Another #QuickWins bombshell: was a bribe in the works?

The NDP hammered BC Liberal rookie multiculturalism minister Teresa Wat and finance minister Mike de Jong in Question Period on July 15 over an alleged bribery attempt that was uncovered in the nearly 8,000 pages of Quick Wins scandal documents.

A heavily censored Sept. 18, 2012 email originating from multiculturalism communications director Brian Bonney says:

"Have Harry Bloy meet with her and explain how doing anything would damage the Premier and the party. Have him say how he will try to find her work and get her back involved... Assess her response and advise... Have Brian (Bonney) meet with her and do the same... Assess her response and advise... If need be, offer x dollars per month to do non public work up to election (developing her database of potential supporters)."

The identity of the disgruntled staffer is not evident, but speculation is already underway.

DybleReport Bribe?

The government doesn't want you to know

British Columbians go to the polls for the 40th time in the province’s history on May 14. They will get to do what billions of people around the world cannot: Say yes to change and no to corruption. Democratically and peacefully.

This has been a nasty election, marked by attack advertising from the ruling party and a lack of discourse around important issues like healthcare, education, crime and the declining trust in public institutions. 

Christy Clark and the BC Liberals hyped their natural gas pipe dreams and the NDP under Adrian Dix opposed pipelines and tankers. The Liberals spoke deceptively about deficit and debt. The NDP admitted it would speed-up spending, perhaps sell a stadium and order a judicial inquiry into the 2003 sale of BC Rail.

When the Liberals came to power in the 2001 provincial election, they swept aside a worn-out and corrupt NDP. The Liberals had a bold, "New Era" plan for a prosperous B.C. that included the pledge to be Canada's most open and accountable government.

But did they achieve that goal under Gordon Campbell during his decade at the helm? Or under Clark for the last two years? No and no.

Consider these 10 stories.

The Liberal government was obsessed with selling the warehousing and distribution operations of the Liquor Distribution Branch in 2012 after being lobbied by Exel Logistics, a division of the giant Deutsche Post DHL. Proceeds from the sale were supposed to help balance the budget. One of the drivers of this plan was none other than Patrick Kinsella. Then, suddenly, tendering was cancelled and the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union’s new contract was the convenient excuse. 

What was the real reason? 

The government doesn’t want you to know. 

The Private Career Training Institutions Agency of B.C. is a Crown corporation that regulates private post-secondary education. Last fall, it moved to shut down two schools: Royal Canadian Institute of Technology and Prana Yoga Teacher College. PCTIA registrar and CEO Karin Kirkpatrick admitted that RCIT had no financial problems or student complaints. 

Kirkpatrick approved the hiring of the law firm Lawson Lundell to represent PCTIA in these actions. 
There was no formal tendering process. 

One of Lawson Lundell's partners is Kirkpatrick's husband Murray Campbell.

Why was this potential conflict of interest allowed?

The government doesn't want you to know. 

The Province of B.C. was the guarantor for VANOC, the organizer of the 2010 Winter Olympics.  Yet, the City of Vancouver (which derives its power from the province) was given authority to cut a deal with the Canadian Olympic Committee and VANOC to seal the financial records, board minutes and legal correspondence away from the eyes of the public until the year 2025. 

Why keep the people who paid for the Games in the dark for so long? 

The government doesn’t want you to know. 

B.C. Place Stadium was renovated for $514 million to the benefit of the Vancouver Whitecaps and B.C. Lions. Do the Whitecaps and Lions pay fair market value for rent?  Why did the Whitecaps get a taxpayer subsidy for a training centre in Premier Clark’s riding, when the team’s managing director has a personal hockey rink at his mansion in Whistler? 

The government doesn’t want you to know. 

B.C. Pavilion Corporation called me frivolous and vexatious and tried to have me blacklisted from making Freedom of Information requests about the operations of money-losing B.C. Place. Then it withdrew the complaint at the 11th hour. The net result? PavCo succeeded in delaying my FOI requests until after the election. Whose idea was this? 

The government doesn’t want you to know. 

