Pipelines of information, the real issue of election 2013

The Freedom of Information and Privacy Association of British Columbia's twin goals are "to empower citizens by promoting and defending the principle of universal and affordable access to the basic information channels of our time," and "to empower citizens by increasing their access to information and their control over their own personal information" and "to empower citizens by limiting the surveillance activities of the state, and by increasing our right to access our own personal information and our ability to control the collection, use and sharing of our personal information, wherever it is stored."

I was honoured to be asked to appear as the special guest speaker at the April 11, 2013 annual general meeting of the FIPA, which was established in 1991. Here are my remarks. 

April 11, 2013, People's Law School, Vancouver. 

Thank-you for coming tonight. Thank-you to Vince and Tyler from FIPA BC for the invitation. Fifty-nine years ago today -- the most boring day of the 20th century, according to Cambridge University researchers. No famous births or deaths or major events on April 11, 1954. I will try to help end the day on a high note. 

The election writ drops on April 16. Can you feel it? Silly season is already here. The Liberals are focussing on Bollywood. The NDP is focussing on Hollywood North. 

The election will be about oil, natural gas, tankers and pipelines. We need to get back to basics. We need to make this the election about information and privacy pipelines.

The privacy pipeline that flows from citizens to government should be as narrow as a straw, made of steel -- to prevent leaks -- and the contents should flow deliberately. Like the thickest milkshake youʼve ever had.

The information pipeline that flows the other way, from government to citizens, should be as big as a truck to drive through and made of plexiglas. Let it flow as fast as a waterfall.

The problem is, the governments we have, using the laws that exist, have engineered a straw-sized information pipeline that flows like molasses and a fat, leaky data pipe. The people in power control the flow of information as they seek to build mini-empires.

Denise Rudnicki wrote a Carleton University thesis in 2009 called “Information or Persuasion” about how the federal government pioneered the permanent campaign. (The next one begins May 15 here in B.C.) The roots are 1969ʼs Task Force on Government Information and its report, called “To Know and Be Known.”

The government realized it could use advertising and public relations to leapfrog the media, and go direct to citizens. Who needs reporters? They think and ask questions. Weʼre just a pain in the ass.

Rudnicki wrote on J-Source.ca:

“This goes way beyond spin. This involves a sophisticated, government-wide, coordinated communications apparatus, well- resourced and professionally staffed, and designed to persuade people of the rightness of the government's position by marginalizing the views of opponents and by using the media to shape and manage public discussion of policy. Calling this effort 'spin' is like calling a tsunami a wave.”
“This is a hugely uneven playing field. Groups that are opposed to any government initiative are under-resourced by comparison. They do not have 15-page communications plans, a communications branch to unify their message and media- train their spokespeople; they do not have the ability to conduct focus groups, do advertising, and rely on the advice of professional communicators to win the public relations war.
“Journalists are equally disadvantaged. Thousands of people work in government communications and millions of dollars are spent at the same time newsrooms are shrinking and fewer journalists are being asked to do more with less. Journalists will never be able to level the field but understanding the game will allow them to analyse it more effectively for the benefit of their readers, viewers and listeners.”

The federally mastered corporate communications model was adopted by the provincial government. It has infected Vancouver city hall -- under a mayor who came to power in 2008 promising transparency. 

Senior bureaucrats were once happy to connect with journalists and citizens, to explain how the city works and what they were doing to make it livable. Theyʼre not allowed anymore. All questions must go through the communications office. Good luck if you want an interview from an expert or decision-maker. Good luck if you want any useful information by deadline.

Now the Mayor, like the Premier, is using open data as a decoy. It is a ruse, to fool us into believing that theyʼre being open and transparent. When theyʼre not. Gee-whiz data sets with maps of fire hydrants and manhole covers are probably useful to someone.

But why were those locations chosen? Who was the supplier? How were they chosen? How much did they cost? Open data must come with open information to be useful. (I filed such requests yesterday, to test the city and its new digital strategy.)

How bad has it become? How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a lightbulb? (With apologies to any bureaucrats here tonight.) Trick question -- none, because the job was privatized. In April 2012, the Ottawa Citizen revealed the story behind the story, when it asked the National Research Council about a study it did with NASA about falling snow. 

The feds sent an email with a non-answer. Seven sentences without mention of snow.

The Citizen called NASA and in one 15-minute phone call, the Citizen got the answer. NASA just wanted to advance the science of snowstorms. So the Citizen filed an Access to Information request.

How many bureaucrats did it take to handle the original reporter? The answer? Eleven. Enough for a soccer team. The National Research Council bureaucrats sent a dozen emails back and forth to formulate an answer. To manufacture their message.

When I got into the business as a wide-eyed Langara J-school kid in 1990, things were different. Fax machines and answering machines were high tech and politicians were reachable -- if they were at their desks.

Those days are gone. Bureaucrats canʼt say much and politicians donʼt want to say much. They can hide behind email.

So we use Freedom of Information. Even that is getting harder. 

For a variety of reasons, including transparency, Reporters Without Borders ranked Canada 20th on the press freedom index last year. We used to be 10th. 

The year before that, 2011, was the year of the protest. The Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. Average citizens were mad as hell and couldnʼt take it anymore with the lying, cheating corporate bigwigs and their friends in political office. Government workers on the take. Brutal cops, soldiers and spies. It started after the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi -- the most corrupt sporting event since the Montreal 1976 Olympics. Indians took to the streets by the thousands and some even did hunger strikes, to seek justice against the corrupt organizers.

