Friday, February 20, 2015

Canadian Press and Media. The Sad, Sycophantic Sell-Out.




Canadian Press and Media. The Sad, Sycophantic Sell-Out.  

                                 Part One
                                                           a column by Robin Mathews. Feb. 2015

We know there is a force in Canada – give it the name you wish – that is protecting government/corporation wrong-doing  [often major criminal wrong-doing] from exposure and legal action and conviction.

Those who name the probably-involved forces protecting criminal corruption name the Canadian Press and Media, the RCMP, CSIS, the PMO, the consenting Opposition Parties. They hear shouts and sneers -

“Conspiracy Theorists”.  “Leftist Alarmists”.  “Nutcases”.

But a case has appeared – a gigantic case affecting every Canadian alive and to be born – that is being smothered from the view of Canadians.  So huge is the case and so important to Canadians that we know it should be receiving major play in press and media.  It should be deeply investigated by investigative reporters.  The RCMP should already be doing preliminary investigation.  CSIS should be looking into “offshore” connections and implications.  The Opposition Parties should be holding meetings across Canada to inform constituents of the magnitude and importance of the case that those Parties should also be refusing to let slip from public attention.

This column is about the tragic failure of the Canadian Press and Media. (The failure of the rest is implicit.) One gigantic case shows the truth.  Two others, dealt with here, back up the argument.

The Gigantic Case.  Representing three plaintiffs, Rocco Galati, constitutional lawyer of growing renown, is calling upon the Bank of Canada [in the Federal Court of Canada] to return to one of its major roles in Canadian life, to end its alienation from the needs of the Canadian people. The plaintiffs call upon the Bank of Canada to take up again the role it must fulfill in the provision of credit to governments of Canada at almost no interest/or no interest at all, instead of its present increasingly indebting practice of forcing governments of Canada to lend at exorbitant rates from private banks in Canada and abroad.

pacificfreepress.com/news – reporting the case, provides information that suggests actors in the whole highly questionable drama may be acting criminally – one reason the RCMP, CSIS, investigative reporters, and experts in the Opposition Parties should be publicly, visibly, loudly active in the matter.

pacificfreepress records “The plaintiffs state that the defendants (officials) are unwittingly and/or wittingly, in varying degrees, knowledge and intent engaged in a conspiracy, along with the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Financial Stability Forum (FSF), International Monetary Fund (IMF) to render impotent the Bank of Canada Act as well as Canadian sovereignty over financial, monetary, and socio-economic policy, and bypass the sovereign role of Canada through its parliament by means of the banking and financial systems.” 



Canadians are so used to criminal corruption in the conduct of their governments and administrative bodies (corruption covered over, whitewashed) they may not see the possibility in this case for (additional) actions involving criminal fraud and criminal breach of trust at the highest levels. (Note the word “conspiracy” in the quoted text above.)

 Resistance to the case by legal technicality, manipulation, appeals, etc. is becoming increasingly visible.  That means, in short, that the Conservative Cabinet/Bank of Canada are doing what they can to block, frustrate, high-jack, and otherwise prevent a reasonable and legitimate case in law from going forward. (That, in itself, risks being named as in Contempt of Court.)

Okay”, you say.  “But there’s nothing new here”.  Except there is.  Something very large.

Rocco Galati, lawyer on the case, has made very clear to interviewers that “sources” have indicated to him that the present Conservative government interferes in such matters ordering press and media not to cover, or to cover in a certain way acceptable to ‘power in place’: corporations, major financial interests, and their servants in the present governments of Canada.

This is the first time, in my experience, that a major lawyer in a major (public) case in Canada has made unmistakably clear that he believes a government in Canada is giving orders to the press and media to ignore major news – orders they are apparently following right across the country.  As I say, the implications of the case may include criminal wrong-doing … and the government of the day is, it is alleged, trying to destroy the case (a) by interminable legal manipulations and (b) by strangling Canadian press and media.

Mr. Galati held a press conference at the launch of the case (Dec. 2011) in the Federal Court of Canada.  NONE of the so-called mainstream press and media turned up for the event in Toronto. None. Asked if he thought the failure of those people to appear was suspicious, Mr. Galati allowed that he thought it was.  Since then the press and media of Canada has continued (under whose orders??) to ignore and thus attempt to black out the huge and important case before the Federal Court of Canada. 

Jurispudence tells Canadians that The Rule of Law in Canada is not merely a matter of fair legal and judicial conduct.  It is also a matter of the public’s right to know – unimpeded - all that takes place in its interest in the courts of the nation. No one, no force may impede that right to know.

The present Conservative government of Canada led by Stephen Harper – since at least the criminal action of the “in-and-out” Election Scandal of 2006 – seems intentionally to live in the criminal shadows, to purposefully criminalize procedures that have been, until now, by convention, honourably conducted as a matter of trust. 

