Reading the tea leaves, pondering the end of the Liberal dynasty

Premier Christy Clark emerged March 3 from Canada Place's World Trade Centre (where her office is on the seventh floor), at 7 p.m., to spend just two minutes in front of cameras and microphones after the emergency, Sunday afternoon cabinet meeting.

Her cabinet ministers had left earlier. All trained seals, claiming to support her 100% amid growing calls for her resignation to save the BC Liberal Party from decimation in the May 14 election -- which would end 12 years of Liberal rule.

Was the timing of Clark's appearance by chance or designed to coincide with the sign-off of local suppertime TV newscasts? A lost opportunity, stemming from bad advice? Or a calculated decision to avoid the risk of embarrassment? 

Liberal Quick Wins strategy included translation

Any politician who is confident and sincere, or wants to appear to be, and wants to convey an important message directly to the masses will crave the opportunity to appear on live TV. Evidently, not Clark when it comes to this controversy which may prove to be the tipping point for her Premiership. 

Clark’s two-minute scrum ended with an apology for the Quick Wins/Multicultural Outreach Strategy scandal, but her words were very carefully chosen. 

"I sincerely apologize for the language that was used in that document. It's language that just isn't worth repeating. I think when you make a mistake, when somebody in your organization makes a mistake, the right thing to do is to own up to it and to make it right. That's why I apologize.”

The key word is "language." She said it twice. It was not an apology for government workers breaking the rule that prohibits doing party work on government time (see the evidence here). It was not an apology for trying to hide that work from the public, by using private email addresses that can't be searched under the Freedom of Information law. It was for the "language" in the memo, evidently crafted by the March 1-resigned deputy chief of staff Kim Haakstad. 

Make no mistake, Clark and the Liberals are absolutely demoralized. The key BC Liberal playbook for the 2013 election is exposed, out in the public domain, after it was leaked to the NDP and tabled on Feb. 27. 

"If not done correctly, we will appear opportunist," are the ominous words contained in the document. 

The Quick Wins memo discussed the use of video greetings, translated name tags, giving equal time and effort to the ethnic media, attempting to match and exceed NDP ethnic campaign efforts, and to "Identify and advance government initiatives and projects that would be resonant in ethnic communities… Identify and correct 'historical wrongs,' ie Komagata Maru apology in the House.” (More on Komagata Maru in a moment). It mentioned "anecdotal reports suggest that some ethnic communities, particularly Chinese, feel that they are ignored by government between elections."

Any policy, program or photo opportunity that has involved or will involve a multicultural issue by the Liberals can (and should) be viewed skeptically through the lens of the "Quick Wins" memo.

Consider some of the milestones since January 2012: 

• March 24, 2012: John Yap sworn-in as Advanced Education and Multiculturalism Minister in private ceremony at the Chinese Cultural Centre. No advance notice was given, but a video of the rare Saturday ceremony was released afterward. 
• June 3, 2012: Clark declares “In my heart, I'm Filipina” at the Philippine Independence Day picnic.
• Sept. 10, 2012: Clark meets for tea with Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing during a trade mission to Hong Kong, Tianjin and Beijing. 
• Jan. 16, 2013: Liberals announce CHMB AM 1320 CEO Teresa Wat is named Richmond-Centre candidate and Richmond School Trustee Grace Tsang, who wanted to run, was instead named co-chair of the Premier’s Chinese Advisory Committee. 
• Jan. 22, 2013: Clark announces the Times of India Film Awards for B.C. Place Stadium on April 6, to celebrate Bollywood cinema, to be underwritten with $12 million B.C. tax dollars.
• Feb. 7, 2013: Clark, Wat, MLAs Rob Howard, Blair Lekstrom, Colin Hansen, Dave Hayer, Jane Thornthwaite, Richard Lee, John Yap, Ida Chong and Ralph Sultan appear at feast at Chinatown’s Floata restaurant to celebrate the upcoming Lunar New Year, the Year of the Snake. Clark reminds the crowd she was a 1965-born Year of the Snake baby. A sign on the podium (see above) displays her name in Chinese characters, Jian Hui Zhi (jan-WHAY-juh). Hui’s English equivalent is “smart.”
• Feb. 11, 2013: B.C.’s first Family Day occurs a week before statutory holidays in neighbouring Alberta (Family Day) and Washington state (Presidents’ Day), but the day after the Chinese Lunar New Year was marked. The B.C. government effectively (and cleverly) created a Chinese New Year Long weekend during election year! 

