There's #IdleNoMore and now #IdaKnowMore

When British Columbia Premier Christy Clark shuffled her cabinet on Sept. 5, 2012, Mary Polak was gone from Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation and into Transport and Infrastructure.

Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Ida Chong became the new Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation Minister.

Whenever this happens, staff prepare "briefing books" to get the new minister up to speed on the people, finances and issues faced by the ministry and its agencies.

At the bottom of this post is the first phase of a Freedom of Information release of the briefing book prepared for Chong by the Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation Ministry. I call the document "Ida Know More."

The document also contained a map showing the locations of British Columbia's First Nations (almost all of whom have outstanding land claims but no treaties), and a First Nations pronunciation guide, which includes such tongue-twisters as Anderson Lake (An-der-son Lake) and Peters (Pete-rs).

Know Your British Columbia First Nations by BobMackin

#IdaKnowMore (Phase 1) by BobMackin

Moray Keith drives away from viaSport

Keith

A big shakeup at viaSport, the organization formerly known as the B.C. Sport Agency.

CEO Scott Ackles dropped the bombshell Dec. 10 when he announced Moray Keith (right) was quitting as chairman of the 2010 Legacies Now spinoff. 

Ackles and Keith were named March 1 as the leaders of the "bold new sport agency for B.C." that was to "simplify" and "strengthen" the B.C. sport sector. 

Keith is a big wheel, in more ways than one. His Dueck GM is Canada's biggest auto dealership. He's a director of the Motor Vehicle Sales Authority of B.C., B.C. Lottery Corporation, Richmond Oval Corporation and B.C. Football Hall of Fame. He led private groups that partnered with municipalities to build junior hockey rinks in Chilliwack and Langley. In 2011, B.C. Lions' Waterboys co-founder Keith chaired the 99th Grey Cup Committee, of which Ackles was the general manager. Now Keith has left viaSport, with no explanation given.

Here's the Ackles memo:

Good morning everybody, Please be advised Moray Keith has resigned from his position as chair of the viaSport Board of Directors.  We thank Moray for his leadership and contributions to sport by leaving the organization in great shape financially, meeting all of its first year goals, and building a strong relationship with the sector and the provincial government. He has been integral to positioning viaSport for future success.  Current board member, Cathy Priestner Allinger, will take over the position of Chair. Cathy is a long-time champion for sport in B.C. and we look forward to her continued leadership. The board will implement a strategy to recruit new directors in the new year.  Please join me in thanking Moray for his service, and in welcoming Cathy to the position of Chair. Regards, Scott Ackles CEO

Priestner Allinger

Keith, I might add, is also cosy with the governing BC Liberals. By all credible public opinion polls, the party led by Premier Christy Clark is past its best-before date and a change in government is forecast for the May 14, 2013 provincial election. Keith donated nearly $100,000 to the Libs since 2005, according to Elections B.C. Deputy Premier Rich "Liquor & Lotteries" Coleman maintains his Fort Langley-Aldergrove constituency office near the main entrance of the Keith-developed Langley Events Centre. 

Keith's successor Cathy Priestner Allinger (left) is no stranger to viaSport. She was also his predecessor as the interim chair. Priestner Allinger is the Innsbruck 1976 speedskating silver medallist who was the executive vice-president of sport and venue management for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics after authoring the Own the Podium blueprint. She also served as managing director of Games operations at Turin 2006 and managing director of sport at Salt Lake 2002. 

Priestner Allinger also chairs the B.C. Games Society and the organizing committee for the 2014 Special Olympics Canada Summer Games in Vancouver. 

UPDATE (Dec. 12): Moray Keith says there is "no magic." His departure from viaSport was amicable and part of the short-term plan. He was the startup chairman.

"I'm very content and happy with where the whole thing is going," Keith told me. "I've done my part to get it going and up and to tell you the truth I'm getting older every day and there's too many things going on. It's time for some other folks to grab a hold of the reins and take it to the next level. 

"I can't say enough about Scott Ackles and how well he works, his crew and people around him, I think they're doing a wonderful job.

"Thanks to Ida Chong and Bill Bennett and Rich Coleman. frankly, they really helped us set the stage for where this thing can grow in the future. It was well planned and Cathy Priestner (Allinger) was the one who put the initial planning in place, she's the new chair and I will ride off in the sunset and it will carry on just famously well. I'm very pleased.

