Contest: Rename the B.C. Liberal Party

Fresh from two by-election losses on April 19 amid the continuing unpopularity of Premier Christy Clark, the B.C. Liberal Party is desperately searching for a way to prolong its grasp on power in British Columbia.

Meanwhile NDP leader Adrian Dix positions himself as Premier-in-waiting and Conservative leader John Cummins could become leader of the opposition.

Some Liberal strategists are trying to convince themselves that the problem is not their leader, but on their label. They're pondering a name change, which can be a risky proposition. There have been many failures in the high-stakes world of rebranding.

Should they co-opt the old Social Credit name to rejuvenate the free enterprise coalition? Should they call it the Pacific Dogwood Party, after the provincial flower? Or just simply call the whole thing "Gordon," for the first names of ex-leaders Gordon Gibson, Gordon Wilson and Gordon Campbell? (Maybe they could adopt the red, white and blue ball icon from the Barenaked Ladies' "Gordon" album as a symbol of the liberal/conservative coalition?)

What do you think? What should be the new name for the B.C. Liberal Party?

The best, most creative suggestion for a monicker makeover wins a personalized copy of my new e-book, Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics. Deadline is noon PDT on May 12.

The winner will be announced May 14, which is, coincidentally, the one-year countdown to the next scheduled provincial election.

Vote early, vote often. Comments accepted below or via email to 2010goldrush (at) gmail.com. Be tasteful and stay classy, please.

What's the Premier's office hiding about Atwal?

Remember the story about the Ghuman and the gunman?

The Ghuman was Tariq Ghuman, a B.C. Liberal Party director. The gunman was Jaspal Singh Atwal, the buddy Ghuman brought to the 2012 B.C. Budget speech on Feb. 21 in the Legislature.

Atwal, a Liberal supporter, was convicted in 1987 for his attempt to murder Indian cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu, who was visiting British Columbia in May 1986.

On Feb. 27, Kim Bolan of the Vancouver Sun reported the following:

Shane Mills, Premier Christy Clark's director of communications, said Monday that Atwal only made his way onto the guest list when another person invited by the premier's office asked for an extra ticket to attend.

"His name was on a list. It was put on the list at the request of an invited guest," Mills said. "If we had known his background, he would not have been invited."

Mills said Atwal's name was just given to government the day before the budget speech.

"And we don't normally vet those kind of things. So we were unaware of the person's background and we will be working to improve the vetting and working with the Speaker's office on that," he said.

Ghuman resigned, but popped up at party events shortly after.

The Jaspal Atwal controversy garnered Clark the revulsion of commentators on opposite sides of the political spectrum, from Bill Tieleman (who found Atwal's buddy Ghuman literally rubbing shoulders with Port Moody-Coquitlam by-election candidate Dennis Marsden and former Tory MP Stockwell Day) to Alex Tsakumis (who claims a source told him Clark unsuccessfully lobbied an Indian diplomat to grant Atwal a visa so he could travel with her on last fall's trade mission to India). When I asked Mills about this, he denied the Premier did so.

I was curious. Who were all the people on the guest list? What did the invitation look like? What was being said internally in the Office of the Premier about Atwal? Could there have been correspondence with the Indian consul about Atwal? Or correspondence with Atwal, himself?

So I filed a Freedom of Information request. Lo and behold, the Office of the Premier claimed it had no records. My laughter ensued.

See the two denial letters below. Then compare them with the records received when I asked for the guest list and invitation for the Clark-and-cabinet swearing-in ceremony of March 14, 2011. Remember how Clark claimed she was a champion of openness and transparency? Apparently not anymore.

Message to the Office of the Premier: I was born at night, but not last night. Kindly cough up the guest list for the B.C. Budget speech, show me the Atwal correspondence. I just hope the documents, didn't grow legs and jump into your paper shredder on their own.

UPDATE (April 24, 2012): I have formally asked for the Information and Privacy Commissioner to intervene.

Another request denied

Another request denied

Premier Christy Clark's swearing-in guest list

Elimination is inevitable, commiserate responsibly

Vancouver Canucks: three-time Campbell Bowl winners. Two-time President’s Trophy winners.