Back on the Komagata Maru incident apology. 

It was made in the Legislature on May 23, 2008. Today's BC Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong was the minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation then, and tabled Motion 62.

"Be it resolved that this Legislature apologizes for the events of May 23, 1914, when 376 passengers of the Komagata Maru, stationed off Vancouver harbour, were denied entry by Canada. The House deeply regrets that the passengers, who sought refuge in our country and our province, were turned away without benefit of the fair and impartial treatment befitting a society where people of all cultures are welcomed and accepted." 

The Liberals admit an apology for the Chinese Head Tax is coming, but won’t say when or in what form. 

Consider this interesting historical trivia: The Chinese Head Tax's successor, the Chinese Exclusion Act, was finally repealed federally after the efforts of veteran Toronto Jewish civil rights lawyer Irving Himel and Vancouver-born lawyer Kew Dock Yip. Yip was Canada’s first lawyer of Asian descent, who was admitted to the Ontario bar in 1945. 

Yip was the second youngest son of Vancouver Chinatown’s patriarch, Yip Sang. Yip Sang lived at what is now the Wing Sang Building, which was renovated into offices and an art gallery by real estate marketer Bob Rennie. Rennie supported Clark in her leadership bid and was appointed to the board of directors for the B.C. Housing Crown corporation.

What was the date that Himel and Yip made history, when the racist head tax was repealed? 

That was May 14, 1947 -- exactly 66 years before the date of B.C.'s 2013 provincial election. 

Regime change: T-minus 104 days?

A desperate governing party is looking at the calendar and the opinion polls and just might be realizing its stranglehold on power is running out. Better do something, anything. Quick! 

The Christy Clark BC Liberals are where the Bill Vander Zalm (and Rita Johnston) Social Credit was in 1991 and the Ujjal Dosanjh NDP was in 2001. Running out of ideas, detached from voters, hungry for just one more election win. 

Despite what the deluded pom-pom wearers and hired spinners will tell you, the Liberals could wake up on May 15 as a spent political force. 

Oh, they’re spending millions of dollars to tell you Canada Starts Here, when Cape Spear, Nfld. actually gets the first sun rays every day and Charlottetown in 1864 was where historians say the Dominion of Canada was conceived. And the B.C. Jobs Plan means B.C. is standing tall, like a big, old, white iPod that cannot be toppled by many smaller, old black iPods. Even if the jobs statistics don't stand up to scrutiny.

Then there’s the Concerned Citizens for B.C., the political action committee otherwise known as Jim Shepard’s Christy Clark Fan Club. Shepard and his flock want to remind you NDP leader Adrian Dix backdated a memo in 1999 when he was Premier Glen Clark’s stepandfetchit and that the NDP ordered the three-vessel fast ferry fleet that cost more than $200 million higher than the original budget and didn’t have a proper business plan. 

Shepard is blind to the fact the Liberals have bigger, newer skeletons in their closet. Such as the memos to file by Dave Basi which seem to implicate Clark in the leaking of confidential cabinet documents to a bidder for BC Rail. Clark is under investigation after a conflict of interest complaint by ex-Liberal MLA John van Dongen. The saga of B.C. Place Stadium is like a bookend. The Liberals were pondering a $100 million pre-Olympic spruce-up and roof replacement in January 2008. The final cost was $514 million and included a German-engineered retractable roof that is rarely opened. Taxpayers weren't consulted and they weren't even shown a business plan. Roof contractors are inching their way to a 100-day B.C. Supreme Court trial scheduled to begin Oct. 21. On Jan. 30, a lawyer for Canam disclosed before a judge that the company's claim against Freyssinet would be increased by $13 million to $39 million. 

Remember the infamous NDP fudge-it budget of 1996, when an $87 million surplus became a $350 million deficit after Glen Clark won election? The Liberals don’t want you to remember their 2009 faux pas when they promised a $495 million deficit during the election but delivered a $2 billion deficit budget just months after Gordon Campbell won his hat-trick. Lest you think dirty thoughts that the Liberals are going to fudge the numbers in their Feb. 19 pre-election budget, Finance Minister Mike de Jong has found another "independent" Maritimer for hire. 