The top two executives, Suresh Kalmadi and Lalit Bhanot, were charged with corruption. 

From India to North Africa to the Arab peninsula, people wanted corruption to stop. Because, without transparency and integrity in government, can we have a democracy or even freedom? 

This -- the smart phone -- is our greatest tool. We can tell our stories to the world, in words, pictures and sounds. Instantly through social media. Thatʼs what they were doing from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. Dictators and their friends fear it. Or do they? 

While the media has become bigger and stronger and more relevant than ever, technology and the economy have made it smaller and weaker and less relevant. And so democracy is under attack.

The Pew Research Centreʼs State of the Media survey found one-third of respondents deserted a news outlet -- they werenʼt getting the news and information like they used to. Pew blamed “a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands.”

“At the same time, newsmakers and others with information they want to put into the public arena have become more adept at using digital technology and social media to do so on their own, without any filter by the traditional media.” 

“They are also seeing more success in getting their message into the traditional media narrative.” In 2008 there was “Joe the Plumber.” In 2012, it was “Binders Full of Women.” What will be the meme for B.C. 2013?

The Pew report said campaign reporters were acting as “megaphones” for politicians and partisans, instead of filtering and putting in context the issues with a critical eye. Has the noble goal of objectivity gone awry? Or did it ever exist? Remember what Hunter S. Thompson said: “With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”

Speaking of box scores and race results. My journey on the FOI trail began because of sport. Because of the Olympics. I entered B.C. Place Stadium on a September day in 1998. Ex- Canucks owner Arthur Griffiths had a new job, bidding for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

Can you imagine? That was the slogan. Slowly, but surely, sport took a back seat. The $6 billion to $8 billion Olympics became a story of politics and economics. Security and insecurity. Poverty and wealth.

Sidney Crosbyʼs golden goal kept Gordon Campbell and John Furlong away from a Royal Commission. Auditors General in Ottawa and Victoria dropped their pencils and went onto other things.

I wrote an e-book about it all -- called Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics. The Vancouver 2010 Olympics were just a colder version of the Montreal 1976 Olympics. We also had Olympic Village and Olympic Stadium scandals.

VANOC convinced Vancouverʼs city manager, Penny Ballem, to hide the financial statements and board minutes from the public in the city archives until 2025.

There were victories along the way. In 2008, Sean Holman got his hands on documents from Washington State that showed how BC Liberal backroom boys Mark Jiles and Patrick Kinsella were hired by the State of Washington to lobby the B.C. government for Olympic-related contracts. Their resume revealed new information about their clients and it boasted that they were: “in the heart of downtown Vancouver, while at the same time... a presence in the provincial capital of Victoria and a foot into the Vancouver 2010 Organizing Committee.” They offered to set-up meetings with John Furlong, Jack Poole and cabinet ministers.

David Eby and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association gained documents that showed how the RCMP would turn downtown Vancouver into an armed fortress with street closures galore.

After the Games, CBCʼs Fifth Estate got the famous March 2009 email sent by John Furlong to senior VANOC executives. The International Luge Federation was worried that the Whistler Sliding Centre was too fast and someone could get hurt. “An athlete gets badly injured or worse and I think the case could be made we were warned and did nothing,” Furlong wrote. They were warned. An athlete died. The question remains: did they do anything? 

I had a few scores along the way. 

Remember how they called them the Green Games? David Suzuki -- “Professor Nature of Things” -- gave VANOC a bronze medal rating before the Games even began. The only thing at the Olympics truly green were the Olympic rings at the venues.

VANOC hired an American company called Gameday for more than $50 million to hire 1,000 diesel buses from as far away as Florida. An FOI to city hall showed that only 300 of the buses had permits by the first weekend of the Games.

Afterward, I did an FOI to the B.C. Passenger Transportation Branch for temporary licence records for all the companies and their buses. Using Google maps, I estimated they were driven 5.1 million kilometres to and from Vancouver. Thatʼs 127 times around the equator. In the end, the bus contract cost VANOC an extra $40 million. 

Then there was hickory, dickory, VANOC. Mice hitched a ride on straw imported from Oregon to Cypress Mountain. Biologists were hired to trap the mice and to get rid of invasive plants like Japanese knotweed and scentless chamomile. Itʼll cost $160,000 through 2015. 

The symbol of the Games, the Olympic cauldron at Jack Poole Plaza, was a gas guzzler. The VANOC communications machine didnʼt want to tell us how much natural gas it burned while trying to sell the notion that the Games were green. They turned it on again for Canada Day 2010 for 13 hours and, via FOI, I found it used 7.6 Gigajoules per hour. I did the math. Over 25 days of the Olympics and Paralympics, it burned more than 4,500 Gigajoules -- enough to power 56 houses for a year. 

Had the Olympic flame gone out of control at the opening ceremony, it could have been the biggest disaster in Olympic history. I found out through FOI that neither VANOC nor B.C. Place Stadium had conducted a fire drill for more than two years in the stadium. They tested the fire bells, but they did not do a mock evacuation. WorkSafeBC says you need to do it annually. The cauldron arm stuck below the stage on opening night. Can you imagine if it had been spewing flames?

B.C. Place Stadiumʼs slogan used to be Big Dreams Live Here. I became the biggest nightmare for management and B.C. Pavilion Corporation, the Crown corporation that runs it. I have reported stories that run the gamut, from the damage caused by grease leaking on the new roof to the increased costs of electricity since it reopened. I act without malice; I only want to help the people who fund the Crown corporation to know more about it, because PavCo seems unable or unwilling to do so on its own.  