Since the implications of the Federal Court case point to possible later action for criminal fraud, criminal breach of trust, conspiracy to defraud, etcetera, the members of the present cabinet are placing themselves in peril as accessories to major criminal action – as well as violating the Canadian Constitution in the alleged imposition of a national black out of the case being conducted in the interests of the Canadian people.

Those who say the Canadian government is not in any way involved in the black out of the Federal Court case will have to explain the unanimous, unbroken, complete absence of reporting by the press and media of Canada.

The second example of Canadian government manipulation and erasure of information – and the cooperation of the Canadian press and media – is also enormous in its implications for the development of criminal government in Canada.  It is treated in the press, however, as a parlor joke.

It involves Nigel S. Wright, Chief of Staff (head of the PMO) for Stephen Harper from September 2010 to May 2013.  Nigel Wright was early an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, reactionary British prime minister.  He was very early connected to Stephen Harper, working for his leadership of Right forces in Canada.  He was founding director, working with leading Conservatives, in the fund raising organization for the Conservative Party of Canada: “Conservative Fund Canada”. His appointment to the PMO was of a long-time, faithful Harper Conservative, dedicated to the success of the Party.

Nigel Wright – as almost every Canadian knows – presented a cheque to Senator Mike Duffy for $90,172.00 to cover “improperly claimed residency expenses” [Wikipedia].  In the dispute that followed from that payment, Wright resigned as Chief of Staff in May, 2013.  On October 28, 2013, more than five months later, Stephen Harper denied that Wright had resigned, saying he was dismissed.

The payment of $90,172.00 by Nigel S. Wright to Mike Duffy– according to charges presently standing against Mike Duffy – constitute in the case of Mike Duffy – the acceptance of a bribe.

But they do not – according to presently standing charges – constitute, in the case of Nigel S. Wright, the person who wrote the cheque and gave it to Duffy – the offer of and/or payment of a bribe.

How the RCMP and Prosecutorial actors could omit Nigel S. Wright from the bribery charges is … almost unbelievable.  The consenting press and media mumbled something about the possibility of Nigel S. Wright having received an okay to pay the amount from, it would seem, the prime minister.  That fact does not – in any way – negate the offering and/or payment of a bribe … if – as the allegations hold – the cheque was accepted as a bribe by Mr. Duffy.

There is no doubt in my mind that Nigel S. Wright should have been charged with offering to pay and/or paying a bribe.  In court – if his testimony pointed to the prime minister agreeing to/or suggesting the payment – then the prime minister would have to be charged – at least – as an accessory in the offer to pay and/or the payment of a bribe.  NOTHING erases Nigel S. Wright’s role in Mike Duffy’s alleged acceptance of a bribe! The prime minister might – if evidence made the matter clear in that direction – be charged as a briber himself rather than merely an accessory to the crime.

This is an enormous matter. 

It is such an enormous matter in the parliamentary, the legal, the constitutional, the policing, and the information processes of Canada that it should have been and should presently be subjected to unrelieved attention by Law Societies, press and media, civil liberties associations, Opposition Parties, and organizations of ordinary Canadians. Instead, the press and media of Canada – as I have observed – erased the matter as quickly as it could from the attention of Canadians. And the others are, apparently, trying to forget it.

That the RCMP did not recommend charges against Nigel S. Wright, I allege, means it is complicit in criminal wrong-doing in Canada.  But its life in the criminal shadows has a long history – as I will allege in the last example of the failure of the press and media in Canada.

The last example of criminal corruption protected is from B.C. I will tell the story briefly, keeping the most outrageous information until the end.

From about 2001 onwards investigation by RCMP and others was undertaken into the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR (now headquartered in Texas).

It may be that among original investigating forces were honest parties who insisted that wrong-doing go to trial. Otherwise, every reason existed to bury the corrupt transfer of the railway because so many politicians and corporate actors were involved.

In 2003 a Special Crown Prosecutor was appointed.  He worked with RCMP and others to bring a case to court. Pretrial actions began about 2007, trial ended in 2010. Charged with various crimes were three Sikh, lower-order actors in the whole matter – men, I allege, who were mostly peripherally involved in the huge, carefully constructed, billion dollar fraud.

The trial ended in 2010 when someone in the Liberal government of Gordon Campbell agreed to pay all the legal expenses of the accused – six million dollars – AND to decimate the charges against them to the point of absurdity so that the  trial would be cut off abruptly  - just as cross-examination of (some very very very sensitive) crown witnesses was getting underway.

No one in the Gordon Campbell government was ever revealed as the person permitting the six million dollars of taxpayers’ money to be paid – though the Auditor General of B.C. spent a few years (and at least one court case) trying to get the information for the people of British Columbia.

Any average Canadian might suggest the possibility that the accused men were bribed to close up the trial before it exploded in the faces of Gordon Campbell and his corporate allies.  One of the most important aspects of the case is that Stephen Harper lifted Gordon Campbell out, just at the end of the ugly, seamy stew, and made him Canadian High Commissioner in London – a top Canadian diplomatic appointment.