The SNC-Lavalin engineering firm is one of Canada’s biggest companies. It is under investigation for corruption on four continents, yet the B.C. government felt it was worthy of receiving the contract to design and build the $1.4 billion Evergreen Line Rapid Transit Project in the Tri-Cities. The company was also blacklisted for bribery by the World Bank from receiving construction financing for development projects. 

The government doesn’t want you to know. 

BC Liberal appointees to the Premier’s Office were found to have broken rules of their employment when they did party work on government time, using the public’s dime. Only one person lost her job. Deputy chief of staff Kim Haakstad quit, and therefore was ineligible for severance. She showed up at Clark’s riding campaign office during the election as a volunteer. Pamela Martin, Brian Bonney and Barinder Bhullar also remained party insiders, despite dishonouring their commitments. 

We will have to wait until the week of June 10 before we can see some of the 10,000 documents gathered in the Quick Wins, in-house investigation by John Dyble. 

We should have been able to see the records before election day. 

But the government doesn’t want you to know. 

Did complaints from Bell, Rogers and Shaw over the direct awarding to Telus of a $1 billion 10-year government-wide service contract lead to the cancellation of the $40 million, 20-year Telus Park naming rights for B.C. Place? 

Evidence I have gathered suggests there is a link. 

But the government doesn’t want you to know. 

Life is simply awful for some of the most vulnerable children and youths in British Columbia. Some of those who struggle with addictions, abuse and mental illnesses are housed in the Maples Adolescent Treatment Centre in Burnaby, where staff complain they work in a climate of fear. 

WorkSafeBC found that incidents were covered up. 

Why? 

The government doesn’t want you to know. 

The Times of India Film Awards business plan and contract (below) was finally released to me the day before the election, even though I asked for it on Jan. 22. All the dollar figures were censored and only 18 pages of the 168-page file were released. There is even a clause that protects financial information about the controversial April 6 awards show from public scrutiny -- as long the records are held by the Times of India. 

Why did the government spend $9.5 million (out of contingencies, no less!) on a Bollywood Awards show and omit the Hollywood North film industry from the B.C. Jobs Plan? Why did the government do this deal, while claiming that it was controlling spending? 

The government doesn’t want you to know. 

Times of India Film Awards contract by BobMackin

More perspectives on the 12 years of Liberal rule include:
Five Reasons to Turf Christy Clark's Liberal Crew, by Rafe Mair from The Tyee;
Why not to vote for the BC Liberals, by James Plett;
100+ Reasons the BC Liberals Must Go, by Laila Yuile;
and, finally, Richard Giroday's Tangled Web of BC Liberal rule infographic. It is a must-see. 

Exclusive: Flip this house, by order of the court

Clark and Wilson: debt free? (Facebook)

Gordon Wilson was the man who drove the BC Liberals from zero to 17 seats in the 1991 election, lost the 1993 leadership vote to Gordon Campbell (in the wake of his affair with Liberal house leader/future wife Judi Tyabji), formed the Progressive Democratic Alliance with Tyabji in 1995, sailed into a 1999 cabinet post with the NDP and took over the Fast Ferries file.

Yes, there's more! He ran for the NDP leadership in 2000, but Ujjal Dosanjh was the eventual winner who led the NDP to oblivion in the following year's election against Campbell and the Liberals.

Now, a dozen years later, Wilson is back in the BC Liberals' fold. This time supporting Premier Christy Clark and her "vote for me and we'll be debt-free in 15 years" campaign leading to the May 14 election. Clark's "Debt-Free B.C." slogan has been attacked by the NDP as the "fact-free" campaign, for errantly claiming that bond rating agencies called the Liberal budget balanced. The 2013-2014 pre-election budget proposes increasing the debt by $6 billion and forecasts a $69 billion debt in three years. That doesn't include the list of $96 billion-plus in long-term, contractual obligations.

What is Wilson's true motivation for urging disaffected Liberals to "come home"?