It all began on January 5, 2007. A cold, stormy day. The first Friday of the new year. The world junior hockey championship was on TV. A friend called me. “The roof of B.C. Place Stadium has collapsed!”

I was working for 24 Hours Vancouver at the time. I had a source who gave me the phone number for the control room. Lo and behold, the PR agent was already there and she told me to come down for a news conference. PavCo had its spin, a euphemism called “controlled deflation.” The cousin of “wardrobe malfunction” and “incident of concern,” perhaps? Wind and the 24-year-old roof fabric were the villains. But were they really? It turned out they ignored five alarms, warning that snow was on the roof. All they had to do was heat the roof and it would melt. Out of desperation, the air pressure was spiked, causing an avalanche that cut a hole in the roof. Voila! B.C. Place was supposed to get only $3.8 million for Olympic fix-ups. Now the price was going through the roof.

In May 2006, Liberal minister Olga Ilich said the roof was in fine condition -- it could last 15 to 20 more years. But a month later, as we found out from a Vancouver Sun FOI, the tourism ministry was being asked for renovations because of “worn-out assets” mentioned in a 15-page report -- of which 14 pages were censored.

By the end of 2007, Gordon Campbell and Jack Pooleʼs buddy David Podmore was running PavCo again and he wanted to renovate. Podmore started small. Construction documents I got in 2010 showed it was going to cost $75 million, with a replaced roof. Then it crept up to $100 million. Ideas were flying fast and furiously. Letʼs replace it before the Olympics and make it retractable, like a stadium in Frankfurt, Germany, for $253 million!

It would have been done in time for the Olympics, but experts estimated it would be finished two weeks before opening ceremony. So it was delayed. The budget was going to be $365 million in January 2009. By October 2009, it was $563 million.

The government kept the renovation business plan secret, by calling it a cabinet document. Never approved by the Legislature or the voters. If a big earthquake hits tomorrow, St. Paulʼs Hospital could be a pile of bricks. But B.C. Place will be standing.

Itʼs too bad the stadium didnʼt have better walkie-talkies or first aid coverage after the B.C. Lions won the Western Final in 2006. Janitor Pritam Kaur Sandhu was cleaning menʼs washrooms at section 229. Sandhu was in her 60s and complained of a severe headache. She collapsed and was taken away by ambulance to Vancouver General Hospital, where she died. WorkSafeBC says serious injuries or deaths must be reported immediately. It wasnʼt. A worker finally blew the whistle 11 months later. Sandhuʼs employer was found in violation, but B.C. Place was not cited. By FOI, I found stadium security head Eric Borglund wrote a report a week after the death, but it was kept away from WorkSafeBC. The stadiumʼs Health and Safety Committee also kept quiet.

The same management team in charge when Sandhu died and when the roof ripped and collapsed still runs the stadium. Donʼt ask me how. But you can ask me how the government justified the renovation, which kept Liberal friendly construction companies busy when work was done on the main Olympics venues.

The B.C. Lions only 10 games a year at home. PavCo needed the Whitecaps, to justify the expenditure, with an additional 20 event dates. Whitecaps managing owner is Greg Kerfoot, a reclusive technology tycoon who saved the team in 2002 when it was about to fold. He has never done an interview.

This is a man who built a $14 million lakeside mansion in Whistler, including an NHL sized hockey rink with seats for 100. His son, Alexander, was drafted by the New Jersey Devils last year. In 2005, 

Kerfoot wanted to build a stadium over train tracks next to Gastown. City hall was lukewarm. Tower developers want that land. Gordon Campbell came to the rescue. He OKʼd the B.C. Place renovation and promised $17.5 million for the Whitecaps to build a training centre in Delta. That was announced during the 2009 election, but parachute candidate Wally Oppal lost to independent Vicki Huntingdon. Delta council eventually killed the proposal. 

Kerfootʼs friend Christy Clark came to power in 2011. His Bell sponsored Whitecaps moved into B.C. Place, which was supposed to be renamed for Telus.

Telus had already scored a $1 billion, 10-year telecommunications deal. Bell, Rogers and Shaw were furious, according to the FOIs. Later that year, PavCo released the Whitecaps and Lions contracts to me. But the dollar figures were censored. What are the teams paying to play in the False Creek palace? I'm led to believe it's a royalty on ticket sales, but is it fair market value? Iʼm trying to find out.

B.C. Place is a public monopoly -- there is no other stadium up to Major League Soccer or Canadian Football League standards in B.C. And they are the only franchises in B.C. Last September 6, the government gave the Whitecaps $14.5 million for a training centre at UBC -- plus another $3 million when they need it. It was the day after Rich Coleman became Deputy Premier. The Minister of Liquor, Gambling, BC Hydro, Natural Gas and was now B.C. Pavilion Corporationʼs minister. UBC is in the premierʼs riding. Itʼs called the National Soccer Development Centre, but no federal dollars.

So I started the FOI trail. What are the Lions and Whitecaps paying for at B.C. Place? Five months and a couple of PavCo third-party consultation delays later, PavCo gave me lists of transactions. But all the dollar figures were gone. So I made a supplemental FOI request.

Who was this third-party? Did the Whitecaps object? Did the Lions object? Did PavCo consult a lawyer? Did the PavCo board -- which meets in secret -- say no? Did a deputy minister or a certain minister get involved? The day after Valentineʼs Day, PavCo told me it was making a section 43 application to shut down my FOI requests.