Stanley Cups? Zero.

There is no doubt in my mind that fact will not change in 2012. The team is 0-3 and one loss away from the golf course. Regardless, if they steal a win at Staples Center, elimination remains inevitable. Stanley Park's Lord Stanley statue will not be getting a visit from a Cup-holding Canuck in 2012.

Just as it is hard to defend a Stanley Cup championship, it is equally difficult for a runner-up to return immediately for another challenge.

Losing in Game 7 on home ice, as the Canucks did in 2011, meant the players had the longest and shortest summers of their careers. It was a long summer of wondering why, how come and what could have been for the Canucks while members of the Boston Bruins enjoyed sharing the Cup with friends, families and communities.

Short, because (with the exception of the Bruins) the time to relax and recover before beginning the cycle anew at training camp was extremely limited. It was only 91 days since Game 7 and the players reporting for pre-training camp medical exams.

By virtue of geography and their playoff schedule, the Canucks are the most-played and most-traveled team in the NHL since September 2010. General manager Mike Gillis hired sleep consultants and other experts to mitigate the wear-and-tear, but that has only gone so far. The team exhibited weariness and unfocussed play since the so-called “Game 8” win over the Bruins in Boston. The team was 4-3 in tiebreakers before the Boston game, then went 11-6.

In March 2011, the Canucks went 13-2 (including 2 shutout wins and 1 overtime win) and outscored opponents 43-27. In March 2012, they went 9-6 (including 2-1 in overtime) and were 35-35 in the goals for/against columns. In 2011, the Canucks were hot, they were feared and they were dominant in regulation time down the stretch. In 2012, they were not. The final three regular season games in April were a preview of the 0-3 depression in the Kings’ series. The only regulation win, in which they clinched the President’s Trophy, was a game they struggled to win 3-0 over the lowly Edmonton Oilers.

Only twice since the NHL began expansion in 1968 has a runner-up rebounded. The Canucks will not be the third.

Why?

This is not a team like the 1984 Edmonton Oilers, who were led by young Wayne Gretzky, Jarri Kurri and Mark Messier. They lost in 1983 but stormed back the following year when Mike Bossy, Bryan Trottier and Clark Gillies of the New York Islanders passed the torch.

This is not a team like the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins, who lost in 2008, had a mediocre start to the next season and fired coach Michel Therrien with a 27-25-5 record. They replaced him with Dan Bylsma, who guided the team to a hot 18-3-4 record down the stretch. Centres Evgeni Malkin (113 points) and Sidney Crosby (103) continued their dominance in the playoffs with 30-plus-points each. Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was solid, from wire-to-wire.

To get to the Stanley Cup, a team needs to be a healthy team, working as one. It requires the right decisions by management and coaches. It also requires luck. The 2011 Canucks had all that, including the first round-winning overtime goal by Alexandre Burrows over Chicago and Kevin Bieksa’s bizarre Western conference-clinching ricochet goal against San Jose.)

In 2012, they were not dominant and decisive down the stretch. Gillis traded up-and-coming star Cody Hodgson for underperforming Zack Kassian. Daniel Sedin was injured with a concussion. Ryan Kesler and Mason Raymond are not the same players they were before 2011 playoff injuries. Gillis failed to find a grizzled vet to play a Mark Recchi-type role. Gillis couldn’t coax Mike Modano from retiring and Owen Nolan was a training camp cut.

The runner-up jinx remains. May the Canucks have better luck in 2013.

PavCo loses another director

Will the last person left please turn out the floodlights?

Another director has left the board of B.C. Pavilion Corporation, the taxpayer-owned company that operates B.C. Place Stadium and the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Peter Brown's February departure wasn't confirmed until March. The Howe Street tycoon, Order of B.C. recipient and Liberal bagman (right) claimed he wants to slow down, but the real reason was his disgust over Premier Christy Clark turning down the $35 million to $40 million B.C. Place Stadium naming rights deal with Telus.

Now joining Brown on the outside-looking-in is Derek Brindle. Brindle (below) is a lawyer with the Vancouver firm Singleton Urquhart, has a Queen's Counsel designation, and his bio states he "acts as an arbitrator and in mediations involving construction and insurance disputes. Derek advises Crown institutions and industry on risk mitigation strategies in major procurement."

