BC Liberal MLA John Yap Must Go As Parliamentary Secretary to Attorney General Because Of Investigation Into Ethnic Outreach Scandal When Yap Was Minister

Why is former minister John Yap - mired in BC Liberal outreach scandal - still working for BC Attorney General and Justice Minister Suzanne Anton?

BC Liberal MLA John Yap

"An apparent conflict of interest exists when there is a reasonable apprehension, which reasonably well-informed persons could properly have, that a conflict of interest exists."

- former Ontario Supreme Court chief justice William Parker, 1987

Why is BC Liberal MLA John Yap still serving as parliamentary secretary to the attorney general and justice minister while RCMP and a special prosecutor investigate the ethnic outreach scandal?

Yap resigned from cabinet as B.C.'s minister responsible for multiculturalism after it was revealed that activities in his ministry crossed the line from government work to partisan politics at taxpayer expense.

A report by Premier Christy Clark's deputy minister John Dyble concluded "lines between party work and government are clearly crossed" in a meeting Yap attended with ethnic outreach staff.

The staff involved, Dyble wrote, "breached the Standards of Conduct in the blending of coordination of ministry and partisan events."

Yap also admitted his ex-staffers Brian Bonney and Mike Lee used private emails to avoid Freedom of Information requests, violating government legislation.

And for good reason.

An email Yap received from Lee's personal account told him: "It is absolutely critical that we do not leave any evidence" about assistance hiring three ethnic outreach community liaisons that Yap knew, the Dyble report says.

"I made a mistake here, and I'm owning up to it. I've learned the hard way that was not appropriate," Yap said in March.

So why is Yap still in a key position as assistant to Attorney General Suzanne Anton, while the RCMP and special prosecutor David Butcher probe possible Elections Act violations and potentially lay charges?

It's simple: Yap must go

It's called apparent conflict of interest -- and it's obvious that Yap shouldn't hold his position while the investigation takes place.

Indeed a Sept. 26 BC Criminal Justice Branch statement said the appointment of a special prosecutor was made: "as the investigation could include members of government and/or government employees."

Yap may be completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but that's not the point.

What's important is that Yap, someone likely to be questioned about ethnic outreach issues, not be at the same time in a prominent position in the ministry responsible for supervising police and justice.

It's really not complicated. Yap simply has to go.

After all, look at what happened in March 2013:

Yap was out as minister responsible; Premier Christy Clark's deputy chief of staff Kim Haakstad and Yap's executive assistant Mike Lee resigned for their roles in those so-called "quick win" activities; and the BC Liberal Party paid the province $70,000 to compensate for the inappropriate partisan work done by government staff.

Later the NDP made allegations that Bonney, as communications director for the multiculturalism ministry, offered a job to a disgruntled staff person involved who had information that "would damage the Premier and the (Liberal) party" -- according to an email sent by Bonney.

B.C. New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix triggered the current investigation by sending a private letter containing new information about the scandal to the RCMP.

That information has not been made public, but it obviously was sufficiently important to warrant the appointment of a special prosecutor.

The BC Criminal Justice Branch statement said that no word about the appointment had been released until then "at the specific request of the RCMP to safeguard the integrity of the investigation in its early stages."

Clark survived the ethnic outreach scandal to win the May election, but she should not put political loyalty to Yap ahead of the integrity of the investigation. Yap must go until it concludes.

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Ben Chin, Communications Director to Premier Christy Clark, testifying live now at Ontario Legislative Inquiry into $585 million cancellation of power plants

Ben Chin, Communications Director to Premier Christy Clark, testifies at Ontario Legislative Inquiry into $500 million cancellation of power plants - Thursday September 26, 2013

It isn't everyday that a senior BC government official in the premier's office testifies before an Ontario Legislative Inquiry into a decision that will cost taxpayers up to $585 million - but today that's what Ben Chin is doing.

You can watch Chin testify under some tough questioning from opposition members live right now - as of 12:30 p.m. BC time - at the Ontario hearing.

Why is Ben Chin testifying?  Because of his role as Vice-President Communications at the Ontario Power Authority, a job he got after running unsuccessfully for the Ontario Liberal Party in the 2006 election.