"We believe that out of the $24 million budget we have, we're putting about $4 million more to the end sport user than we were a year ago. If on every 20 (million dollars) we can change it by 20% or 25%, that's huge. It's through efficiencies."

Political football as Liberals kick-off campaign

The Vancouver Whitecaps finally have their long-sought training nest.

.

The provincial government kicked in $14.5 million to the $32.5 million National Soccer Development Centre at the University of B.C.'s Thunderbird Park for a trio of natural grass pitches, a pair of synthetic turf fields and a field house. Another $3 million is on the table for future replacement of the artificial turf. It's near the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre, the white elephant of the 2010 Winter Olympics where few spectator events happen. The B.C. government paid about $19 million of the $47.8 million bill for the Games' secondary hockey venue. 

The soccer complex was originally earmarked for Delta and announced amid the last provincial election campaign on May 2, 2009 -- 10 days before the BC Liberals won another term. Premier Gordon Campbell had announced $17.5 million from the province towards a $31.5 million complex on 20-hectare John Oliver Park. 

But the attempt to buy the soccer vote near tony Tsawwassen got the yellow card from voters and municipal authorities. Liberal parachute candidate Wally Oppal lost on a recount to independent Vicki Huntingdon. By February 2010, Delta municipal council grew frustrated with the Whitecaps and nixed the project. 

Municipal land in Surrey and Burnaby was also eyed and the Whitecaps didn't endear themselves to those city halls. Enter UBC, which isn't a municipality (read: less bureaucracy) and happens to be in the Vancouver-Point Grey riding represented by Premier Christy Clark. Whitecaps' secretive and wealthy principal owner Greg Kerfoot is a personal friend of the premier. In seven donations since 2005, Kerfoot has given the BC Liberal party $36,790 via the Whitecaps and his company, Inspirit Group. 

Tech tycoon Kerfoot, a 1983 UBC computer science graduate, could afford to pay the whole bill himself for the training centre. Through a real estate agent, he was flogging this West Vancouver waterfront mansion on Stearman Beach for almost $10 million and seeking Vancouver city hall approval to build an office tower in downtown Vancouver at the southeast corner of Cordova and Granville. Back in 2005, the Whitecaps proposed using $60 million of Kerfoot's money to build an outdoor stadium north of Gastown. He already bought the land, worth $20 million. City council sent that hot potato to Port Metro Vancouver, where talks stalled for good. The Whitecaps eventually scored a sweetheart rent deal in the renovated B.C. Place Stadium. B.C. Pavilion Corporation refuses to tell me what, if anything, the Whitecaps pay for rent.  

The Sept. 6 announcement happened in Clark's riding, but the Premier was not there! Clark attended the annual Order of British Columbia awards ceremony at Government House in Victoria. Asked where she was in the afternoon, press secretary Mike Morton told me on Sept. 10 "the short answer is meetings." He suggested I make a Freedom of Information request for her agenda if I wanted to know more.  

Ex-sport minster Ida Chong stood-in for newcomer Bill Bennett for the first major spending announcement/re-announcement since Clark shuffled the cabinet a day earlier.  Burnaby MLA Richard Lee, North Vancouver MLA Jane Thornthwaite and Vancouver MLA Colin Hansen (Clark's 2011 by-election campaign chair) joined Whitecaps' president Bob Lenarduzzi for a photo opportunity with the UBC mascot. (Have the Whitecaps' mascot Spike and executive chairman John Furlong suddenly become camera-shy?)

The scheduling could have been a very clever tactic, to keep Premier Photo-Op away from cameras at what was the de facto kickoff of the fall 2012 phase of her 2013 re-election campaign (however futile it may be). 

Make no mistake, the joint government/Whitecaps/UBC news conference was to curry favour with a large portion of voters. Soccer is the biggest participatory team sport in B.C. The B.C. Soccer Association claims 100,000 youth players and 20,000 adult players, plus 2,000 registered referees. That's a lot families and their votes could mean a lot to the desperate-to-stay-in-power governing Liberals next May.

The Vancouver Whitecaps and the B.C. Liberals. Both mired in a slump.