UPDATE: 8:33 p.m. April 12

PavCo chairman David Podmore has emailed me this statement:

"Derek left the board in February 2012.

"He joined the Board at my invitation in 2007 to be available to provide construction legal expertise as PavCo proceeded through completion of the VCC West expansion and the BC Place Refurbishment.

"With completion of both major construction efforts PavCo is moving to a focus on business development to ensure that the business potential of these assets (VCC West, VCC East, and BC Place) are maximized, consequentially the business focus will gradually shift away from construction and more emphasis will be placed in sales and marketing as well as operations.

"Derek's advice and expertise has been most helpful through the past years where the focus has been on completion of the new facilities and the BC Place upgrade.

"Derek has been exceptionally helpful through these stages, and has resigned to allow PavCo to move to the next stage where the focus must be on business development to maximize utilization of these exceptional assets which he helped deliver, and recruit the Directors that will have the appropriate expertise to provide the guidance and advice to maximize the utilization of the exceptional facilities created during Derek' s participation on the PavCo Board."

UPDATE: 10 a.m. April 13

Brindle responded to my phone message via email:

"I resigned in February after nearly 5 years on the Board.

"I initially joined at the Chair's invitation as someone with experience and interest in construction. My preferred area of practice was, and is, in construction law. It was not my intention to overstay the construction projects to be undertaken.

"After the completion of the final construction project near the end of 2011, it was timely to move off the Board to allow for an orderly transition and focus on marketing and operations.

"Any further questions can be directed to Pavco."

UPDATE: 12:41 p.m. April 13

Here is the response when I asked if Brindle might have a few minutes to answer questions about whether his departure from the board was affected by the government-nixed Telus naming rights deal and the lawsuit by two roof contractors:

"Thank you, however, I have nothing further to add to my earlier e-mail response to your questions."

Questions persist, I say. Why no public announcement of Brown and Brindle's departures? Can one call it an "orderly transition" when there is no immediate replacement for directors who leave before the May 27 end-of-term? Why do taxpayers have to wait until a reporter gets a tip?

PavCo, coincidentally, is one of the parties named in a $6.5 million lawsuit filed by steel cable installer Freyssinet. Steel contractor Canam Group filed a $26.15 million countersuit against Freyssinet. The messy dispute, which may ultimately tell the story of this difficult renovation, could be settled in a marathon court trial to begin in October 2013.

We still have no update on the cost of the B.C. Place renovations, which were budgeted at $563 million. The government is not likely to tell us the truth while it's contesting by-elections in Port Moody and Chilliwack, for fear of losing two seats in the Legislature.

Furlong: white toques to Whitecaps

It seems Vancouver Whitecaps chief executive Paul Barber's chair was barely cold when the ownership group began thinking of re-filling it.

The media had been told that president Bob Lenarduzzi and chief operating officer Rachel Lewis would run the Major League Soccer franchise as a duo since the former Tottenham Hotspur executive announced his shock resignation on Dec. 9, 2011. Barber worked his last day on Feb. 29. (Sources told me Barber was frustrated that his decision-making authority fell victim to principal owner Greg Kerfoot's micromanaging.)

On April 12, part-owner Jeff Mallett surprised the gathered media at the Hyatt Regency Hotel by introducing John Furlong, the chief executive of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics organizing committee, as the club's new executive chairman. Lenarduzzi and Lewis will report to Furlong. Furlong, who served VANOC at the pleasure of Premier Gordon Campbell, will report weekly to Kerfoot, the mysterious, media-shy West Vancouver tech tycoon.

Furlong told the media the idea was hatched at a dinner with Kerfoot about six weeks earlier. The job is a full-time gig, without an equity stake in the company, that includes a desk on the same floor in Gastown's Landing where he led the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation and its successor, VANOC, after the International Olympic Committee chose Vancouver in 2003 to host the 21st Olympic Winter Games.