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Brian Topp Spins BC NDP's Election Loss in "Leaked" Report

Former campaign manager Brian Topp should have never got the job 

Brian Topp

Bill Tieleman’s 24 Hours Vancouver / The Tyee column

Tuesday September 24, 2013

By Bill Tieleman  

"The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning."

- Adlai E. Stevenson, two-time U.S. presidential candidate.

The biggest conclusion one can draw from the leaked report of B.C. New Democratic Party election campaign manager Brian Topp is that he never should have got the job.

Last week Topp's 42-page confidential document for the BC NDP was somehow obtained by not one but two major newspapers and an influential Ottawa political blog just after leader Adrian Dix announced his resignation last week.

Reading the report makes it clear that Topp is undertaking the biggest salvage job since the Costa Concordia cruise ship was removed from the rocks off Italy's coast, trying to re-float his damaged political consulting career.

Topp attempts to subtly yet inexorably paint Dix as sinking the campaign almost singlehandedly, but the reality is that Topp -- not Dix -- was actually running it.

And while Dix -- whom I supported for leader -- took responsibility by quitting, the Topp spin merely "deeply" regrets some mistakes in "hindsight."

Yet those errors were fatal, and many of Topp's recommendations are little more than Political Campaigning 101 fundamentals.

For example: "The next campaign must contrast the choices and remind voters of the government's record in clear, compelling and straightforward language from the first day of the campaign."

Or: "Our proposals were framed as spending commitments rather than as outcomes that meant something to the lives of families."

No kidding!

But wasn't Topp hired because he was a veteran campaign manager and strategist who knows all this stuff? Did he need to lose a "can't miss" election to rediscover the basics?

And if Topp disagreed with the premise of the campaign and the leader's approach that were well known months before, why did he take the assignment?

Questionable company

That Topp even was allowed to continue as campaign manager after announcing in February he had formed the public affairs company Kool Topp & Guy with Christy Clark's disgraced former chief of staff Ken Boessenkool and BC Liberal Party advisor Don Guy was the NDP's and Dix's biggest election mistake.

Boessenkool resigned after an "incident of concern" involving a female staffer in a Victoria bar; and Guy, a longtime Ontario Liberal strategist, spoke behind closed doors at the provincial Liberal convention in 2012 on how to defeat the NDP. He later joined Christy Clark's election team.

Boessenkool famously remarked that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's greatest achievement in office was to kill a national child care program, while Guy was embroiled in an Ontario public inquiry into the cancellation of two natural gas power plants at a cost of over $585 million to taxpayers. Interesting company for Topp to keep, let along partner with.

When Guy flew into B.C. to do communications and research for Clark's successful election campaign, it meant that two owners of the same firm were fighting on opposite sides of the ballot, while the third owner cheered on his former boss Clark -- knowing either way one of his partners would win.

But the NDP was apparently too nervous to find another manager without Topp's baggage before the election, even though it should have.

Lazy polling

It was Topp who astonishingly rejected the mainstay of modern political campaigns: polling key swing ridings daily during the election to determine trends. I broke this news in The Tyee after the election.

Since then I've learned the NDP undertook significant swing riding polling during the 2009, 2005 and even the disastrous 2001 election campaigns -- but not in 2013.

Meanwhile, the Liberals were doing daily tracking polls in 25 key ridings, giving them instant feedback on messaging, NDP vulnerability and where to allocate resources.

But the NDP continued believing they were well ahead and bound for glory, until 8:30 p.m. on election night, when the easy victory turned into an historic defeat.

And yet Topp's report doesn't even mention the lack of swing riding polling, let alone why it was rejected as a tool for the first time in over a decade.

Nor does it explain the reasons behind a late campaign switch in pollsters from Environics to Strategic Communications.

Both did province-wide polling similar to public polls conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion and Ipsos that wrongly showed the NDP ahead through the whole campaign, though StratCom's numbers had it a much tighter race and even put the Liberals slightly ahead by a point five days out before the NDP regained the lead.

Topp's report instead obliquely says: "Critics of our campaign have had a lot to say about what they think they know about our tracking polling during the campaign. In hindsight, there were more fundamental issues with the way we researched this campaign that should not be repeated."