Wilson is known by the nickname "Flip" for all his party changes. But he's not wilfully flipping his house on the aptly named Random Road in Powell River. That is also the address listed for his Duddles' Lair waterfront sheep farm.

The property is offered for $842,900, according to the Realtor.ca listing below. A B.C. Supreme Court judge in Powell River ordered the immediate sale on Jan. 7. A summary of the case and the court's foreclosure order are both below.

On his blog, Wilson lists himself as the chairman of the board of Tugboat Enterprises Ltd., which owns Selkie Software data recovery and migration software. But the link from Wilson's blog to Tugboat Ventures goes to a website that is "down for maintenance." A toll-free phone number is listed, but the operator was unable to connect me to Wilson. A phone number on the Tugboat website registration is not in service.

Tyabji and Tugboat are listed as defendants in the long-running defamation lawsuit by former West Vancouver Liberal Member of Parliament Blair Wilson, who is unrelated. Another defendant is Mark Marissen, the ex-husband of Clark who remains a BC Liberal campaign strategist. Blair Wilson sued in fall 2008, after he switched to the Green Party. I have other documents that indicate this legal battle has not been kind to the wallets of Tyabji and Tugboat.

I reached out to Tyabji and Gordon Wilson late Monday afternoon via email and on Twitter, appealing for them to contact me. I have not had a response. I must assume that they can offer me a reasonable explanation about the legal and financial challenges they have faced. A home foreclosure cannot be a pleasant experience. I sincerely want to hear their side of the story and hope they will contact me as soon as possible.

UPDATE: The Wilsons' legal and financial woes are connected to a lawsuit involving Premier Christy Clark's ex-husband Mark Marissen (who remains a Liberal strategist) and an apparent failed attempt to sell Tugboat. Read the details here in Business in Vancouver.

REALTOR.ca -Property Details 10167

Wilson Foreclosure

Wilson Foreclosure Order

Party's over for Social Credit

You are looking at a piece of British Columbia political history. 

A sign for British Columbia Social Credit Party Vancouver-Hastings candidate Carrol Woolsey. The real estate agent is the only Socred on the ballot anywhere in B.C. for the May 14 election. 

As Bernard von Schulman pointed out on his BC Iconoclast blog, the Socreds are essentially kaput because the party, or what's left of it, failed to meet Elections' B.C.'s two-candidate threshold for registration. 

The party of free enterprise doers and dreamers, small businesspeople, real estate agents and car salesmen. Often God-fearing people. Sometimes dressed in the full Nanaimo. From 1952 until 1991 -- save for Dave Barrett's 1972-1975 NDP premiership -- B.C. was ruled by Social Credit. 

W.A.C. Bennett (1952-1972), his son Bill (1973-1986) and Bill Vander Zalm (1986-1991) kept the party in power. Vander Zalm was elected the leader in a divisive Whistler convention in the summer of 1986 and led the party to re-election against the Bob Skelly-led NDP. Vander Zalm was a one-term wonder, cut short by his 1991 resignation over the Fantasy Garden World conflict of interest scandal. He was found to have used the Office of the Premier to help him sell his Richmond theme park to a Taiwanese billionaire. 

Rita Johnston was elected leader (and Canada's first female premier) by caucus and then by the party membership, but ex-Vancouver Mayor Mike Harcourt won the 1991 election. Social Credit fell to third-party status with six seats. Gordon Wilson parlayed his performance in the leaders' debate into official opposition status for the BC Liberals. 

Cliff Serwa in Okanagan West was the party's last sitting MLA. He retired in 1996. His granddaughter is world champion ski cross athlete Kelsey Serwa. The party has been leaderless since Eric Buckley split to form the B.C. Party in 2000. 

Come May 14, the above sign will be a souvenir for someone. May I suggest the B.C. Archives seek custody. 

That the Socred name made it to the 21st century is an achievement. But a sign of the times for a party of the past is that its 2013 election signs boldly lists a phone number under the candidate's name. This is the age of websites, Twitter and Facebook handles and even QR codes. 

This weekend: Joe rocks for votes, Sean rocks the boat

This isn't normally where you'd go for entertainment listings. But it's election time and think of this as an "edification listing."