They claimed I was being frivolous and vexatious. I wrote a letter immediately to PavCo, asking for it to reconsider and rescind. PavCo has still not replied. I asked PavCoʼs chairman Peter Fassbender and one of its directors, Suzanne Anton to help. Fassbender is the mayor of Langley city. Anton was a city councillor who wanted to be mayor of Vancouver. She often complained about city hall secrecy.

I even made a goodwill move to close two files -- I wanted to see every invoice connected to the line items in the list, but I appealed to OIPC instead. I wrote an urgent letter to Commissioner Elizabeth Denham.

It created a buzz in the mainstream media and on social media. The NDPʼs Spencer Chandra Herbert and Doug Routley challenged Rich Coleman in Question Period on Feb. 19. Coleman carefully did not speak my name. His staff gave him talking points, including statistics: I made 66 FOI requests since April 2012 -- 86% of the total received by PavCo.

Theyʼre mostly for board minutes, management minutes, worker safety committee minutes and lists of contracts. I also want to know whoʼs burning the Olympic cauldron and whether the new half-billion-dollar roof is working and whether itʼs paying off.

The Canadian Taxpayers' Federation publicly supported me.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner scheduled an inquiry. The onus was on PavCo to prove I was what they said. Their deadline was March 19. Mine was March 26. The inquiry was to close April 8.

But PavCo had to make it interesting. At 5:38 P.M. on March 15 -- a Friday night, the Ides of March, two working days before its submission deadline -- it asked for an extension by 10 working days to April 4. It wanted to "ensure that proper review of the submission can be undertaken by the Head." The head of the Crown corporation, head of the board or head of ministry? I opposed, but OIPC granted the extension. April 4 it was. My reply was due April 11 -- today! Maybe, just maybe I might get something before the election.

Lo and behold -- on April 4 at 3:15 p.m. -- I got an email from PavCo. It withdrew the application, but tried to make it look like it was the victim of a technicality. PavCo wanted another extension to consult a  lawyer. OIPC refused. PavCo can dish it out. But it canʼt take it. On April 5, my FOI requests were reactivated. The original due date was March 22. The new due date is May 23 -- 9 days after the election. 

So I won the battle with PavCo. But we all lost a war. 

This week Julian Assangeʼs WikiLeaks began to leak again. But another set-back for us in British Columbia. We find out that Shom Sen, an assistant deputy minister of international trade and investment, ordered staff to delete emails and shred hard copies. Just call it transitory and keep it secret. Shades of Order of B.C. recipient Ken “I delete email all the time, as fast as I can” Dobell. But at least we know. Now we can do something about it. 

So much happened since February 27 -- when Pink Shirt Day became red-face day for the BC Liberals.

The NDP exposed the Multicultural Outreach Strategy election playbook, devised on government time for the Liberal party. Is this why Family Day happened on Chinese new year weekend? Is this why we got the Times of India Film Awards? Commissioner Denham found the Liberals were running an “oral government” and urged a “duty to document” law be enacted.

The in-house report on the Quick Wins scandal confirmed Liberals were using GMail to keep information away from us. And Commissioner Denham ruled that private email containing government communications is FOI-able.

The ruling party secretly thought it could have a quick win. A slow victory is better in the end. And we must keep fighting for it. 

Join me in challenging Jane Sterk, John Cummins, Adrian Dix and Christy Clark and all their candidates, to commit to changing the laws, to put the power in the peoplesʼ hands. Join me in demanding amendments. 

We need a new Act, designed to remind the politicians why we have it and whoʼs the boss.

In the State of Washington their FOI law is based on three principles: 1) the people do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them; 2) the people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know; 3) the people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.

Americans have a “We the People,” bottom-up tradition, and in Canada, weʼre top-down, loyal to Her Majesty. But that doesnʼt mean public servants have the right to decide what you and I can know and when we can know.

So, go home, have a good night, wake up tomorrow and join me: make an FOI request. 

Government falling, stand clear

Media in Vancouver are scrambling, as an emergency meeting has been called of the British Columbia cabinet for 4 p.m. on March 3 -- 71 days before the scheduled May 14 provincial election. All polls point to an NDP cakewalk. But what happens if Christy Clark suddenly becomes the ex-premier? 

The natural gas-themed throne speech and allegedly balanced budget were failures. The NDP’s bombshell Feb. 27 revelation of the Multicultural Outreach Strategy/Quick Wins memo (on Pink Shirt Day, no less) may have been the tipping point. The March 1 push/jump of Clark’s deputy chief of staff and longtime gal-pal Kim Haakstad leaves Clark exposed, but not be sufficient to satisfy skeptical Liberals.  

That the Liberals hatched a strategy to gain ethnic votes is not the primary trouble. It’s the opportunistic, exploitive strategies and the methods, namely using government time to secretly plan party strategy. It is against government rules to use government resources for political campaigning.

The conference call on Jan. 11, 2012, during government business hours, that is mentioned in Pamela Martin's agenda, is crucial new evidence that I revealed on March 1. The meeting was referenced in the Jan. 10, 2012 Haakstad email that was sent from her private address to the private addresses of others, to prevent the information from being disclosed under Freedom of Information.

Betcha didn't expect B.C. could have a new premier before Roman Catholic cardinals elect a new pope, to replace the retired Benedict XVI. But it could happen, though don't look for white smoke to be emanating from the seventh floor of Canada Place's World Trade Centre on Sunday. Those in cabinet are there because Clark tapped them on the shoulder. She giveth and she can also taketh away. Some of them are like trained seals. They'll walk out of the meeting with smiles on their faces, claiming they're behind their leader 100% (even if they don't really mean it). 