(Ironically, the only time Dix got a boost in the party's own polling was after the televised debate -- which not coincidentally was the only time Dix launched a withering attack on Premier Christy Clark. While some retroactively argue Dix lost the debate, several polls, public and the NDP's formerly private poll, show clearly that Dix bested Clark.)

Removed from BC

Topp also picked and directed the "war room" staff of political operatives who prosecuted the campaign, including fellow Jack Layton veterans Brad Lavigne and Anne McGrath from Ontario.

And as campaign manager, Topp also chose Toronto ad agency Open to produce the BC NDP's lacklustre election ads. Open created federal NDP election ads in 2011, when the party vaulted into second place, with Topp a senior advisor to Layton.

Topp also declined to come to B.C. early to get started on the campaign, instead participating remotely from Toronto before flying in a few weeks before the writ dropped.

And again the NDP wrongly acquiesced, presumably thinking British Columbia couldn't be that different from Ontario or a national campaign. It is.

The decision to roll out the NDP platform planks in the hostile territory of senior BC Liberal cabinet ministers -- where there were bad optics and limited supporters -- was another Topp choice, though one that he grudgingly acknowledges in the report, albeit with a dismissive reference.

"We paid a price for our plan to campaign in senior ministers' ridings (my idea, for those who are looking for the specific witch to burn on this issue)," Topp says.

As I've written at length, Dix made plenty of mistakes -- demanding long in advance a campaign that didn't go negative, switching positions mid-election to oppose the Kinder Morgan pipeline -- and took ultimate responsibility for it by resigning his leadership last week.

But Dix wasn't driving the campaign bus, writing the ad copy, advancing the tour stops and running the war room!

A tough job, but...

Ultimately in a campaign every leader, no matter how strongly held their views, has to defer to the campaign manager.

That was no different in 1996 when I was communications director to NDP premier Glen Clark in the upset election win over BC Liberal leader Gordon Campbell. Glen Clark had clear ideas about that challenging election but campaign manager Hans Brown called the shots.

So it's admittedly a very tough job filled with difficult decisions and huge consequences where just one mistake can cost an election.

Topp is a talented man who has been around political campaigns for decades, as well as almost becoming leader of the federal New Democrats, coming second to Tom Mulcair in 2012.

And having known Topp for over 35 years, I take no pleasure in drawing my conclusions.

That Topp failed in a critical election for BC New Democrats was tragic; that he take responsibility for certain "errors of strategy" but avoids doing so for other critical decisions avoids is disturbing.

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Canadian Taxpayers Federation Demands Accountability, but Not for Itself

Troy Lanigan

Jordan Bateman

Not-for-profit CTF scolds government for dubious spending, but keeps its own books tightly shut.

Bill Tieleman’s 24 Hours Vancouver / The Tyee column

Tuesday September 17, 2013

By Bill Tieleman

"We've definitely lost donors who would like to see more transparency." 

- Canadian Taxpayers Federation CEO Troy Lanigan

You can't turn on your television or radio or read a newspaper regularly without discovering some nefarious spending by government uncovered by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Its B.C. director, Jordan Bateman, is a regular fixture in the media, denouncing taxes and public sector spending.

But who watches the watchdog, making sure the organization dedicated to "lower taxes, less waste and accountable government" is equally accountable to the public it seeks to influence?

Apparently, almost no one.

While the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, or CTF, boasts that it speaks for 84,000 supporters, it has just five -- count 'em, five -- actual members who decide its policies.

And the CTF does not hold an open annual general meeting, policy conferences, or any other membership gatherings that one might expect from a group that's constantly in the news demanding transparency from others.

Those five members form a board of directors who determine its budget, strategic plan and communications.

Donor names are secret, staff salaries are not posted by name, and while the CTF strongly denies being corporately funded and insists that 94 per cent of their donations are less than $1,000, there is no way to determine if that's true.

CEO Troy Lanigan defends CTF's structure however, saying in an interview that "very, very seldom" do they get requests for open meetings from supporters, who last year gave the federal not-for-profit corporation almost $4 million.

"It's ultimately accountable to funders. Donations are voluntary. People choose to be on our list; they drop off all the time," Lanigan said Friday from Victoria.

