Another Clark Park Day in BC

So remember this?

April 2014 Natty Post: Christy Clark once served as chairwoman of B.C. company that she has promoted since becoming premier

"The 2007 document has surfaced one week after it was revealed that the Premier was a partner in her former husband’s lobbying firm, which formerly listed its office at her residence and boasted such clients as Enbridge and B.C. Rail.

In the fall of 2007, Ms. Clark entered into a two-year agreement as chairman and board member of RCI Capital Group’s RCI Pacific Gateway Education Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the investment firm.

Since becoming Premier, Ms. Clark has actively promoted RCI on official trade missions to Asia — recently signing a memorandum of understanding on behalf of the B.C. government in securing $1-billion in overseas investment..."

No I never worked for RCI said Christy, and RCI Capital's John Park gallantly came to Clark's defence, saying he'd never so much as even met her back then, much less paid her the first of three annual director's fee installments of $4,000 due her within 120 days of her RCI appointment. 

No, it was her then husband, Mark Marissen, Stephane Dion's campaign manager, that Park had hired. 

I guess that's just a spousal Chairman biz card then.

In December 2013, Clark appointed RCI managing director Tenzin D. Khangsar as chair of B.C.'s Multicultural Advisory Council. Khangsar was a former chief of staff to both Jason Kenney and Tony Clement and a key CPC ethnic campaign strategist for the Cons in 2011. 

Bob Mackin, July 2014 : 

"John Park hired Khangsar to be managing director of his RCI Capital investment bank after the Tories were re-elected in 2011. RCI’s board includes retired Conservative MPs Stockwell Day and John Reynolds. Day represented RCI on last fall’s trade mission led by Premier Christy Clark to China."

Still with me? Ok, flash forward to the Vancouver Sun two days ago featuring yet another Clark Park Day photo op :

BC Company benefits from Quebec cash-for-visa program

"A B.C.-based company says it has brought $2 billion to Canada under the Quebec government’s cash-for-visa program, a scheme that some say is a factor in Vancouver’s housing affordability crisis.

Vancouver-based RCI Capital Group, which helps resource companies develop strategies and raise money in Asia, has a Montreal-based subsidiary that has been active for years in the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program.

The Quebec program has become increasingly controversial in Metro Vancouver as critics point to it as one of the drivers of sky-high housing prices, since the vast majority of successful Quebec applicants immediately establish themselves in Toronto and Vancouver."

The Tyee : 'China Syndrome' Paralyzes Politicians in Housing Affordability Crisis
Huge impact of foreign buyers can't be ignored, and raising the issue isn't racist.

"...the province won't act as long as the real estate industry that profits enormously from selling homes to foreign buyers also contributes huge amounts to the BC Liberal Party. Josh Gordon, Simon Fraser University public policy professor, even refers to the influence of Bob Rennie, the real estate mogul who also heads Premier Christy Clark's fundraising efforts.

That would be the Rennie who recently suggested action to curb foreign real estate investment would start a trade war. "China buys $6 billion a year in British Columbia exports," he said. "Are we going to tamper with those jobs and our economy?"

Gordon calls out those who fund political parties.

"The fundraising is being dominated by prosperous developers and others closely tied to the housing boom," he writes. "This is the second lesson about housing market politics from the past decade: inside players, with large vested interests, are willing to shovel over massive amounts of money to political parties to keep the boom booming."

Ian Young, South China Morning Post : Leak reveals secret tax crackdown on foreign-money real estate deals in Vancouver

"Confidential briefing for CRA auditors outlines strategy to tackle suspected tax cheats who do not report global income or who ‘flip’ homes – but reveals that last year, there was only one successful audit of global income for all of BC."

Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun : B.C. politicians almost alone in seeking foreign donations

"B.C. is one of the few jurisdictions in the world that welcomes political donations from foreign individuals and corporations.The B.C. Liberals have in recent years received hundreds of thousands of dollars from offshore real estate developers, mining companies, railways and others. At least indirectly, the B.C. Liberals have even received donations from foreign governments, specifically China."

Around the world, B.C. stands out for its weak regulations against special interests manipulating public policy."

Just another Clark Park Day in BC.