Remember Stanley Cup riot investigator Doug Keefe, the former Nova Scotia mandarin who collaborated with ex-Olympics boss John Furlong and got paid $174,000? Meet Dr. Tim O’Neill, a Prince Edward Island economic consultant who is being paid at least $25,000 to look over de Jong's shoulder until budget time and give a passing grade. 

Message to Premier Clark: save money, call the Office of the Auditor General. 

But all is not lost. There are actually tiny rays of light showing through the fog that suggest someone in the Liberal party has realized the writing is on the wall. 

But is it too little too late? Just for show? 

On Jan. 30, BC Hydro announced it won't force smart meters on those customers who are holdouts, the thousands of people who are refusing to allow Corix crews on their property to install the iTron devices. 

On Jan. 31 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Bill Bennett will announce the creation of a new agency for B.C.'s film, arts and creative industries -- a merger of the B.C. Film Commission, B.C. Film + Media and the B.C. Arts Council. They'll combine to form a new body similar to the Ontario Media Development Corporation. A one-stop shop for the creative industries. 

Bennett was at North Shore Studios for the #SaveBCFilm rally that drew 4,000 people on Jan. 22 and heard one of the many suggestions to revitalize an industry purposely left out of Clark's B.C. Jobs Plan.

William F. White's Vancouver general manager Garin Josey was spotted at the Canada Place Starbucks preparing for a Jan. 30 meeting in the Premier's Vancouver Office. Josey boosted the We Create B.C. social media campaign during the Jan. 22 North Shore Studios rally. He didn't tell me who he was meeting, but I confirmed independently that it was Bennett and Citizens’ Services Minister Ben Stewart.  

The Liberals are trying to looking kinder and gentler, but it’ll take more action to convince me of their sincerity. Here is my five-point, modest proposal for the Liberals to prove they're worthy of staying in office beyond May 14.

1. Notwithstanding Chief Justice Robert Bauman's Jan. 29 verdict, how about waiving the solicitor-client privilege and delivering the Basi-Virk indemnity agreement to John Doyle so he can finish his audit? 
2. Why not hire a retired judge and give him or her a one-year mandate and reasonable budget for a BC Rail public inquiry? 
3. Perhaps publish the B.C. Place renovation business plan and ask the Auditor General to launch a full-blown value-for-money audit? 
4. Possibly reveal the real reasons for the cancellation of the Liquor Distribution Branch logistics privatization? 
5. Maybe rescind all those the Freedom of Information delay letters that everyone’s getting these days? 

#LiquorLeaks presents NDP's Exel FOI documents

NDP liquor critic Shane Simpson dropped a bombshell July 12 at a Vancouver news conference where the results of a Freedom of Information request by the NDP Caucus were revealed. The 38 pages show the depth and breadth of Exel Logistics' lobbying to privatize the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch. 

The company, which hired BC Liberal-connected lobbyists Mark Jiles and Patrick Kinsella, was not seeking to compete in a tendering process. It wanted to cut a direct, private/public partnership deal. That was part of the strategy mentioned in the "Project Last Spike" Exel internal memo of Oct. 6, 2009. Plan B was to go through a bid process, but Exel contemplated using its relationship with liquor minister Rich Coleman to influence the writing of the request for proposals. It's plan C was to strike an alliance with or take-over Richmond's ContainerWorld, which has a business relationship with Giorgio Gori, an Exel sister company.

Much more to come. Remember, #LiquorLeaks is the #hashtag, this is the story that started it all, in the May 8 edition of Business in Vancouver and here are the new documents below.

LDB Privatization FOI-NDP

"Vice Minister" Coleman wants more sports betting

Rich Coleman wants single-event sports wagering in British Columbia.

The so-called "3-B" Vice Minister, whose portfolio includes booze, betting and a bordello (yes, read about it here), wrote in April 2010 on behalf of the B.C. Lottery Corporation to Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, supporting a proposed amendment to the Criminal Code to allow single-event wagering.

Windsor, Ont., NDP Member of Parliament Joe Comartin's private member's bill is expected to soon become law with the support of the Conservative majority in the House of Commons and Senate. B.C. is planning a major relaunch of its SportsAction and PlayNow products this summer after hiring Irish sports betting giant Paddy Power.

"Provincial lottery corporations and Canadian casinos cannot compete for the potential Canadian sports betting," wrote Coleman. "Without the ability to offer the types of bets prohibited by the Code, lawful gaming offerings in Canada cannot compete with online gaming offered from outside Canada or Nevada tourist destinations like Las Vegas."