'We have a philosophical bent'

It's clear the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is also fundamentally right-wing in its politics.

Federal Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is a former CTF CEO. New Brunswick Conservative MP John Williamson, an ex-communications director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was federal CTF director. And Sara MacIntyre went from B.C. CTF director to become Harper's press secretary and then BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark's communications director for a time.

B.C.'s Bateman is a former president of BC Liberal cabinet minister Rich Coleman's Langley constituency association.

The current five directors who are the CTF's only members include John Mortimer, president of LabourWatch -- a group that promotes union decertification -- and a past Canadian Alliance candidate.

Erin Chutter [formerly Airton], a mining executive who has worked for the federal Conservatives and BC Liberals, and an ex-24 Hours Vancouver columnist, was a director until April 2013.

There don't appear to be any current or former staff or directors remotely connected to the New Democrats or unions.

Lanigan said it's no secret the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is right-wing.

"We have a philosophical bent. I don't like being called a small-c conservative -- I prefer libertarian," Lanigan said.

"We obviously agree with the Conservatives on some issues, but not all," he added, pointing to a current campaign roasting now ex-Conservative Senator Mike Duffy over his expenses.

He insisted that CTF staff drop political party memberships and donations when they join, but admitted: "I cringe when our people go run in politics [afterwards]. But if people look at it objectively, we also go after conservative politicians."

Do lefty 'counterparts' disclose?

Lanigan pointed out the CTF has also supported many New Democrat initiatives to improve government accountability, such as B.C.'s pioneering Freedom Of Information laws in the 1990s, pension and tax reforms made by the Saskatchewan NDP, and federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair's private member's bill to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer fully independent.

Lanigan also said the organization had a better relationship with former Liberal finance minister Paul Martin than with current Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

But even a cursory look at the CTF website shows most of its campaigns target taxes, government spending, debt and public sector union wages and benefits -- all with a conservative/libertarian approach.

"A lot of our debates are with unions in the public sector. They are effective on issues and we clash with them," Lanigan said.

Lanigan pointed to the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) as counterparts on the political left that are doing the same kind of advocacy work.

But the Council of Canadians promotes individual memberships and has an annual general membership meeting in October, plus dozens of local chapters that meet regularly. It reports raising $4.5 million last year, but rejects either corporate or government funding while accepting union contributions.

The CCPA also encourages people to join as members and has charitable tax status which requires different reporting under federal rules. It raised just over $5 million last year, with individuals the single largest source of donations, said CCPA's B.C. director Seth Klein, while also accepting union contributions.

Klein disputed Lanigan's terming the CCPA a "counterpart" of the CTF.

"We're first and foremost a research institute, not a campaign and lobby organization," Klein said Monday, noting that any research funded by donors is disclosed.

Selective opposition to taxes

Back at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, even its opposition to taxes is selective.

The CTF astonishingly refused to oppose the Harmonized Sales Tax imposed by then-premier Gordon Campbell's BC Liberal government, despite widespread popular opposition.

Then-CTF B.C. director Maureen Bader dismissed efforts by Fight HST -- which I helped create -- to stop the tax.

"The HST is not going away. It doesn't matter how many petitions there are, or how outraged people are -- and they are really outraged about it -- the government is not going to back down," Bader said in 2010.

In 2009, Bader actually praised the HST: "In theory, it's a good thing. In the short term it's bad for families, but over the long run it should help with economic growth and increase incentives to work and invest in the province."

Fortunately the CTF didn't discourage over 700,000 voters from signing the Citizens Initiative petition that forced the vote that killed the HST.

Lanigan admitted his organization's position on the tax split members in B.C.

But when the Nova Scotia NDP government announced an HST increase, the CTF opposed it and cited the hike as one of its main reasons for opening an Atlantic office in Halifax.

Watch the watchdog

It all makes one wonder how the Canadian Taxpayers Federation can roast politicians in public for lack of transparency with a straight face while keeping its own decision-making and accountability very private.

"We're not spending taxpayer dollars, and donors have a choice to give us money or not," Lanigan said.

And asked who is the watchdog on the CTF itself, Lanigan replied: "People like yourself, the media, some governments who fire back."

A close look at the organization's structure certainly indicates it's worth watching.

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