Caucus could be a very different story. There are several MLAs who have already announced they won't run again. Comfortable people, counting the days, with nothing much to lose. They could gang up and issue a shape up or ship out ultimatum. The "or else" part of the equation might involve resignations from caucus to sit as independents and voting with the other independents and the NDP on a non-confidence motion to force the intervention of Lt. Gov. Judith Guichon. The Liberals have 45 seats, the NDP 36 and there are four independents. An early election could be triggered by as few as three Liberals disobeying or leaving caucus. 

The most spectacular deposing of a B.C. Premier was on April 2, 1991 when Bill Vander Zalm resigned at an emergency caucus meeting in Victoria after the release of Ted Hughes' damning conflict of interest report into Vander Zalm's Fantasy Garden World sale. Hughes found Vander Zalm mixed his duties as Premier with his personal Richmond real estate sale. 

In the April 4, 1991 Vancouver Sun, esteemed columnist Vaughn Palmer described the “historic meeting of the Social Credit caucus" that began at 2 p.m. in the cabinet room of the Legislature with Vander Zalm's resignation. Vander Zalm jumped instead of being pushed. 

“Caucus chairman Nick Loenen and his assistant, caucus researcher Martin Brown, had consulted constitutional experts like Edward McWhinney, Ron Cheffins and John Saywell. There were also discreet inquiries to Michael Roberts, private secretary to Lt.-Gov David Lam. The result of these deliberations was a series of resolutions aimed at fielding every eventuality, from a caucus revolt to what actually happened, an orderly succession from one premier to the next.”

Vander Zalm left for a press conference and caucus held an election for a new leader. Rita Johnston, the Deputy Premier and Transportation Minister, beat Russ Fraser 21-17 on the fourth ballot before 4:30 p.m. Loenen, with the backing of caucus and Social Credit party executive, visited Government House and Lam agreed to the switch. Johnston was sworn-in as the 28th premier and first woman in the job at 6 p.m. 

Palmer wrote:

“The outcome was historic for other reasons. For the first time since 1927, when J.D. Maclean succeeded John Oliver, a government nearing the end of its term had changed premiers on the advice of the party caucus. But Socreds had better hope history does not repeat itself. Premier MacLean failed to capture the imagination of the voters, and he went down to defeat in the next general election.”

The Socred board of directors decided on April 3, 1991 that the party would hold a leadership convention on July 18-20, 1991. Johnston won on the second ballot, but the NDP won the Oct. 17, 1991 election with a 51-seat majority. The Socreds collapsed from 47 to 7, but the Liberals, under Gordon Wilson, went from 0 to 17. 

If Today's BC Liberals are to switch their leader, it must be incredibly swift and there may be no time to organize a leadership convention. It may have to rely on an electronic vote.

Part 4 of the BC Liberals’ constitution is about Elections and Conventions. 

“Whenever a Leader is to be chosen for the Party, the Party must conduct a province-wide vote (which is referred to in this Constitution as a “Leadership Vote”) and, in connection with that vote, may hold a convention (which is referred to in this Constitution as a “Leadership Convention”)."

Party rules say the president must call a meeting of the party executive within 28 days after the written resignation of the leader or a request of the leadership for a leadership vote. A date must be set for the leadership vote within six months of the party executive’s meeting. 

The election, fixed by law, is May 14. A delay would require a vote of the Legislature and consultation with  Guichon. The NDP would not be amused. 

Replacement of Clark could spoil Dix's best-made plans. Could the Liberals, under a new leader (a leader who is respected and supported by caucus), save their party at the 11th hour and score the most unlikely, miraculous comeback in Canadian political history? Or is this organization (rocked by allegations of abuse of power and corruption) just too far gone to even save itself?

Alex Tsakumis has reported Mounties are taking a close look at the Quick Wins scandal, but the RCMP is predictably in denial mode.

"We are aware of the comments on the political blog which prompted this speculation but we are not investigating any such complaint, nor would we speculate on what the complaint would even be..." said Sgt. Rob Vermeulen, RCMP E Division spokesman.

What cannot be overlooked is the importance of the resignation of several riding executives in Surrey who are angry that certain candidates have been imposed by party headquarters instead of voted democratically by local party members. James Plett went public with his displeasure, going so far as to say that his former party is "being run by crooks."

The Fudgsicle Cometh? (updated)

Finance Minister on ice + fudge = Fudgsicle Budget '13

History says you should not believe BC Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong when he stands up and delivers his budget speech in the Legislature on Feb. 19.

De Jong was the Attorney General when ex-Liberal aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk copped a plea bargain in the BC Rail corruption trial and got their $6 million legal bill paid by taxpayers after maintaining their innocence for so many years... but let’s put that aside. 

Also, put aside that he’s a BC Liberal, the ruling party that appears to be on the way out of power under the style-over-substance Premiership of Christy Clark. 

It’s just that de Jong is delivering a pre-election budget. British Columbia governments, regardless of ideology, have had serious trouble telling the truth about finances en route to election day. This is the Land of the Fudge-It Budget. This time around, will it be a Fudgsicle?

Former Junior B hockey player and current shareholder in the inactive MSA Fundamental Hockey School de Jong laced up his skates in Victoria and hit the ice at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre for the cameras on Feb. 18, instead of buying a new pair of shoes, the tradition among finance ministers. He donned a Victoria Royals Western Hockey League jersey and donated $1,000 afterwards to KidSport.