Irish-born, 61-year-old Furlong chairs the Own the Podium advisory board, is a director of Whistler Blackcomb Holdings and was recently promoted to chairman of the Rocky Mountaineer Railtours' board (more about that below). The Whitecaps' gig gets precedence for Furlong, who did not receive

any IOC or Canadian Olympic Committee appointment after the 2010 Games.

Furlong, who grew up playing centreback, professes a lifelong love for the beautiful game. He recounted how he thrilled he was to watch England's 1966 World Cup win live on TV. He may owe a small debt of gratitude to the world's most powerful soccer executive for helping Vancouver get the Games.

In the following excerpt from his 2011-published memoir, Patriot Hearts: Inside the Olympics that Changed a Country (Douglas & McIntyre), Furlong revealed details about the 2002 night he spent with FIFA president Sepp Blatter at VANOC founding chairman Jack Poole's ranch. (Many have called for Blatter to resign amid longstanding allegations of bribery and FIFA's reluctance to immediately implement recommendations from well-respected transparency expert Mark Pieth's Independent Governance Committee.)

The bid process could hardly be described as logical. Sometimes we sought out Hail Mary opportunities on the off-chance something might work out. Delegates were scattered all over the world, so face time with them as often hard to arrange. When we had an opportunity, we pounced it immediately. One such occasion occurred that August. Canada was hosting the women's U19 World Cup of soccer. Sepp Blatter, the iconic head of the International Federation of Association Football, or FIFA as it is commonly known, was in the country and, we were told, was going to be passing through Vancouver on his way to Edmonton, where the tournament was being held. Working with our friends at the Canadian Soccer Association, we arranged to squirrel him away for an evening to talk Olympics. Sepp was an IOC member and an influential one at that. We wanted to make an indelible impression on him. We decided this would be a night for Jack Poole and his wife, Darlene, to put on the ritz at their sprawling estate in Mission, a rural community 90 minutes east of Vancouver. The plan was to send a helicopter for Sepp and fly him to Jack's place, while showing off a little of the local geography at the same time.

We met Sepp when he touched down on the estate's landing pad. Yes, Jack had his own landing pad. The Pooles poured on the charm. The steak was brilliant and so was the apple pie. We had a great evening talking to one of the most influential sports kings in the world, who waxed eloquently about sport politics, including those that surrounded the IOC.

Sepp was in his element -- at the centre of attention with no pressure. I asked him at one point what his vision was for the game of soccer. "I will not be satisfied until every child on the planet owns a soccer ball," he said. And he meant it. Sepp was a formidable man, short and stocky and with an imposing face, who seemed to dominate his surroundings the way someone much bigger might. By the end of the night we were friends. As always, we didn't ask for Sepp's vote but we were all smiles when he told us we could count on him.

(Media scrum video courtesy SendtoNews/Whitecaps).

John Furlong named executive chair of Whitecaps FC
John Furlong interview

For the record: Vancouver hosted the North American Soccer League's last single-game Soccer Bowl in 1983 at B.C. Place Stadium between the Tulsa Roughnecks and Toronto Blizzard. The NASL championship was contested one more time in 1984 in a best-of-three format between the Chicago Sting and Toronto. The Sting swept the Blizzard in two games, winning the trophy in Toronto.

Meanwhile, Furlong opted not to comment on the ongoing labour dispute between Rocky Mountaineer and its unionized on-board attendants from Teamsters local 31. This, despite being the chairman of the upscale tourist train company's board.

"You need to talk to Randy (Powell, president) about that, that's how we've chosen to do it," Furlong said. "I think this is an ongoing dispute and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to talk."

Workers were locked out last June and the company intends to continue using replacements. The company also chopped limbs off trees on adjacent public land, but claims it was a mistake.

Spreading the word

Red Mittens & Red Ink: The Vancouver Olympics by Bob Mackin has scored wider distribution.

The e-book about how the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics came and went is now available from the Sony Reader Store, Kobo, Diesel and Barnes & Noble.

Or you can go direct to Smashwords via the official website, RedMittensAndRedInk.com.

Wherever you buy it, the price is still just $8.99.

