Pay to Play in BC with Postmedia real estate

In June 2013, the ailing Vancouver Postmedia papers, The Sun and The Province, dumped 100 employees, plus two out of four floors of their downtown Vancouver offices. 
Colliers International, "the biggest player in the domestic commercial real estate industry", subleased the two now empty middle floors.

The previous year, Colliers and Postmedia had launched their joint venture "Property Post", described in their presser as providing :

"up-to-the minute news, commentary, information and videos that are accessible via the Financial Post website and the online business sections of The Vancouver Sun, the Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal.

Property Post also features content provided by Colliers, including twitter feeds, videos, and industry reports. Property listings will be a key component, allowing Colliers to use the site to market properties on behalf of its clients."

Ok, so it's a publisher-advertiser symbiotic partnership, similar to the one Postmedia proposed to CAPP a year later, providing Postmedia with revenue and Colliers with eyeballs :

"It is absolutely exciting," said Sudeep Balasubramanian, manager of digital sales at The Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers. "What we realize in terms of our digital strategy is that it is no longer just about selling advertising on a website.

Postmedia will support the site with editorial content that will be anchored by the Financial Post, and each of The Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, and Edmonton Journal newsrooms. It will also showcase commentary by Financial Post business columnist Gary Marr, Postmedia reporters, and freelance writers." 

While enthusiastic quotes from Colliers spox are liberally sprinkled throughout both papers, it's not always easy to tell whether it's an embed when they wander into a straight news story. This story from last week, for instance, quoting David Taylor of Colliers International on evictions and demolitions as 106 office towers go up in Burnaby : 

Demovictions' rising as Burnaby towers do the same : 

"Burnaby has faced “less public opposition during rezoning” because ...the land is “primarily occupied by older rundown apartments where tenants have, seemingly, less influence with the city than single-family homeowners."

Or this one about money from China being laundered through real estate : 
Chinese police run secret operations in B.C. to hunt allegedly corrupt officials and laundered money

"Kirk Kuester, executive managing director of Colliers International Vancouver, said the pool of money from Mainland China seeking investments in Metro Vancouver is so vast right now that he has to turn away potential clients.
“The money is staggering, quite honestly,” Kuester said. 

Kuester said, for example, that on Wednesday he had two or three potential clients with “half-a-billion” in private funds ready to put to work, but there are simply not big enough deals to satisfy them."

In addition to two middle floors of the former Pacific Press, Colliers International has ten offices in China.

Two years ago the BC Libs sold off 370 acres of Crown land on Burke Mountain at "$43 million less than its market value to allow Christy Clark to balance the budget", according to the NDP and a bureaucrat's leaked memo.
Colliers International won the marketing contract which saw the "fire sale" land bid go to WesBild. 
WesBild director Hassan Khosrowshahi has given $900,000 in donations to the B.C. Liberal Party since 2000, while Colliers International has only enriched the Libs by just over $100,000 in donations over 10 years. 

In BC there are no restrictions on private fundraisers or corporate donations or foreign donors or foreign ownership of farmland.  
Last year the BC Liberals raked in $10 million in donations. 
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Pay to Play in BC with Spectra

Six years ago the BC government decided not to bother doing its own environmental assessments any more because it was so much more efficient to hand that responsibility over to the industry-captured federal National Energy Board for rubber-stamping. That deal was called the Environmental Assessment Equivalency Agreement.

In January the BC Supreme Court ruled that the BC government did not have the authority to pass off its constitutional obligations onto the NEB and found this agreement "invalid" as it served as an end run around the province having to consult BC First Nations over major pipeline projects on their territories. Score one for Gitga'at First Nation.

Now this equivalency agreement can be cancelled by either the NEB or the BC Environmental Assessment Office at any time with 30 days notice but Christy Clark opted instead for another end run - passing an Order In Council last Thursday exempting five Peace region natural-gas projects from the provincial environmental assessments the Supreme Court says it must now carry out: 

The Spectra South Peace pipeline, Spectra's Dawson gas plant, Spectra's Fort Nelson North plant, Nova Gas Transmission's Groundbirch pipeline, and Nova Gas Transmission's Horn River mainline extension.

As noted by Charlie Smith in the Georgia Straight : Christy Clark cabinet issues order-in-council to get around court ruling on environmental assessments

"Premier Christy Clark's former deputy chief of staff, Kim Haakstad, is Spectra Energy's manager of technical workforce strategy."