DOA's Joe Keithley, a B.C. cultural icon, is performing a solo acoustic gig for Vancouver-Point Grey NDP candidate David Eby April 27 from 8 p.m.-11 p.m. at Saint James Community Hall, 3214 W. 10th Ave., Vancouver. Admission for the "Dance for a Change" is $15. 

Eby is not scheduled to be jamming with Joe, but the man who seeks to unseat Premier Christy Clark will not be performing any Bon Jovi covers. (Obscure reference to the 2011 leadership convention.)

Joe lost to two-time world champion wrestler Chris Wilson for the Coquitlam-Burke Mountain nomination to run against Liberal Doug Horne, but he is volunteering for the party during the campaign. 

If you miss Joe then, he'll be doing a 

fundraiser for Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate Matt Toner at Go Studios, 112 E. 3rd St., Vancouver on May 3 from 7 p.m.-9 p.m.

(Is your party holding a fundraising party during the 2013 election? Regardless of your party, send me the info and I'll mention it here.)

On April 28, Sean Holman will screen his new documentary "Whipped: The Secret World of Party Discipline" at 7 p.m. in the Vancouver Public Library's Alice MacKay Room. Suggested donation is $5. 

I saw the premiere at the University of B.C. on April 26 and it is a shocking look at how B.C. is governed. It is a must-see that will cause you to question the state of our democracy (or lack thereof). 

It was great to see Holman back in B.C., rousing the rabble like he does so well. This province's loss is Alberta's gain. The former Public Eye Online proprietor is an assistant professor of journalism at Mount Royal College in Calgary. 

Of Times of India and Taxpayers of British Columbia

A lot is at stake on the first weekend of April in Vancouver, and I'm not referring to Canada's Davis Cup quarterfinal tie with Italy at Thunderbird Arena.

Instead, this post is about the inaugural Times of India Film Awards, which feature a concert on April 4 at the Pacific Coliseum and the gala awards at B.C. Place Stadium on April 6. Thousands of tickets are available, even after Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training Minister Pat Bell said in Question Period on March 5, during an exchange with the NDP's Raj Chouhan, that it was "sold out."

The British Columbia government was bidding to bring the International Indian Film Academy awards to Vancouver in June 2013, but negotiations broke down with producer Wizcraft International of Mumbai in May 2012.

Elephant in the room: Clark clutching the TOIFA trophy.

So Premier Christy Clark created a pre-election Bollywood awards show under the guise of promoting B.C. as a tourist destination for Indians with a broadcast on Sony Television in India. It was announced Jan. 22 -- just 72 days before the event.

I took a critical look at the $11 million-plus, taxpayer-subsidized event on The Investigators on CKNW AM 980 on Jan. 25. Here is the podcast.

Depending on how you look at it, TOIFA is the scandal-plagued BC Liberals' last hurrah before an election they're expected to lose or a desperate, multicultural outreach ploy to gain votes from the 260,000-plus Indo-Canadians in B.C. Not surprisingly, no mainstream, Canadian brand has sponsored TOIFA; sophisticated companies tend not to invest in unproven properties, especially when faced with such little advance notice.

Only five companies well-known within the Indo-Canadian community have come forward. The values and structures of the deals have not been disclosed. Toronto's 2011 IIFA had 18 months lead-time and was able to compile an impressive sponsor roster, topped by CIBC, one of Canada's biggest banks.

As much as Bell and Clark try to downplay, distract or deny, they refuse to show British Columbians in a timely manner whether due diligence was applied to this venture before Treasury Board approved. I asked, via Freedom of Information, for the business case and contract. If it exists, the government won't give it to me before the awards. (See the bottom of this post.)

I did get confirmation, via a separate FOI request, that the government made a sole-source award of a $9.5 million contract to BCCL International Events Private Ltd., the Times of India Group's events arm. That contract was effective Dec. 12, 2012. (See below.)

What does this mean?