Government's gambling secrets

This time last year, Vancouver city hall was the site of the 2011 version of the great casino debate. Council eventually turned down the Paragon Gaming proposal to expand its Edgewater Casino to a site next to B.C. Place Stadium. The company is allowed to relocate the casino, if it wishes. No word yet on whether that will ever happen.

Part of the reason why the Vancouver Not Vegas coalition succeeded in defeating the expansion was new information about gambling-related crime. Now I have more.

While the B.C. government's Liquor Control and Licensing Branch proactively publishes compliance and enforcement reports on which bars and restaurants flout liquor laws, it's not so easy to get information from the parallel agency, Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch. GPEB thinks the names and locations of licensed gambling and lottery establishments that break laws and regulations should be kept secret, whereas LCLB names names. Why is the government reasonably transparent on the booze side and not on the gambling side? Maybe because the profits are higher in gambling, where the government holds the cards through its legislated monopoly.

Anyway, I had to push hard to get documents about the government's enforcement of illegal underage gambling. I actually had to file a supplementary Freedom of Information request when the Solicitor General's ministry claimed it would take too much time and money to compile a list of violations of the section of the act that makes it illegal to sell gambling products to those under the age of 19.

Funny enough, they did have a list, for the period of Jan. 1-Nov. 29, 2011! And it offers more information (albeit often vague) about B.C.'s gambling problems.

More British Columbia gambling crime reports

Time ticking for Nine O'Clock Gun

The end is nigh for the Nine O'Clock Gun in Vancouver's Stanley Park.


The most famous sound of the city, heard around the region every night, is to be immediately replaced. A staff report to the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation cites the cannon's connotations of war and violence, along with increasing maintenance costs.

Vancouver's Nine O'Clock Gun (Xenyx at en.wikipedia)

It recommends the Vision Vancouver-majority board approve an open-microphone and long-range acoustic device be used instead to transmit a different live or recorded sound nightly for five seconds or less.


"Just as B.C. Place Stadium can change the colour of its exterior lights on a nightly basis, the sound heard around Metro Vancouver at 9 p.m. every evening can and should be different," the staff report said. "This will further enhance the city and region's character and offer new creative and promotional opportunities to the arts and cultural community."


A list of potential sounds includes a Buddhist temple gong, Vancouver Canucks' goal fanfare, Bryan Adams' guitar riff, Sarah McLachlan warble, Nardwuar the Human Serviette's "Doot-doola-doot-do," an excerpt from a Southsiders' chant, the lion roar sound effect from B.C. Lions' games, the Hastings Racecourse bugle fanfare, a dog whistle, ahooga horn and whoopee cushion.


The project would come at no cost to taxpayers, because one sound every month would be sold to a corporation. The report offered the Intel chime or Nokia ring tone as examples of such commercial sounds that would put money into city coffers for operation of the microphone and LRAD and area landscaping.


The staff report proposes selling the cannon to the highest bidder on the e-Bay auction website, but recommends against using Craigslist.


The gun is said to be a naval type, 12-pound muzzle-loader that was cast in 1816 by H&C King in the London, England borough of Woolwich during the reign of King George III. It was brought to Vancouver around 1894 and fired for the first time here on Oct. 5, 1898 to aid marine navigators. In 1969, University of B.C. Engineers briefly kidnapped the Nine O'Clock Gun. In 2008 they painted it red. It was restored for the city's 1986 centennial. The sound of the blast has carried as far away as Mission.


The pavilion, designed by architect Gregory Henriquez, will remain and house both the microphone and LRAD.


The city's noon-time O Canada horns at Canada Place will remain as-is. Those were originally installed at the B.C. Electric Building, but are now the custody of a federal Crown corporation.


A news conference is planned for beside the Nine O'Clock Gun at Hallelujah Point in Stanley Park just before noon on April 1st.

Exclusive: Transparency 1 Canadian soccer secrecy 0

The FIFA Independent Governance Committee tabled its first report March 30 to FIFA at its headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. Read a Forbes summary here. The full report, by Mark Pieth (with input from Canadians Alexandra Wrage and James Klotz), is here. FIFA's procedures are diplomatically described as "insufficient."