Coleman argued for a "level playing field" for lawful entities to compete with the plethora of online gambling entities that take an estimated $2 billion in bets a year. He said legalized, single-event sports gambling would "bring higher standards in responsible gambling, player protection, fairness, integrity and security to this aspect of the gaming industry as well as offer a lawful alternative to Canadian sports bettors."

"Moreover, legalizing single event betting would allow in depth and current reporting to regulators facilitating the response to suspicious activity. This would provide a much more effective way to detect and prevent attempts to 'fix' sporting events."

The text of the Coleman letter is in an Oct. 11, 2011 briefing note to Justice Minister Shirley Bond, whose portfolio included gambling until Coleman regained the responsibility on Feb. 8, 2012.

It is not known how much revenue this would bring provincial coffers, though it is likely to lead to problems. B.C. has enough problem gamblers to fill B.C. Place Stadium almost three times. Sports gambling on the Internet was pinpointed as a gateway to trouble for teenage males, according to the B.C. Problem Gambling Prevalence Study of 2008.

Five other gambling-related ministerial briefing notes are contained in the Freedom of Information documents obtained by me.

Lottery Retailer Undercover Investigation
Jan. 18, 2012 (updated Jan. 19, 2012)
"(Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch) Investigations and Regional Operations Division has been carrying out an undercover investigation into lottery retailer theft of winning lottery tickets across the province."

Vernon Casino Patron Robbery
Dec. 2, 2011
"At 8:23 p.m. on Dec. 1, 2011, a female patron was mugged at the Vernon Lake City Casino. A male suspect stole the victim's purse and knocked her to the casino floor. The suspect then fled out an emergency door which triggered a silent alarm."

Lottery Retailer Undercover Investigation
Jan. 17, 2012
"GPEB's Investigations and Regional Operations Division has just concluded a provincewide undercover investigation into lottery retailer theft of winning lottery tickets. On Wed. Jan. 18, 2012, GPEB investigators will interview four individuals in connection with these findings."

DRAFT: Hastings Racetrack Horse Deaths
Dec. 7, 2011
"(GPEB) has received a request for "Veterinary medical reports and/or autopsies regarding all equine fatalities recorded at Hastings Racecourse in Vancouver… The response package contains 20 post-mortem, final reports from the Ministry of Agriculture's Animal Health Centre."

Harness Racing BC Concerns: 2012 Racing Season and Financial Allocations
Sept. 12, 2011 (Updated Dec. 2, 2011)
"On Aug. 29, 2011, Harness Racing BC (HRBC) CEO Doug McCallum wrote to the BC Horse Racing Management Committee, advising that HRBC had voted to reject racing dates the committee recently added to the standardbred schedule for six months in 2012. The tone of the letter suggests HRBC may approach the media with their concerns."

B.C. Government gambling issues notes

And the winners are...

You read and you responded to the Rename the B.C. Liberals Contest. Since it was such a difficult task to decide a single winner, I have chosen co-winners to mark the one-year countdown to the next scheduled British Columbia election.

Lori Shenher offered four suggestions:

B.C. Libercons (party theme: "Never Gonna Stop This Train")
CCCP (Christy Can't Close Party)
PEP Squad (Perpetually Eluding the People)
DeRail B.C. Party

The last was her winner. It denotes motion and alludes to the still unresolved B.C. Rail scandal. If the Glen Clark-era NDP has to wear the Fast Ferries forever, then the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark Liberals must be tattooed with the B.C. Rail scandal.

Ryan Painter is the other winner. He suggested Social Credit Alliance Liberal Party (SCALP), which I think would be the ideal name for a unite-the-right movement in B.C. Politics is akin to hair-pulling in B.C. Citizens feel frustrated when their government ignores them. They also are spectators to the no-holds-barred attacks among the parties.

Since one can't simply cut an e-book in half, Lori and Ryan both get a copy of Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics. (Arrangements will be made to transmit your copy. Enjoy!)

Honourable mention to Norm Farrell (Christy Clark's Corporate Cartel Coalition), Eric Doherty (B.C. 1% Party) and C. Russell Sprout (Friends In Business Buying Economic Reign=FIBBER).

A message to Premier Christy Clark: even if you stick around long enough to change the party's name, rest assured that you'll hear the phrase "...the party formerly known as Liberal" ad nauseam.

Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't change the fact that it's still a pig.