Quite simply, we may never know how our money was spent. Times of India Group is a private, foreign company. As such, it is outside the FOI law. The government's contractual sleight of hand is a likely legacy of the 2011 IIFA event in Toronto, where the CBC and other media outlets eventually got detailed spending reports via FOI.

The news only gets worse for TOIFA, after the Surrey Board of Trade issued a March 28 news release slamming the promoter for failing to schedule an event in Surrey, where 30% of residents are South Asian. The bid book for IIFA (which you can read here) included letters of support from Mayor Dianne Watts and Surrey Board of Trade CEO Anita Huberman. Suggested events included a Bollywood film festival at Surrey's Strawberry Hill cinemas. I broke the news about the imminent Surrey snub on March 6 in Business in Vancouver.

Blaming the Times of India Group for the snub doesn't add up. The BC Liberals let the contract and hold the purse. As the saying goes, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Might Clark and co. have punished Surrey for turning down the Gateway Casino application to city council the weekend before the TOIFA news conference? According to Vancouver Desi, Surrey's Sikh community played a key role in the anti-casino lobby. A March 2 TOIFA fashion show was held at the River Rock Show Theatre in Richmond -- a casino in a municipality other than Surrey.

TOIFA has also stirred anger within the Indo-Canadian community. Vikram Bajwa, a disenchanted BC Liberal in Surrey, has announced plans for a protest outside TOIFA events to oppose the taxpayer-subsidy.

Much more to come on TOIFA...

Have you obtained TOIFA tickets from a source other than TicketMaster? How much did you pay? Did you get them for free? Please email me and tell me your story. 

Times of India, Taxpayers of British Columbia

Times of India Film Awards -- The Cliffhanger

Two years on: her words don’t match the picture

Two years ago, on March 14, 2011, The Christy Clark Show: Taxpayer-Funded, Victoria Edition officially debuted. Political powerbroker Patrick Kinsella was among the guests in the live studio audience at Government House.

Christy Clark's swearing-in, March 14, 2011.

The Christy Clark Show: Taxpayer-Funded, Victoria Edition is a reality show that has been both a tragedy and a comedy. So many people are watching, despite the unpopular star and her supporting cast. The series will be cancelled as of May 14 if enough voters across this beautiful province go to the voting stations and (with the mark of an X on a ballot) figuratively say that they're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. 

Conversely, Clark and Today's BC Liberals (not to be confused with Yesterday's BC Liberals or BC Christy) could be renewed for a four-year term. Stranger things have happened, but it is an extreme longshot, because March 2013 is only half over and it is shaping up to be as bad as, if not worse, than her March 2012. 

I said it before and I’ll say it again. March is the worst month to be a Premier in British Columbia. There is no “in like a lamb, out like a lion” maxim. If anything, it is a lacklustre month full of letdown for the person in the top elected office of the province. History shows the Premier is the author of his or her own misfortune.

March 2013 has been dominated by the Quick Wins Multicultural Outreach scandal, which actually began with the NDP's bombshell release of leaked Liberal election strategy documents on Feb. 27 (Clark's Pink Shirt Anti-Bullying Day). Clark's deputy chief of staff and closest confidant, Kim Haakstad, resigned March 1 because of it all. The Prince George plyscraper has received second billing on this month's scandal stage.

On March 4, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham slammed Clark for running an "oral government" in an investigation into the non-disclosure of records by the Premier's Office. On March 9, the Victoria Times-Colonist cited the Comox Valley Business Gazette's report on a February speech in which she poked fun at her ex-husband's manhood. On March 11, independent MLA John van Dongen fired his latest salvo at the Liberals over the unanswered questions about the BC Rail scandal and the Basi-Virk $6 million legal indemnity. 

The quagmire continued on March 15 (the Ides of March!) when Clark went to meet with the Christians at the B.C. Leadership Prayer Breakfast. 

Clark left without answering any questions from reporters about caucus chair Gordon Hogg’s pronouncement that he is in favour of an external investigation of the scandal. As opposed to the in-house review conducted by John Dyble, the deputy minister that she hired for his $310,000-a-year job. 

