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.

Gorby vs. Christy: statesman vs. eternal talkshow host

Oct. 13, 1986 was the closing day of Vancouver’s Expo 86. The world exposition on transportation and communication. I was there, all the way until the end, roaming the empty, closed site one last time. From end-to-end.

Twenty-five years later I was in two venues that didn’t exist at the time: Rogers Arena, built in 1995 near the site of Expo 86’s giant flag, hockey stick and puck and Vancouver Convention Centre West, opened in 2009 to be the international broadcast centre for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The east wing was built as the Expo 86 Canada Pavilion.

At Rogers Arena, it was Free the Children’s annual We Day. A day of inspirational speakers and hopeful messages for the leaders of tomorrow. With what passes for today’s top 40 music between the speakers.

Among the speakers was Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. A man who changed the world and won the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 14, 1990. I was among the minority of people in the arena who was alive when Gorbachev was in power. (I also remember one of his previous Vancouver visits, when Nardwuar the Human Serviette made him laugh.)

Gorbachev, who turned 80 earlier this year, told the youth audience, through his translator, that the hopes of the world after the Cold War have not been fulfilled. The world is troubled by terrorism, poverty and an environmental crisis.

“The global financial crisis that was caused by the greed of a few people is being resolved at the expense of ordinary people, ordinary people who are not to blame for that crisis,” he said.

He said we're on the cusp of a new arms race that could be more dangerous than the last one.

His most poignant message?

"Never despair… never panic. Unite," Gorbachev said. "Don't allow anyone to deceive you. Don't allow anyone to exploit you."

After his speech, he came to a news conference. Reporters were crestfallen when told by a We Day organizer that the news conference would last only 10 minutes. We got angry when the moderator cut it short. Both Gorbachev and his interpreter briefly pleaded with their hosts for more time! Imagine that, a career politician who did not want a press conference to end!

That bought him a few more minutes, but it was still not enough. A great statesman deserves more time. A man who changed the world deserves more time.

He was asked for his thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street movement. During his presidency, people in the Eastern Bloc risked their lives and took to the streets to demand better government and better jobs. It even influenced the short-lived pro-democracy movement in China that ended so violently at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

"The constitution of your country, the constitution of our country, the constitutions of all democratic countries contain democratic rights, including the right to protest. In Russia, we know that there are people, including people in government, who don’t like it when people protest in the streets and when they present their demands by demonstrating. And sometimes there are even bad consequences and even clashes as a result,” Gorbachev said.

“We have to be wary, though, of certain extremist elements who are trying to turn these just demands and just protests in a certain direction to exploit those movements. Nevertheless, those elements are an exception. People today are more confident when they act; they are more confident of the rightness of their demands and their actions.”

In the afternoon, I attended a news conference to announce the Grey Cup festival in Vancouver, where the star attraction was not the Grey Cup (it wasn’t there) or the Vanier Cup (which was there), but Premier Christy Clark. The B.C. Liberals “jersey girl” added a Grey Cup souvenir jersey to her collection. She even dropped a football, in a neo-Stanfieldian moment. (My camera was unfortunately not rolling.)



This is what she had to say about the Occupy Wall Street movement coming to Vancouver on Oct. 15:

"Canada is a profoundly different place than America. When we look south of the border and see what's going on there, we feel pretty grateful that we live here, in a country where we have a thriving middle class, where we have a large degree of equity and social justice. I think groups that want to try and start up something like Occupy Wall Street here aren't going to see the same kind of success. We are a fundamentally different country from America. We are a fair country, we're not always perfect, there's no question about that, but this is a country that is a whole lot fairer than almost any other country in the world. I think when you live in a country like this it's a lot harder to recruit people to groups like Occupy Wall Street than it is in other countries in the world where maybe they don't have the same kind of equity that we have here."

Translation: Be a good Canadian. Be deferential to the powers that be. You have it good, don't demand better. Don't complain or ask questions.

After a scrum that lasted exactly four minutes and 52 seconds, Clark turned her back and walked away. My shouted question about the upcoming first anniversary of the end of the notorious "Basi-Virk" government corruption trial didn’t prompt her to turn around. Instead it made her walk away faster, into a nearby ballroom.

Before her tenure as a CKNW talkshow host, Clark was deputy premier when BC Rail, a taxpayer-owned railway, was privatized in a fishy deal with CN Rail in 2003. A deal which sparked the famed bribery trial of ministerial aides David Basi and Bob Virk, which shockingly ended on Oct. 18, 2010 with a plea bargain and the government agreeing to pay Basi and Virk’s $6 million legal bills.

Here’s my story on the first anniversary and renewed calls for a public inquiry by the men who know the scandal the best: Bill Tieleman and Alex Tsakumis.

While the Occupy Wall Street movement encourages discourse about the role of governments and corporations, British Columbians should never forget the scandal which dominated the news for most of a decade. The BC Rail corruption scandal was the most egregious example in this province's history of government cozying up to corporate interests and losing sight of its responsibility to the people. A public asset was sold in sordid fashion and none of the politicians involved has offered a full and complete explanation about how and why the deal went down.