FIFA's response is best described as "baby steps." Transparency International issued this statement slamming FIFA for not immediately accepting and acting on all the recommendations. We're still no closer to finding out the story behind the ISL bribery scandal, despite well-respected Pieth urging FIFA publish the documents.

FIFA's 2011 financial report shows a $36 million profit based on revenue of $1.07 billion and expenses of $1.034 billion.

Meanwhile, closer to home, CONCACAF has announced that there is only one candidate to become the organization's next president. Jeffrey Webb, a banker from the Cayman Islands, will fill the post left vacant when bribery suspect Jack Warner quit in disgrace last year to avoid a FIFA investigation. The Canadian Soccer Association did not field a candidate and general secretary Peter Montopoli did not respond to my interview request.

Webb appears to be reform-minded, but he will have to take demonstrative action to introduce transparency to overcome his stigma. At a time when the world of soccer is under pressure to root out any hint of corruption, CONCACAF appears close to rubber-stamping the presidency of a banker from a notorious tax haven. The optics aren't good.

Speaking of the CSA, the governing body for the game in the biggest country (by land area) in CONCACAF does not publish its financial information -- even for its members! It publishes an annual report without financial statements. But it does submit audited statements to the Government of Canada annually to qualify for taxpayer funds via Sport Canada.

I have exclusively obtained the CSA's 2010 financial statements, which show an $807,944 profit based on $16.163 million revenue and $15.355 million expenses. The biggest sources of income were membership fees ($6.617 million), sponsorships and donations ($3.479 million) and taxpayer grants ($3.145 million). Read the full report below.

Here's hoping the CSA does the right thing and proactively publishes its 2011 financial statements, instead of forcing a reporter to send a $5 cheque to the government.

CSA 2010 Report Mackin

March madness seals Clark’s fate

Mamas, don’t let your children grow up to be British Columbia premiers.

Why? Because they would have to endure the monstrous month of March. The west coast version of the Ides of March hath 31 days and its legacy is one of resignation and rejection.

In 1991, it was the last full month in power for Social Credit Party Premier Bill Vander Zalm. The Socreds, B.C.’s free enterprise coalition, lost six by-elections, 11 cabinet ministers either quit or were fired and party members defected.



Vander Zalm came to power as Bill Bennett’s successor in 1986 as the dark-horse, outsider candidate in the famed Whistler leadership convention. By March 1991, he was under investigation by conflict of interest commissioner Ted Hughes for his role in the sale of his Fantasy Garden World in Richmond to Taiwanese billionaire Tan Yu.

Finance minister Mel Couvelier resigned in protest, proclaiming that Vander Zalm should have stepped aside while under a cloud. Vander Zalm finally quit on April 2. Deputy Premier and Transportation Minister Rita Johnston, who ran a Surrey trailer park, took over as the first female premier in Canadian history but lost the Oct. 17 election. The Socreds fell from 47 seats to seven, Mike Harcourt and the NDP took power with 51 seats and the upstart B.C. Liberals went from zero to 17, making Gordon Wilson the leader of the opposition.



Fast forward eight years to 1999. New Democratic Party Premier Glen Clark’s evening was ruined March 2 when RCMP officers (who were trailed by BCTV cameras) raided his East Vancouver house to search for clues in the North Burnaby Inn casino licence caper. Two weeks later, police searched Clark’s office in Victoria. He quit the premiership on Aug. 21 and the NDP was reduced to just two seats in the Legislature after Gordon Campbell and the Liberals won the May 16, 2001 election by a landslide.

Now Premier Christy Clark (no relation to Glen Clark) is suffering the worst month of her political career. If history is your guide, she is at a point of no return -- stick a fork in her, she's done. She will be looking for a new job immediately after the May 14, 2013 election. Maybe sooner. All because of the March from hell.

Consider the timeline for Clark's chaotic, career-defining March of 2012:

March 2: The infamous Telus news conference with the Darren Entwistle/Adrian Dix photo opportunity. Clark was inexplicably absent from a jobs and investment announcement by the biggest private corporation in B.C. (A Liberal donor, to boot.) Two days later, the government broke its silence and claimed she wasn’t invited because of a certain unresolved issue: the B.C. Place Stadium naming rights negotiations with Telus.