Dyble’s March 14-released, in-house review of his boss confirmed Liberals broke government rules by performing party work on government time for the taxpayers’ dime. There is no evidence that Dyble probed what the premier knew and when she knew. She only denied knowledge of the Quick Wins memo. 

Here is CKNW AM 980’s account of how the Premier -- a self-styled champion of public engagement and openness -- refused to answer reporters' questions. She may have said grace before breakfast, but she did not stay with grace after breakfast.

This is the same Clark who famously said during the last Question Period of the Legislative session on March 14, 2013:

“The essence of leadership is not to hide. It's not to run away.”

This is the same Clark who famously said in her March 14, 2011 swearing-in speech: 

“Our government will be open to the people of British Columbia. We will talk about our problems; we will set our priorities openly; and we will work with citizens to find solutions. And we will explain why we make the decisions that we do. You may not always agree with us and all the decisions that we make, but to the greatest degree possible, you won’t be surprised at the course that we take, and you will know for certain why we’ve chosen it.”

Many of us in the media are grudgingly accustomed to Clark hiding and/or running away. It is an unsettling trend. 

Two examples from 2012. 

• The famous “gum-chewing” incident on March 14, 2012 at the Globe 2012 convention involving newly hired communications gatekeeper Sara MacIntyre. 
• The April 2, 2012 incident at a downtown Vancouver hotel where CTV ace reporter Mi-Jung Lee pursued Clark for comment on the Liberals’ plummeting popularity. On the video, watch how Clark turns around and takes a step toward Lee to deliver her non-answer. 

Another from 2013: the day her cabinet met for an emergency Sunday meeting on March 3, Clark finally emerged from Canada Place for a quick two-minute scrum at 7 p.m., conveniently after the local supper-hour newscasts had signed-off. When politicians are confident and have a message they want to share with the public, they crave the chance to be on live TV. But on this night, embattled Clark was not ready for prime time. 

I have my own snubbed-by-Clark stories. She wouldn’t answer my question in the elevator lobby outside CKNW on Oct. 23, 2012 about her spending of taxpayer dollars on charter jets owned by CN Rail chairman and Liberal donor David McLean. 

Clark (left) and Dennis Skulsky, March 8, 2013.

I also tried asking a question on March 8 at B.C. Place Stadium, about how she could justify the $2.7 million subsidy to buy the Grey Cup hosting rights for 2014, while selling public assets to claim a balanced budget. Earlier, while at the podium, she looked right into my camera lens. But in the post-news conference mixed zone, she turned away and walked out before I could finish my sentence. I was standing less than 10 feet away and had unsuccessfully tried to gain her attention twice before. I was not alone. Laura Baziuk of CKNW had also hoped to ask a question.

This wasn’t the behaviour of Gordon Campbell when he was premier. His answers may have been insufficient at times, but he took questions and dealt with them. This was also not the behaviour of Clark when she was on the opposition side of the Legislature and actively sought attention from reporters.

Which brings me back to the March 8 news conference to announce the British Columbia government had bought the rights to host the 102nd Grey Cup in 2014. The Canadian Football League conducted no open, competitive bidding process, so it is incorrect to say hosting was awarded to the B.C. Lions and their owner, Sen. David Braley. The news conference had apparently been a rush job, to help the Liberals end a week on a high note after the Quick Wins scandal exploded.

When Clark arrived, she sat between Lions’ president Dennis Skulsky and legendary Leos' lineman Al Wilson. Liberal MLAs Richard T. Lee and Doug Horne and Deputy Premier Rich Coleman were also in the front row. All wearing B.C. Lions’ #14 jerseys. (Notice about 20 seconds into the video below how she greeted Coleman with a perky “Richie, hi!”) 

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was not invited to the news conference; the decision was apparently Skulsky's, but protocol should have dictated a mandatory invitation for top officials at Vancouver city hall. Robertson was invited to the Feb. 27, 2009 news conference when Campbell announced the 2011 Grey Cup would come to B.C. Place in Vancouver.