More from Laila Yuile
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Republicans and Cons - just one big happy family

G&M :

"Americans living in Calgary are being asked to help fund Republican efforts to elect John McCain through the visit of an influential Republican senator who doubles as one of Mr. McCain's campaign co-chairs.
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is being invited to the city in August by a well-known Tory supporter and lawyer, Gerry Chipeur, who also has significant links to the U.S. Republican Party.
The funds raised by Americans attending the event will be used to help defray costs incurred by the Republican nominating convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul in September, as well as help elect a Republican the next president, said Mr. Chipeur in an interview.
Those wanting to hear Mr. Brownback speak at a dinner will be asked to pay $1,000, said Norman Leach, executive director of the Western Canadian division of the American Chamber of Commerce, which is helping Mr. Chipeur organize the event.
About 80,000 Americans live and work in Calgary, he said."

Possibly the best part is that the proceeds from the proposed $1000 a plate Brownback dinner will go to Friends of Science, Tim Ball's oil industry-funded anti-Kyoto "charity", whose funding was laundered through the University of Calgary by Harper's buddy, Prof. Barry Cooper, before the U of C put a stop to it.

Gerry Chipeur, a dual citizen himself, is an anti-SSM ReformaTory Alliance lawyer and supporter with ties to the evangelical movement on both sides of the border.

Here he is, for instance, on the US talk show, The O'Reilly Factor

Once upon a time however, Chipeur was much more coy about Canadian Con ties to US Republicans :

From: Paul Weyrich
[co-founder of the Moral Majority and the Heritage Foundation]
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 9:38 AM
To: Bob Thompson
[a staffer at Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation]

Subject: Message from Canada
Importance: High

Please get this message to the Stanton, Family Forum and Wednesday lunch groups:

I received a call last night from Gerald Chipeur, an important figure in Canada’s Conservative Party. He told me that Conservatives are with-in striking distance of electing an outright majority in Parliamentary elections Monday.

He said the Canadian media, which is trying to save the current Liberal government, has a strategy of calling conservatives in the USA in the hopes that someone will inadvertently say something that can be hung around the Conservatives.

Canadian voters have been led to believe that American conservatives are scary and if the Conservative party can be linked with us, they perhaps can diminish a Conservative victory. Chipeur asks that if Canadian media calls, please do not be interviewed until Monday evening at which point hopefully there will be reason to celebrate.

Many thanks.

When contacted by Canadian Press about the email, Weyrich denied any personal involvement but later on his website, he bragged about his "small victory" in the Canadian elections, recounting the entire email incident as true after all.

More recently Chipeur was credited with introducing Republican Frank Sensenbrenner to Canadian embassy officials at the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004, attended by Stockwell Day, Alberta MP Jason Kenney and John Reynolds, co-chair of the Tory 2006 election campaign.

Sensenbrenner had attended Reform party conventions and Stockwell Day insisted he be hired by the Canadian Embassy. Sensenbrenner was subsequently accused of leaking the Canadian memo which wounded Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama in the Naftagate leak.

Republicans and Cons - just one big happy party.

h/t files from Polunatic, Tilting at Windmills, Toe at Bread 'n Roses

It's either Sensenbrenner or Mr.Mustard in the Library

Days after an internal probe by the Clerk of the Privy Council Office Kevin Lynch failed to determine the source of the Naftagate leak, James Travers at The Star reported that "Multiple sources say the Canadian note questioning the Democrat frontrunner's public promise to reopen NAFTA was leaked from the Prime Minister's Office" to Frank Sensenbrenner, a Republican who worked at the Canadian embassy in Washington.

Now Sensenbrenner's father, James, introduced the notorious U.S. Patriot Act as chair of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, but just how did his son Frank appear in our midst?

"[Frank] Sensenbrenner was introduced to senior embassy officials by Gerry Chipeur, a Calgary-based lawyer who was once legal counsel to the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, the antecedents of today's Conservative party.

Chipeur, a dual citizen who headed the Republicans Abroad Canada, also has deep ties to the evangelical community in both countries and prominent U.S. Republicans, including Kansas Senator Sam Brownback.

The entrée of Sensenbrenner into Canadian diplomatic circles was forged at the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004, where members of the Canadian embassy and Conservative officials such as Day, Chipeur, Alberta MP Jason Kenney and John Reynolds, co-chair of the Tory 2006 election campaign, all attended.