Ms Haakstad was forced to resign her position as Christy's chief of staff in March 2013 over the "Quick Win" ethnic vote election scandal but was back in May stumping for Christy in her bid to win a seat in her home riding of Vancouver-Point Grey - which she lost, making her a Premier without a riding until a safer seat could be found for her. 
Haakstad made the jump to Spectra three months later in August 2013. 

Over at RossK's killer reporting and banjo emporium, some of his commenters wondered if Spectra contributed to the $50,000 top up salary Christy receives from the BC Libs each year.   
Dunno, guys, but Texas-based Spectra has been pretty good to the BC Libs : 

From the BC gov press release : 

"EAO has begun a process for the projects which are also impacted by the court decision but have not been approved or constructed. These projects include: 

Approved Projects – not yet constructed

North Montney Mainline Pipeline Project; andEnbridge Northern Gateway Project. 

Projects currently under review

Trans Mountain Expansion Project; andTowerbirch Expansion Project.

Following a process set out by EAO including consultation with Aboriginal groups, ministers will make environmental assessment decisions on these projects according to the act."

Extra homework : Why Do So Many BC Liberal Operatives End Up in Trouble?

Criminal charges, convictions, and more plague the party.

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Pay to Play in BC with LNG and KBR

On Friday March 18, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna signed off on environmental approval for the controversial Woodfibre LNG Project in Howe Sound, saying the project is "not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects". 
By Monday morning, Houston-based KBR had been awarded a multi-phased Front-End Engineering and Design contract for Woodfibre.

Interesting choice. 

KBR describes itself as "a global technology, engineering, procurement and construction company serving the hydrocarbons and government services industries".

You might better remember KBR as Kellogg Brown and Root.  A subsidiary of Dick Cheney's Halliburton until 2007, KBR was once the single largest US military contractor in Iraq with a hand in building Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and the sole contractor for Bagram base and the $100M US embassy in Afghanistan. 

They were in the news a bit :

2013 : Federal Court Orders U.S. Defense Contractor KBR To Stand Trial in Nepali Human Trafficking Case 

2013 : KBR Secret Indemnity Agreement Signed By Army Chief Tainted In Enron Scandal

2012 : KBR negligent in exposing National Guard soldiers to toxic chemicals in Iraq

2011 : KBR Tries to Convince Judge to Use Iraqi Law in Shower Death of Green Beret

2009 : KBR wins contract despite criminal probe of deaths 

2009 : Kellogg Brown and Root Pleads Guilty to Foreign Bribery Charges, Agrees to Pay $402M Criminal Fine 

2009  Shell companies in Cayman Islands allow KBR to avoid Medicare, Social Security deductions

2008 : SEC Charges Former CEO of Kellogg, Brown & Root, Inc. with Foreign Bribery

2008 : Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore

I'm sure everything's fine now.

Woodfibre LNG Limited is a subsidiary of Pacific Oil & Gas Limited, in turn part of Singapore-based RGE owned by billionaire tycoon Sukanto Tanoto seen here at left with Christie Clark. One of Mr. Tanoto"s companies has also made news headlines around the world about off shore tax fraud and money-laundering.

The Woodfibre LNG KBR contract announcement was made by Woodfibre "Country Manager and VP" Byng Giraud, described as their "first North American employee." 

Formerly Conservative Resources Minister Gary Lunn's Saanich-Gulf Islands campaign manager in 2008 in what came to be known as Canada's first misleading robocall election, Mr. Giraud's bio  notes he was "on the governing council of the Conservative Party of Canada with Prime Minister Stephen Harper", so naturally Giraud and Woodfibre have supported Christie Clark's BC Liberals however they can :

VO Feb 2015 : BC Liberals sponsored by Woodfibre LNG at swanky fundraiser

"The Clark government’s BC Liberal party was sponsored by Woodfibre LNG at an upscale, private members' fundraiser event on Thursday night.
“We’d like to thank our sponsor tonight, Woodfibre LNG ...

“That treads very close to that thin line between legitimate fundraising and influence peddling ..."

That would be the thin line between a fundraiser held in February 2015 and the next BC election in May 2017. 

Elections BC Political Contributions Tables for 2014/2015  for Mr. Giraud and Woodfibre : 

  

Photo Credit at top : Richard Duncan/Sea-to-Sky.

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