Premier Gordon Campbell said it was only about two men who admitted their guilt. His successor Clark has parroted the line. She has refused calls for a public inquiry.

Are they telling the truth or was this a massive cover-up? Were Basi and Virk the only perpetrators or were they patsies?

The reality is government has to buy from and sell to private companies. If a tendering process cannot be transparent when it demands transparency or be secret when it demands secrecy, why should the taxpaying public or private companies have any trust in government? Until "BC Railscam" is fully understood and government integrity rescued, citizens will remain skeptical of any case of any private-public partnership, privatization, subsidy or bailout.

Contrast Clark's behavior with that of Gorbachev, a man of courage, willing to spend more time to take more questions. During his presidency, he was a politician who wanted less power, not more, in a country with a nasty history of megalomania (read: Stalin). Gorbachev is not universally admired in Russia. Many of his compatriots wish the Soviet Union still existed. Others are thankful they could taste some freedom, but want less corruption and more democracy from today's leadership duo of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin.

Gorbachev wanted the people to take a deep breath and shape their own future, not politicians. "Glasnost" (openness) and "Perestroika" (restructuring) were the hallmarks of Gorbachev's administration. What a concept? They mean so much more than Clark's "jobs" and "families" mantra. Without openness and restructuring, how can families enjoy prosperity?

If people don’t trust their government to listen to the people, then people take to the streets in protest. A protest like Occupy Wall Street. Or Occupy Vancouver.

Reality check: don't blame CTV, blame me

From the “To err is human, to forgive is divine” department.

First the error.

VANOC CEO John Furlong’s book Patriot Hearts was written with Gary Mason, the Globe and Mail columnist who broke one of the biggest stories on the road to 2010: the Olympic Village financing scandal.

In a nutshell, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and the NPA-majority city council decided behind closed doors -- in a meeting format officially called “in camera” -- to bail out struggling developer Millennium when Olympic Village financier Fortress Credit Corporation stopped funding the project in September 2008.

Page 117 of Patriot Hearts says:

"It really had no choice since our deal to provide the village was with the city, not Millennium... But the decision to provide the financing was made on camera and leaked to Gary Mason." 

In camera means “in chamber” in Latin, but the meeting was not on camera.

Two vowels. Side-by-side on the keyboard. Oh lord. I. O. See?

Now for the forgiveness.

Furlong wags his finger at CTV (he does a lot of finger-wagging in the book) for putting its Chopper 9 in the sky above the Vancouver Convention Centre to get aerial footage of the mysterious structure inside a big, white box. The official Canadian broadcaster of the Games showed that a cauldron was constructed on Jack Poole Plaza!

Furlong recounts the incident on page 188

“...the local CTV affiliate had somehow discovered what was inside the big wooden box. They rented a helicopter, got a shot of it while it was briefly exposed, and put it on the air. I was livid. I couldn’t figure out why our Olympic partner would want to ruin this surprise for millions of Canadians.”

Mr. Furlong, don't be so hard on CTV. The real villain was me!

I had already been tipped by a source that the B.C. Place Stadium cauldron would be used at the opening and closing ceremonies only. There would be an outdoor burner, somewhere in the city. I saw the "white box" and the very telling camera on a pole on Jack Poole Plaza. During a tour the previous week, Olympic Broadcasting Services Vancouver chief operating officer Nancy Lee feigned ignorance when I asked her about the structure. Lee is normally a font of information and a frank-talker.

On Feb. 8, I cornered Premier Gordon Campbell at the opening of the Aboriginal Pavilion where he unveiled a wall display in tribute to Poole, the founding chairman of VANOC who died of pancreatic cancer.

Here's my story that broke the secret and gave CTV's flyboys a reason to go for a spin. This is what CTV came up with.

So Furlong wags his finger at the wrong media outlet.

I’ll forgive him, even if he begins wagging his finger at me for revealing one of the Games’ biggest secrets.

Exclusive: Canada Place worker death was preventable

This time last year, Canada Place was closed because it was the Main Press Centre for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. I was among the first few journalists to begin working in the vast hall when it opened to the media on Jan. 12, 2010. It remained my office away from the office until March 1, 2010, the day after the Games closed. I have covered Turin 2006, Rio de Janeiro 2007, Beijing 2008 and Delhi 2010 and none of those Games' main press centres matched Canada Place's quality work environment and convenience.

Before the Games, Heritage Minister James Moore announced a $21 million post-Games replacement of the fabric roof under the federal infrastructure stimulus program. Canada Place was built as the Canada Pavilion for Expo 86 and then converted into the Vancouver Convention Centre.

On Dec. 2, 2010, two construction workers suffered fatal injuries at sites in the same area of downtown Vancouver, within mere minutes of each other. One happened at Canada Place where a man fell 14 metres, but was on life support until his death two days later. Was the construction worker wearing fall-protection gear? That was my key question that went unanswered by construction manager Ledcor, employer Birdair and subcontractor RBG USA, who did eventually tell me the man who died was Diego Herrera.

Because WorkSafeBC released to me its inspection report, I have confirmed that Herrera was not using fall-protection gear. That would include a safety harness and lanyard. The investigation continues into an incident that should never have happened.