Sensenbrenner had cut his political teeth in Canada, attending private college in the Toronto area and attending early Reform party conventions where he first befriended those in then-leader Preston Manning's inner circle.

The push to get him on the payroll came particularly from Day, sources said, when he took over the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative file, the name given to the Republican move to require all Canadians crossing the U.S. land border to carry passports or secure driver's licences."
~ Tim Harper at The Star

I had no idea Day, Kenney, and Reynolds attended the U.S. Republican National Convention but I can't say I'm surprised. This old boys network is already so 'deeply integrated' they can't imagine what's taking the rest of Canada so long to catch up.

Frank Sensenbrenner has since denied having a role in the leak of the Canadian consular memo.
So due to that internal Privy Council Office probe which protects the Cons from having to answer any difficult questions, we're back to Mr. Mustard in the Library again.

A wide variety of "No comments"

from the scandal we wish everyone would quit calling "Cadscam" :

On Wednesday Harper's office released a statement : "The then-leader of the Opposition [Harper] looked into the matter with party officials and could find no confirmation."

You will recall that former Con MP John Reynolds, who was also Harper's campaign manager, facilitated the meeting at which Finlay and Flanagan are alleged to have offered the $1M bribe to the late Chuck Cadman.

Asked about the incident, former Conservative MP John Reynolds told Canwest News Service he did not wish to comment.
"I'm not involved in politics anymore,"said Mr. Reynolds. "I have no comment at all."

Later Reynolds remarked to CBC : "the story seems fishy." and "Sounds to me like some kind of fiction story."

OK then, anyone else?

"Ryan Sparrow, a Conservative party spokesman, refused to comment on the allegations."

"Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said he's never heard anything about any buyout. "I've never even spoken with Chuck Cadman," he said."

"Jay Hill, now the Conservative government whip and Opposition whip at the time of the vote in question, told NaPo he had never heard of the events," which he also characterized later as a case of "unfortunate miscommunication" and "a so-called make-believe fairy-tale scandal."

Con MP and Treasury Board chairman Vic Toews : "He [Cadman] cared about legislation not money. We've heard this story for years. It's bullshit."

Defence Minister Peter MacKay was deputy Con leader at the time of the alleged offer : "I don't know anything about how this has come about. Certainly it was something that I was not involved with,'' said MacKay, "I think it's sad, quite frankly, that this seems to have come up. It's very unfortunate.''

Ok, so it didn't happen but if it did, it isn't true. Got it.

Update : Chet reminds me in comments that the $1M meeting and the Flanagan/Finlay meeting are not one and the same meeting. Allegedly two days apart in fact. Quite right, my bad. I think I keep forgetting that little detail because it has that - oh no, it was two completely other guys who did that - whiff about it. Thanks, Chet.

Upperdate : Ok, now we're back to just one meeting again. Allegedly.

It's only arm's length if your arms are really really short

And universities' hands appear to be growing straight out of their shoulders.

Item 1: Hired education
From The Vancouver Sun (link via Bread and Roses):

John Reynolds, Harper's buddy and former campaign advisor, says

"he gave his blessing when the University of B.C. asked him if it would suffer negative ramifications by hiring Liberal MP Stephen Owen as its vice-president.

"The university phoned me a couple of months ago, said they were thinking about
him, would that be a problem?" Reynolds told The Vancouver Sun.

UBC has been one of Canada's largest recipients of federal grants."

Item 2: The best education that DND money can pay for.
From The Calgary Herald :

"David Bercuson, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, said Harper would surely extend the mission if his government wasn't "on the ropes on so many issues."
"If he had his majority, the question would be moot. He would extend the mission," Bercuson said."

Yeah, well we all knew that already and Calgary NeoCon David Bercuson's war-mongering is a veritable staple of Canadian journalism :

Bercuson in the G&M : "Afghanistan is the basic foundation of [Harper's] entire effort to rebuild Canada's influence in the world."

but what is this Centre for Military and Strategic Studies he hails from?
It's a department at the University of Calgary, one of 12 in universities across Canada, that is funded by the Department of National Defence via their Security and Defence Forum.

From Embassy Mag :

"According to the Department of National Defence, over 600 people, including 183 faculty members, are employed in these centres across Canada. In 2005-2006, scholars from these centres churned out 600 publications, including articles, books, and chapters. In this same period, the centres received funding worth $1,255,000. As of October 2006, DND approved a 25 per cent increase in funding. In the next five years, the funding will shoot up to $1,650,000, a 32 per cent increase.