Turn back the clock to March 24, 1988 when Social Credit Finance Minister Mel Couvelier gave birth to the Budget Stabilization fund -- $450 million of goodness to "help us absorb fiscal shocks." 

That was the 1980s and the Socreds evidently didn’t have the best spin doctors in their corner. The media instantly branded Couvelier’s plan the “B.S. Fund." It was the best knee-slapper since Socred Agnes Kripps proposed "BOLT" (Biology on Life Today) replace the word "sex" in 1970 (during the sexual revolution). It was surpassed in June 1996 by the nicknaming of the NDP's Cabinet Policy and Communications Secretariat (CPCS) as "cupcakes." But I digress.

“Due to the boom-or-bust nature of the B.C. economy, government revenues have been difficult to predict," Couvelier said. "In years when revenues peak sharply, transfers will be made to the fund. In years of revenue shortfall, transfers will be made from the fund.” 

Vaughn Palmer weighed-in with a March 25, 1988 column in the Vancouver Sun headlined “Mel’s Mirage: the $450 million jiggle.”

The fund does not exist in the sense that it can easily be turned into cash tomorrow, the way your bank account can. At the extremes, accounts can be manipulated to present a horn of plenty to the stockholders or a deathbed scene to the taxman.Similarly, the government slants its accounts to produce certain effects.Before an election, it wants the balance sheet to look as healthy as possible.

Couvelier sat down for a 90-minute session with the Vancouver Sun’s editorial board, which produced a story on March 29, 1988 in which Couvelier admitted it was an election ploy!

Couvelier said the fund, which amounts to a promise by the government to pay itself $450 million at some point, could be used "to support social programs or lower taxes or whatever the government decides to do with it - build highways, get themselves re-elected, whatever they want. . . "When it was suggested that re- election might be the so-called Budget Stabilization Fund's primary purpose, Couvelier replied: "Okay, that deals with motive. I'm saying the fund is there to be used for a rainy day."Now, my definition of a rainy day is not an election. But that's not to say we won't have a need to spend it in an election year."

On March 28, 1995, Finance Minister Elizabeth Cull heralded a balanced budget. NDP’s Mike Harcourt resigned from the Premiership on Nov. 15, 1995 and Glen Clark won leadership of the NDP in early 1996.

Cull tabled another allegedly balanced budget on April 30, 1996, but the Legislature was dissolved before it could be passed. New Finance Minister Andrew Petter reintroduced the budget on June 26, 1996, after the NDP won re-election. The NDP claimed “Jobs Up, Taxes Down, Debt Reduced, Budget Balanced.”

A July 4, 1996 Vancouver Sun story was headlined “B.C. finance minister admits budget ‘goof."

Glen Clark's NDP government is fighting to contain a mounting controversy over allegations it misled the public by campaigning on a balanced budget that turned out to be a $235-million deficit. Clark campaigned during May boasting that the NDP had brought in a balanced budget for the 1995-96 fiscal year. 

The Province reported on March 17, 1999: “Fudge-it budget led to premier's office: The auditor-general calls actions of two finance ministers ‘inappropriate.'

Auditor-General George Morfitt criticized both Cull and Petter for “inappropriate” actions. Morfitt criticized (Elizabeth Cull) particularly for injecting "$156 million of optimism" into forecasts for how the 1995-96 fiscal year would end up, optimism even above her own staff's most optimistic forecasts. Morfitt's report shows that Cull was frequently uncomfortable with the optimistic figures that were being urged upon her, mainly through the actions of (Glen Clark)'s confidante and top aide, Tom Gunton.

Fast forward to 2009 when the BC Liberals were aiming to get Premier Gordon Campbell his three-peat so that he could soak-up all the glory as B.C.’s Olympic Premier in 2010. 

On Feb. 17, 2009, amid the Great Recession, Finance Minister Colin Hansen tabled a budget with a forecast deficit under half-a-billion dollars. After the election and after the announcement of the Harmonized Sales Tax, Hansen tabled an update. The amount of red ink more than quintupled!

The Sept. 1, 2009 headline in The Tyee said it all: "B.C. budget includes record $2.8 billion deficit, cuts, optimism." 

British Columbia will have a record deficit of $2.8 billion, according to a budget update Finance Minister Colin Hansen presented today. That's five times greater than the $495 million projected in February and insisted upon by Premier Gordon Campbell during the election campaign.Back to de Jong and 2013. 

The Liberals are trying to make it look like they’re more fiscally responsible than the 1988 Socreds, 1996 NDP and 2009 Liberals. They even hired an expert! Tim O’Neill, a former BMO economist from the Maritimes! He’s independent! Shhh, don’t pay attention to the $25,000 he’s pocketing for less than a month’s work that resulted in a 22-page report, B.C. Budget 2013: Economic & Revenue Forecasts -- Review and Assessment. Don’t dare suggest it’s just spin. Gosh, no. The government would never do that. Perish that thought!

Well, it’s 20 pages after the title page and disclaimer. The first and last pages are half each, so that’s really 19. The margins are wide and the print is big. The word count is 4,520. Hey, that’s better than $5.50 per word. Not a bad gig, eh?

The word expenditure is mentioned just once. The word expense is nowhere to be found. 

The government paid for a report on what it will be taking in, not on what it will be paying out. A report on revenue only tells half the story. 

Surprise, surprise, O’Neill has nothing really bad to say, except, perhaps the government is too bullish on natural gas. (A degree isn’t necessary to arrive at that conclusion; one need only have watched the throne speech).