Clark, in fact, did not even acknowledge during her time at the podium that Vancouver would be the host city. (Fast-forward to the 19:00 mark of the CFL YouTube news conference video and follow the transcript below).

She made reference to Burnaby, but didn’t even say “Vancouver College” when she took note of the school's football players in the purple jerseys who carried the trophy into the news conference. She only said “V.C.”

Vancouver is the city in which she is an MLA (Vancouver-Point Grey, to be precise) and it is also the city whose taxpayers will get the bill for keeping the streets safe and clean in 2014. Cops, firefighters and sanitation crews don’t work for cheap, and they’re necessary for a successful event. 

Here is what she was supposed to say (notice the references to Vancouver):

Grey Cup Speech March 8

Here is what she actually said (as seen on the video below, notice the lack of Vancouver references):

“Thank you very much, I'm absolutely delighted. And Travis (Lulay) and team, I know of course you can't guarantee we'll win it, I believe we will, and when we win it let's just promise we're not going to break it. What do you think? 

“Sen. Braley, I'm delighted to be here with you and all the great football players from VC. Thanks. I hope that some of you are going to have a great future in the CFL. 

“And Al Wilson, Jim Young, I grew up in a family of BC Lions fans, my grandfather was a season ticketholder, my father was a season ticketholder. I remember the days at Empire when we would go and we'd get free tickets to Playland afterwards.  

“This team has been a part of British Columbia families for generations. I'm just one example of that, and of course the original Lu, a fellow Burnabyite, who was a great representative for my city, for my province and made us all so proud.  

“Thank you to my colleagues who are here today as well.  

“British Columbia this month created 40% of the new jobs in the country. One of the ways that we did that is because we stayed focussed on job creation.  

"This is a great sporting event, it is a great source of pride for all Canadians, it is a tremendous opportunity for Canadians to come together and celebrate what makes this country tick.  

“But it's also a great economic opportunity for us. So when we made that over $2 million investment in bringing the Grey Cup to British Columbia, when we made that decision as a province, we did it because it would create jobs for people here. We know that the over $100 million in benefits that will come to british columbia are going to put a lot of people to work. 

“I'd say that's a great investment for our province, it's a great investment economically, but much more importantly, or just as importantly, it's a great investment in pride, in our pride.  

“I'm delighted, here we are at this incredible stadium, one that some said should never have been rebuilt. Well if there is proof that it was the right decision, it's this announcement today.  

“Because it's this stadium that's allowed us to be able to win the Grey Cup, it's been this great team, this fantastic organization this proud legion of fans and our bright history.  

“We're going to keep making history folks, we're going to win this Grey Cup. 

“We're not just going to win it with the right to host it, our players are going to win the right to hoist that cup again, out here on this field and give British Columbians something to cheer about. 

“Thank-you very much.” 

Here's what she was going to say:  

Footnotes: 

The B.C. government granted $2.7 million to B.C. Pavilion Corporation to bring another event to B.C. Place Stadium. The renovations to make this a (pardon the cliche) world-class stadium were supposed to help it sell itself to promoters. 

I can’t wait for another Grey Cup. I have attended all eight at B.C. Place, including the Lions' 1994 and 2011 victories. There is, unfortunately, no academic or scientific study to quantify the net economic impact of the game for the host city and province. Big sporting events rarely deliver what their boosters claim, according to the research of respected sports economist Victor Matheson. It is a fact that the Grey Cup is a boon for the hotel and hospitality industries wherever it is held. It would otherwise be a dull November weekend in Canada without the festival. 

I only question the wisdom of a taxpayer subsidy at a time when the public finances are in shambles and hospitals and schools claim to be underfunded. The Lions are privately owned by a wealthy senator who is a respected, skilled businessman that knows how to turn an investment into a profit. Why does he need more taxpayer help, especially when taxpayers were already dinged for the $514 million stadium renovation? 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Enjoy the black beer, not the green. Be kind, not mean. Slainte! (I’m eager to see what kind of multicultural outreach activities the Liberals have up their sleeve!)