March 5: School’s out. B.C. Teachers Federation stages a three-day, province-wide strike over the deadlock in contract negotiations and the government's plan to legislate a new deal.



March 6: B.C. Supreme Court trial management conference between lawyers for Quebec’s Canam Group and France’s Freyssinet reveals grease leaks from support cables have damaged B.C. Place Stadium’s new fabric roof. It could cost up to $10 million to fix. An 85-day trial is in the works to begin October 2013.

March 7: Minister responsible Pat Bell confirms the $40 million Telus naming rights deal is dead. Bell claims the B.C. Place name is “iconic.” The government claims the deal was $35 million and wasn’t “good” for taxpayers. When that explanation doesn’t fly, it desperately claims the Telus Place signs were too big.

March 9: The resignation of Liberal bagman and Howe Street tycoon Peter Brown from the B.C. Pavilion Corporation board is confirmed.

March 11: The Province begins a series of stories on the private college company Eminata Group, calling into question the credibility of government oversight of for-profit, post-secondary education. Eminata owner Peter Chung's previous private colleges in California were fined $12 million for defrauding students. Chung donated $4,100 to the Liberals in 2009.

March 13: Clark’s news conference at the Washington Marine Group shipyard in North Vancouver to hype the half-anniversary of her B.C. Jobs Plan is overshadowed by reporters’ questions about the failed B.C. Place naming rights deal, despite new communications director Sara MacIntyre’s attempt to make a list of reporters and limit them to one question apiece.

March 14: Gum-chewing MacIntyre prevents reporters from asking questions of Clark at a photo opportunity in the Globe 2012 trade show, despite a media advisory that invited reporters to come and ask Clark questions.

March 15: The Ides of March! Bill 22 to end the teachers’ strike and outlaw another walkout passes, but the day is all about multiculturalism minister of state Harry Bloy’s resignation for breaching his oath of confidentiality by giving a Province newspaper reporter’s email to an Eminata executive. Bloy was the only MLA to support Clark's leadership campaign in 2011.

March 22: Liberal MLAs Randy Hawes and Marc Dalton quoted in the Abbotsford Times after claiming $185,000 in repairs for a Mission hockey rink’s dehumidifiers came from a non-existent $30 million surplus from the B.C. Place renovation.

Clark calls April 19 by-elections in Port Moody and Chilliwack, labels popular ex-Port Moody Mayor, former supporter and new NDP candidate Joe Trasolini a “party-switcher,” and announces an audit of TransLink to find $30 million. Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom found out about the audit like the rest of us -- from reporters.

March 24: Clark works a rare Saturday as she joins John Yap (multiculturalism), Rob Howard (transportation secretary) and Moira Stilwell (health secretary) for a hastily called, staged swearing-in ceremony with Lt.-Gov. Steven Point for their new junior cabinet posts.

March 26: Abbotsford South MLA John van Dongen, the former Solicitor General and a five-time election winner, stood up in Question Period and dropped the biggest bombshell of the month. He quit the Liberal caucus and party to sit as an independent MLA and join the B.C. Conservatives. He cited Clark’s ties to the B.C. Rail privatization scandal and the B.C. Place naming rights deal. He also announced the hiring of a lawyer to investigate Clark over the B.C. Rail matter.

"Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that there would have been renewal in my party and in government. But, in the past 12 months, that has not happened. Indeed, every week constituents question government actions and issues that I am not able to defend. What I believe people expect from political leadership are core values that include integrity and a genuine commitment to public service.

"Integrity includes honesty, ethics and personal character. Integrity is non-negotiable. It is foundational for a strong organization. Most importantly, integrity includes accountability.

"To this day, Mr. Speaker, there are still serious unanswered questions regarding the writing-off of 6 million dollars in legal fees in the BC Rail case contrary to government policy. Questions I have been asking for a year-and-a-half, and questions the Auditor General is seeking answers to through the courts.

"Most recently, the unexplainable cancellation of a 35 million dollar naming rights agreement with Telus is another example of failed leadership.

"There have been other lapses in proper accountability and I expect more to come. When more and more decisions are being made for the wrong reasons, then you have an organization that is heading for failure."