“I have concluded that there are no glaring problems or inadequacies that need to be addressed," wrote O'Neill. "There is ample evidence of professional competence, analytical rigour and appropriate caution applied in the work that goes into producing the revenue projections.”

There you have it. Voters beware! 

Budget tidbit: Will any ex-convicts be on the guest list for this year’s budget speech at the Legislature in Victoria? Just wondering! Last year there was one that we know of: Jaspal Atwal. Both Bill Tieleman and Alex Tsakumis wrote about that scandal. 

UPDATE (Feb. 22): The nearly $44 billion budget did nothing, zip, nada to tame the debt! The debt goes higher: it’s $56.1 billion this year, forecast to grow to $62.7 billion next year and, by 2015, $69 billion. A make-believe scenario to tame the deficit now without anything demonstrative to address the ballooning debt only shifts the burden from today’s families to families of the future. 

How can the Liberals spend more than $16 million of your money on an advertising campaign, which includes a brief image of debt-crushed Greece at the 2-second mark in the famous dominos ad, and claim that it is being frugal and responsible with the province’s finances? Was it really necessary to give B.C. Pavilion Corporation $2.7 million to make a bid to buy the rights for the 2014 Grey Cup for B.C. Place Stadium? Certainly B.C. Lions' owner Sen. David Braley has a large enough bank account to avoid needing a taxpayer-subsidy from a government that really can't afford such discretionary spending.

The best line of de Jong's budget speech? 

"Starting today, as British Columbians travel to other parts of Canada, they will be able to say with pride, “I come from B.C. where the government doesn’t spend more money than I send it. Where the government doesn’t burden future generations with the cost of programs being delivered today.”

Comedy gold. Who writes this stuff? 

Most British Columbians do not belong to the Liberals or any political party, for that matter. They’re not worried about those "socialist hordes at the gate" once feared by Premier W.A.C. Bennett. They’re actually worried about the persistent bill collectors and impatient bankers showing up at the door. 

The budget was skimpy on details. There was no detailed list of real estate for sale, nor was there a recap of major cost-cutting. 

The budget contains tax increases targeted at anyone who uses B.C.'s medical system, smokers, corporations and the perceived wealthy, those who earn $150,000 and up. All, except the health insurance premium hike, are things the NDP would have done. You could just tell that de Jong had practiced his lines. They were repeated over and over in the media. 

“I’d prefer not to have (raised taxes), clearly the guiding principle here was to achieve balance, a whole series of decisions flow from that, some of them very difficult,” he told reporters in a pre-budget briefing. “Those making more than $150,000, we're asking them to contribute a little more.” 

The budget was the bookend to the previous week’s throne speech, which included Clark’s unicorns and rainbows vision (delusion?) of a future in which we’ll be swimming in profits from the export of liquefied natural gas (meanwhile, Russia, Arab states, China, U.S. and even Australia are ahead of B.C.). 

An indication of how the Liberals (aka the Natural Gas Party) have lost the trust of the public is that the first major poll released after the budget, by Ipsos-Reid, indicated 72% of respondents didn’t 

believe the budget would be balanced and 47% of respondents disagreed with the budget. 

Cartoonist and video satirist Dan Murphy (who the Province will someday realize was a mistake to let go) weighed in with his subtle and hilarious Budget Highlights Closed Captioned for the Truth Impaired.

While the NDP called the balanced budget “bogus," independent MLA John van Dongen used more flowery language to blow the whistle on de Jong's misconduct for dealing a bodycheck to the concept of truthful budgeting. Abbotsford South MLA Van Dongen did nothing to flatter Abbotsford West MLA Liberal de Jong with his speech, archived here. 

van Dongen

“This so-called balanced budget,” van Dongen said in the Legislature on Feb. 21, “is designed to manage and manipulate perceptions. As such, it is imaginary, a mirage, a facsimile of the real thing. The facts don't back up the perceptions being left with the public in saying that this is a balanced budget.”

“Madam Speaker, think for a moment of the apparent sleight of hand that occurred Tuesday. Did we loot the treasury as may have happened in Shakespearean days? Did we rob Peter to pay Paul? Or did we bank on selling millions of dollars in taxpayer assets and depend on reaching deeper into the pockets of families and business people as government spending on advertising itself continues to escalate?

“I've been asking questions about the spending of millions of dollars by government, missed revenue opportunities and missed investment opportunities, and my search for the most basic answers has been blocked at every turn. I probably don't have to tell you what those questions are, Madam Speaker, but I can tell you my efforts to pursue those answers have led me to a continued search for good government...

"This budget is a pre-election document that can change quickly after the votes are counted on May 14. The budget faces none of the normal scrutiny of this Legislature, which again emphasizes the need to move to a fixed fall election date to remove the obvious politicizing, regardless of political party, of election year budgets.

“I have always strongly agreed with the objective of a real balanced budget, but I do not believe it is achievable in this fiscal year based on current economic conditions and the measures presented on Tuesday by the Minister of Finance.”

PavCo tries to blacklist inconvenient sleuth

Remember the Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre, the private-public partnership seaplane dock built at the $883 million Vancouver Convention Centre (which was supposed to be built for $495 million)?

Holdout Harbour Air agreed to move from a temporary marina into the new $22 million VHFC, but pay $2 million for its own dock. Harbour Air was balking at the excessive $12 per-passenger tax. VHFC was built by Ledcor and Graham Clark, who was part of the board that privatized Vancouver International Airport and imposed the unpopular passenger tax called the Airport Improvement Fee. 

