged to have provided confidential government information to lobbyists representing a losing bidder in the $1 billion sale of B.C. Rail to CN Rail in 2003. Aneal Basi faces related money laundering charges.

Justice Anne MacKenzie was visibly pleased at the news a trial date can be set.

“The court wants to acknowledge the hard work of the Crown and defence counsel,” MacKenzie said, referring to negotiations to withdraw potential defence applications, including abuse of process, challenges to wiretaps and disclosure issues.

“This is very helpful to the administration of justice,” MacKenzie said.

Outside court David Basi’s lawyer Michael Bolton said it was “premature to talk about defence witnesses”.

“It depends on which witnesses the Crown call and which witnesses, if any, the defence calls,” Bolton said, also declining to speculate on how long the defence would take to present its case in court.

A version of this story will be published in 24 hours newspaper on Tuesday January 26.

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