Clark's whereabouts are publicly unknown.

March 27: Appearing weary and with deep bags under her eyes, Clark resurfaced for a news conference to criticize van Dongen. "The only thing John van Dongen accomplished yesterday was making it a little easier for the NDP to get elected in British Columbia." Clark once again uses the "nothing to see here, move along" tactic, claiming a B.C. Rail public inquiry is unnecessary. (Two of the scandal's expert observers beg to differ on the need to know all the facts about the biggest government corruption case in the province's history.)

Meanwhile, an Angus Reid Public Opinion said her approval rating fell nine points since August 2011 to 33 percent -- the second worst in the country.

Liberal defector Rick Peterson, a prominent supporter of Finance Minister Kevin Falcon’s failed 2011 leadership bid, launches his campaign for the Conservative nomination in Vancouver-Quilchena, the riding held by ex-finance minister Colin Hansen. Peterson scoffs at Clark's claims that supporting the Conservatives will pave the way for the NDP. He says free enterprise is about competition and there should be competition for the free enterprise vote in 2013.

March 28: Liberal-friendly, Prince George academic Charles Jago appointed as mediator for the BCTF dispute at a rate of $2,000-a-day. Jago, the former president of the University of Northern B.C., called his task “mission impossible.” How’s that for optimism?

Jago has no apparent mediation experience and donated $1,000 to Liberal fundraising golf tournaments in 2007 and 2010. Jago was appointed to the boards of Partnerships B.C. and 2010 Legacies Now. The September 2007 opening of the $31 million UNBC sports centre named for him drew a who’s who of B.C. cabinet, including Premier Gordon Campbell.

Falcon and Education minister George Abbott tell reporters they might not run in the next election. The two leadership losers were gearing up for a fall 2011 campaign and, had they won seats, would be six months into a four-year term. Now they are waffling as it appears their party's grip on power is fading. Life is a little less interesting on the opposition side of the house, not to mention the paycheque smaller.

Was Falcon’s claim that he might quit politics in 2013 to devote more time to his young family an intentional or unintentional subliminal jab at Clark, a single-mother who is struggling as premier after only a year on the job?

March 30: The B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union announces that it has reached an impasse in talks with the government for a new master agreement for its 25,000 members. The contract expires March 31. A strike vote is planned for April.

Clark's government, which previously said public sector workers would get no raises, is offering a 3 percent increase over two years, but BCGEU wants a 4 percent annual increase.

(The previous week, the BCGEU reached a deal with government that it claims will protect the 500 Liquor Distribution Branch workers when and if a private company takes over the government's warehousing and distribution of liquor in B.C. Odd how it took a quick month from Finance minister Kevin Falcon's announcement until the BCGEU announcement.)

March 31: The one-year countdown to the end of the Harmonized Sales Tax. The Aug. 26, 2011 referendum result effectively scuttled a fall election and forced Clark to phase-out the tax that ruined Gordon Campbell's premiership. The mail-in referendum attracted 1.61 million ballots (compared to 1.64 million total votes cast in the previous election.) Votes to scrap the HST (881,198) exceeded the number of votes the Liberals had in the 2009 election (751,661). Consumers and businesspeople alike have criticized Clark for her reluctance to phase-out the cash cow HST sooner.

In early March, Clark publicly repudiated the Telus naming rights deal for B.C. Place that would have eased the burden on taxpayers for the budgeted $563 million renovation. She ended the month in West Kelowna for the Hockey Night in Canada announcement of the $100,000 2012 Kraft Hockeyville winner.

Yes, the same Premier who declined the $35 million to $40 million deal because it wasn't "good for taxpayers" got involved in the cheese, crackers and snacks company's nationwide marketing promotion in the hopes that it would help renovate a public hockey rink.

Alas, the result was errantly leaked by Kraft to media outlets early Saturday morning. Stirling-Rowdon, Ontario beat West Kelowna by 1.2 million votes and will also get to host a National Hockey League exhibition game as a prize. West Kelowna got a $25,000 consolation prize to spruce up its rink.

Unlike the rest of her problems in March, there is no evidence that Clark is to blame. Just another case of bad luck and bad optics.