In September 2012, the lawsuits were dropped and VHFC and PavCo settled. According to the below settlement agreement, obtained under Freedom of Information, PavCo agreed to pay VHFC a secret sum and amend the lease agreement. The parties agreed to bear their own legal costs.

Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre settlement with B.C. Pavilion Corporation by

These documents should have arrived long before now. I made the request Sept. 13, 2012. It took just over five calendar months for PavCo to make the disclosure. And, as you can see, it is not even a full disclosure. 

This may be one of the last Freedom of Information disclosures I get, if PavCo has its way. 

PavCo Assistant Corporate Secretary and Freedom of Information Manager Alexandra Wagner notified me on Feb. 15, 2013 that PavCo filed an application on Feb. 13, 2013 under Section 43 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. 

Section 43, headlined “Power to authorize a public body to disregard requests,” allows a public body to ask the Information and Privacy Commissioner to authorize the disregarding of requests that “would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the public body because of the repetitious or systematic nature of the requests, or are frivolous or vexatious.”

It seems I am too curious about about PavCo, the companies it hires, the money it spends, the Vancouver Whitecaps and B.C. Lions rental payments (or lack thereof), and the half-billion-dollars of taxpayers' money spent on the stadium renovation, which is now being examined by the Office of the Auditor General. (At least four of John Doyle's staffers, I am told, were seen touring the stadium on Feb. 8.).

Through FOI, I have received documents that helped me expose uncomfortable facts and inconvenient truths about B.C. Place Stadium, such as the janitorial worker whose death after collapsing on the job was covered-up for two years, the grease leaks from roof support cables that have caused millions of dollars in roof fabric stains and the high-level meetings held to resurrect a controversial casino proposal. Those are just three examples of many stories you would never know about if I only relied on PavCo news releases and news conferences. 

Now, PavCo's goal is to refuse to disclose any of my requests from Feb. 13, 2013 onward. 

PavCo wants to shut me down. 

I say, PavCo must not succeed. 

I am a frequent requester, but what I do is not frivolous or vexatious. Nor is it repetitive or wasteful. In fact, it is necessary and it is in the public interest. I ask tough questions of a Crown corporation that is ultimately owned by you, the public. A Crown corporation that runs downtown Vancouver's two biggest buildings and relies on scarce and hard-earned taxpayer dollars. A Crown corporation that has a tendency toward secrecy because it simply doesn't enjoy questions from the public, whether it's about a casino not wanted by neighbours or advertising signs not wanted by neighbours.

PavCo has consistently turned down my interview requests and not provided basic information in a timely manner. FOI has become the best and only tool for gaining knowledge of what goes on behind closed-doors. 

I would prefer I didn't have to ask PavCo to release records. I would prefer PavCo  would see fit to do its business in the open and in a proactive manner. How about public meetings of the board of directors? How about publishing the agenda before the meeting and the minutes afterward? How about disclosing all contracts worth $10,000-and-up on a quarterly basis? How about explaining why some of the contracts were awarded without a competitive bidding process? How about publishing the Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee minutes every month? 

Alas, PavCo isn't transparent and I have to ask for these things on the public’s behalf. What makes it even more troubling is that PavCo seems to be contravening Premier Christy Clark’s own government-wide openness directive. 

The 2011 throne speech said: "Our government is committed to openness, transparency and engaging with British Columbians. Simply put: we need to be open with the information people have a right to see and open to ideas they have a right to voice."

In July 2011, at the 2:49 mark of this video, Clark said: "After all, it's taxpayers' money and it's taxpayers' information."

PavCo's board includes chairman Peter Fassbender (the Mayor of Langley) and Suzanne Anton (who wanted to be Mayor of Vancouver). Both of them are seeking Liberal nominations. I have asked for their assistance in overturning this ill-thought strategy. Ex-NPA Vancouver Coun. Anton, in particular, rallied against Vision Vancouver's creeping secrecy at Vancouver city hall. Now she is part of an entity that prefers to do its business away from the public eye. An entity that reports to Deputy Premier Rich Coleman, who is the minister responsible for PavCo. That's the same Coleman who is oddly never available when I want to interview him on PavCo, gambling and liquor issues.

I have appealed to PavCo to rescind the section 43 application. I hope reason and transparency will prevail at PavCo. I have also complained to Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, asking her to deny the PavCo application. It would be a very sad day for both citizens and the media in B.C. if PavCo were to succeed -- especially when an election is rapidly approaching and citizens need to be informed before they go to the ballot box. 

In the meantime, I have plenty of previously received PavCo information that I will eagerly share with you in the weeks to come, because you have the right to know.

Getcha popcorn ready!

(Pssst... if you have credible information that is in the public interest and you think I should receive it, I gladly accept brown envelopes c/o Business in Vancouver, The Tyee or CKNW AM 980. And, you must know that any citizen can make a Freedom of Information request. It is not the sole domain of nosy journalists like me. For instance, you can file an FOI request to PavCo, c/o Alexandra Wagner, by mail: #200-999 Canada Place, Vancouver, B.C. V6C 3C1; fax: 604-484-5154; or email: awagner@bcpavco.com. Never made an FOI request? The B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association has user-friendly FOI request directions here. Happy requesting!)

UPDATE (7:53 p.m. Feb. 15): Fassbender responded with this message below: 

Thank you for both your phone messages and copying me on this correspondence.  I am going over the circumstances with the staff and am not prepared to comment without having the history from them. I want you to know that my first default is to leave matters like this to staff and do not get involved as I do not think it is appropriate in my role as Chair of the Board. I am sure you would like me to provide more comment but I am not prepared to do so.