The centres have to apply to a body appointed by the minister of defence in order to receive funding from the SDF. Centres can receive between $80,000 to 100,000 in funds. The SDF will spend $2.5 million on grants to the centres this year. In addition, the SDF also awards scholarships for graduate and post-graduate studies and also offers special grants to individuals and institutions to finance academic projects and conferences.

The research topics must focus on the following: Terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, failed or failing states, regional flashpoints, Canadian Forces transformation, the defence of Canada, the Canadian Forces' international role, the 3D approach and Canada-United States defence regulations.

Steve Staples, Rideau Institute, says that while it is not uncommon for government to fund academic programs in institutions, SDF centres have to toe "a particular view" that subscribes to larger spending on the military:

"Most of the hawkish academic viewpoints that you see in the media are part of this Security and Defence Forum group," he says. "Many of these spokespeople in charge of these institutions were in favour of invading Iraq, missile defence and large increases in defence spending."
"It's not about scholarly journals, peer reviewed articles that they have written–it's really about appearing in the mainstream media. What you tend to get as a general trend, is a steady stream of hawkish opinion from academics that are all linked together through Department of National Defence funding," says Mr. Staples.

Incidentally, when quoted in the G&M, Natty Post, and other print media, David Bercuson is usually introduced as "director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary and director of programs for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute."

The Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute is a Calgary-based non-profit research/lobby group. Donors include General Dynamics, the world's fifth largest defence contractor, and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

So we have one university vetting its hiring choices via Harper's henchman, and another 12 running departments funded by the DND. Their armies have disappeared right up their sleevies.

This week in celebrity Con bitchiness

Fabulously bitchy line from ex ConMP and now lobbyist John "I am not a lobbyist" Reynolds, in the ongoing police investigation into the alleged Ottawa mayoralty bribery case.
You know - did the millionnaire offer the bailiff a patronage job and $30,000 in cash in the parking lot behind Tim Horton's to drop out of the race?
Despite this being the apparently preferred Con method of attaining public office, sadly it is in fact against the law.

This week John Reynolds' name came up as an alleged facilitator to the alleged deal. Allegedly.
From Canadian Press, here's the bitchy bit :

John Reynolds : "Well, it's something in his own mind. I don't know him from Adam".

Terry Kilrea the bailiff : "Before I turned down the offer, (O'Brien) told me the Parole Board was a five-year appointment at $110,000 a year," Kilrea said in an interview.
"So, I mean, pretty tempting for a guy who's making 60 (thousand) go to a 110 for a five-year appointment - and cash, to boot, in the offer. It was a very, very tempting offer."

Reynolds maintains there's nothing sinister. He said he would be happy to put Kilrea's name forward, or any other person's, for a Parole Board appointment because not many people want the job.
"They're looking for people to go on parole boards," said Reynolds. "Most guys don't want the jobs. They don't pay that much."

Ooooooh. Man, there really is no defence quite like hauteur, is there?

More bitchy Ottawa celebrity Con news from - who else? - Ottawonk.

Fishy business

Former Con MP John "I am not a lobbyist" Reynolds has added three more clients to his portfolio and finally registered himself as a lobbyist. Denying that he'd broken his promise not to become a lobbyist, Reynolds joined Lang Michener, a law firm whose clients lobby government, immediately after leaving the Cons early last year. He explained at the time that this didn't really count as lobbying because he'd promised not to lobby Steve.

His three new clients are all charities seeking federal funding, one of which is fronted by Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan.
Apparently Sam didn't know how to get hold of Steve and John said - hey just call his exec assistant! - and so Sam did, explains Reynolds.

The Accountability Act, proposed by the Cons to battle the revolving door between government and lobbyists and corporate interests, will be spinning full tilt come the next election as Reynolds returns to his previously held position as Harper's national campaign co-chair.

Disclosure : While we're on the subject of accountability, I feel I should mention that years ago I lived down the block from Reynolds' campaign headquarters and given that there was never anyone there for months on end, it seemed like a good idea at the time to put a dead fish through the letter box. This childish act of disrespectful vandalism has weighed on me strangely over the years and I would now like to take this opportunity to offer my most humble and heartfelt apologies to the cleaning staff.