Read the inspection reports below.

WorkSafeBC on Canada Place construction worker's fatal fall

Olympic cauldron now relic of 2010's "Surveillance Games"

They say Jack Poole was watching over the 2010 Winter Olympics.

He's the chairman of VANOC who died after a battle with pancreatic cancer on Oct. 23, 2009 just hours after the Olympic flame was lit in Ancient Olympia, Greece. I was having lunch in Varda, Greece -- across from the Vancouver Cafe (I kid you not) -- when I got the call with the sad news.

Premier Gordon Campbell named the plaza west of the Vancouver Convention Centre Jack Poole Plaza earlier that month. VANOC erected a mysterious white box there and built the Games' outdoor cauldron, which Wayne Gretzky lit on Feb. 12, 2010.

The fences and barricades were unpopular, to say the least. The last of the chain link was dismantled in time for Canada Day when the cauldron was relit. No ceremony on the day the Harmonized Sales Tax was introduced. An anonymous person behind the scenes in a control room turned it on and off.

On July 7, anti-poverty activists from Vancouver handed off their makeshift, toilet plunger torch to a like-minded activist from England who will give it to an anti-poverty group in London, host of the 2012 Summer Games.

While their ceremony was happening, I noticed two fellas preparing to install a surveillance camera under the central burner of the sculpture. The sun was shining and the story gods were smiling on me. See my exclusive video here.

Not only has the permanent monument to Vancouver 2010 been altered, but it now has attached to it the very item that caused civil libertarians and anti-Olympic protesters to cry foul before the Games and criticize the $900 million, taxpayer-funded security apparatus. Queen's University Prof. David Lyon called Vancouver 2010 the "Surveillance Games."

So Jack Poole may still be watching over Vancouver, but now Big Brother is watching everyone who goes to admire the cauldron. Granted, it is inside a wading pool and some drunk and/or daredevil might want to climb the cauldron. But does a surveillance camera have to be embedded in the sculpture? Could spy cameras have been erected on adjacent buildings and warning signs placed strategically to achieve the same safety objective?

Now the cauldron is like a four-legged spider.

After the Olympic glow is gone, will it become the 21st century cousin to the Terry Fox Memorial outside B.C. Place Stadium? Another ugly, poorly maintained monument to a man who dreamed big and courageously battled cancer?

How to spell HST: Host without the Olympic "o."

In the weeks before the 2010 Winter Olympics opened Feb. 12, a big, white box to the west of the Vancouver Convention Centre, hid something special.

I cornered Premier Gordon Campbell Feb. 8 when he unveiled a tribute to late VANOC chairman Jack Poole at the Four Host First Nations pavilion and revealed the next day that the big, white box on Jack Poole Plaza was concealing the outdoor cauldron.

Wayne Gretzky was taken, by pick-up truck, to the foot of Thurlow Street after the opening ceremony, and marked the official end of the Olympic torch relay by lighting the outdoor cauldron. About an hour later, the one inside B.C. Place Stadium was extinguished for fear that it would burn the air-supported fabric roof.

VANOC, in its haste to organize the Games, didn’t realize the plaza would become a hot spot for shutterbugs. I witnessed one fella climb the chain link barrier to get a better photo.

The excuse was that it was inside the security perimeter for the international broadcast centre. VANOC finally buckled to public pressure. The fencing was altered and a viewing deck opened, but it was still far from perfect, even during the March 12-21 Paralympics when crowds were smaller.

The Terasen Gas-sponsored cauldron burns again during the Canada Day at Canada Place festivities on July 1. The fences that remain are supposed to disappear as the edifice on Jack Poole Plaza becomes a monument to the 2010 Winter Games and their torch relays.

The official schedule shows various indoor and outdoor activities from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., a mass-singing of O Canada when the O Canada horns sound at noon, 7 p.m. Georgia Street parade, 8:30 p.m. light show on Canada Place’s soon-to-be-replaced Five Sails and the 10:30 p.m. Burrard Inlet fireworks.

No ceremony is planned to re-light the cauldron, which is supposed to burn from 10 a.m. until the conclusion of the fireworks.

The Olympic flame was lit Oct. 22 in Ancient Olympia, Greece, flown to Victoria, B.C. Oct. 30 (where it was also protested) and carried coast-to-coast-to-coast around Canada for 106 days by 12,000 people (including your humble servant). But on Canada Day, an anonymous control room operator inside the convention centre will activate the cauldron with no pomp, circumstance or fanfare.

So much for the spectacle and the so-called sacred sculpture.

But why should we be surprised? Such a ceremony would have to involve Campbell. The Premier's worst nightmare is for the anti-HST Red Bloc to show up en masse in red mittens and simultaneously rip them off to reveal one-fingered salutes on day one of the unpopular sales tax shift.

Before it was the site of the cauldron, before it was called Jack Poole Plaza, it was the scene of the Sept. 19, 2009 anti-HST rally that kicked the sales tax revolt into high gear.

Host province British Columbia is now an HST province to clean up the Olympic debt.

Hope you enjoyed the party!