That is not the most outrageous information.

The most outrageous information is that the whole  investigation after 2003, and the multi-million dollar pre-trial and trial were all invalid.  The Special Crown Prosecutor appointed in 2003 was appointed in flagrant violation of the British Columbia legislation governing the appointment of Special Crown Prosecutors.

That means that his every activity from 2003 until 2010 was at the very best null and void, meaningless.  At the worst, his activities (uninvestigated) may have been undertaken for reasons that do not support the fair administration of justice in Canada. 

The legislation governing the appointment of Special Crown Prosecutors intends and states that the candidate must be free of conflict of interest and even of the possible appearance of conflict of interest.  In that regard the candidate must have no connection to cabinet ministers, MLAs, civil servants, police, etc. etc.  He or she must be clean of conflict of interest and even  the appearance of conflict of interest.  He or she must take on the case free of even the suggestion of any connection to persons related to the case.

William Berardino, the Special Crown Prosecutor named, was, in 2003, not many years away from having been for seven years a partner and colleague of the Attorney General of B.C., from whose office Berardino was named Special Crown Prosecutor.  He had been, in 2003, even fewer years away from having been for eleven years partner and colleague of the presiding Deputy Attorney General of B.C.  

It goes without saying that the BC Rail Scandal case was closely connected to some active politicians and civil servants of the Gordon Campbell government, and to Gordon Campbell himself, all involved in the alleged corrupt preparation and transfer of BC Rail to the CNR.  When William Berardino was appointed Special Crown Prosecutor, Gordon Campbell was premier of B.C. 

The RCMP refused to investigate what I believe was a large and wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud British Columbians, involving politicians, civil servants, and corporate actors.  The RCMP worked side by side with the invalid Special Crown Prosecutor for years in the preparation of the (trivial) case that went to court.  The RCMP never, apparently, checked the qualifications of the Special Crown Prosecutor against the legislation governing his appointment.

When I presented the information to the public (on websites and blogs) of the improper appointment of the Special Crown Prosecutor, the press and media would not touch it. I confronted the major BC Rail Scandal trial reporter for The Vancouver Sun with his failure to report … and he fled.  A journalist writing on the trial for The Tyee electronic news source wrote to a questioner that I was mistaken in my information (an outright falsehood).  The Tyee would never touch the story.

I wrote to the Chief Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court, The Associate Chief Justice, and the judge on the case informing them fully of the illegitimate appointment and, therefore, the illegitimate presence of the Special Crown Prosecutor in the Supreme Court action.  The court officer replying for the top judges of the BC Supreme Court wrote that since they had no hand in the appointment of the Special Crown Prosecutor, they would do nothing. In answer to my second letter to them on the matter they refused all comment.

AT NO TIME DID THEY ASSERT THAT THE INFORMATION I GAVE THEM WAS INCORRECT.

When the trial began (after long pretrial processes), the court – using a volunteer committee of press and media journalists (plainly in conflict of interest) – denied me the rights of a journalist in the trial.  I could not, for instance, examine any materials placed on ‘public record’.  Other repressions were also invoked to make it very hard for me to report the truth to Canadians.  The court knew almost all of the press and media people who came to the court would not report the truth to the public.  They did not have to be restrained as I was restrained.

No doubt, Canadians are faced with a press and media that are sad, sell-out, and sychophantic.  Journalists and their employers in Canada betray democracy and the Canadian people every day – with smiles on their faces and huge self-confidence … even enthusiasm.  But they are only the tip of the iceberg, underneath which is a corrupt RCMP, corrupt provincial courts, corrupt government officials, corrupt elected representatives in all parties, and an ever-expanding corrupt private corporate sector. The press and media are highlighted here because if they would do their job, they would launch the beginning of the clean-up that is desperately necessary.  And they might … they just might save Canada from the fascist future it is walking into led by public forces determined to destroy democracy and the rule of law.

(To readers.  If you like this column, send it on to friends, politicians, news outlets – any destination that might reproduce it and distribute it in Canada or abroad. The rule of law and democracy are being shattered in Canada: tell the world.)


________________

More on BC Rail Theft (Grant G)







The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open 


















4 comments:

Anonymous said...

canadaland

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/19/telegraph-250m-loan-hsbc-editorial-changes-yodel

Hugh said...

Oh, great:

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Lavalin+insists+criminal+charges+affect+projects/10830913/story.html

Grant G said...

BC Liberals sure seem to have a knack of dealing with individual(woodfibre LNG) and corporations shrouded in either corruption or bribery charges..

You don`t think that SNC Lavalin paid off certain BC Liberal government officials, even elected officials do you?

I do..

Cheers

Hugh said...

I wonder what the former BC Auditor General thinks of his time auditing the government in our lovely province:

BC Rail.
Stadium roof.
BC Ferries.
BC Hydro.
Carbon offsets.
Did I miss anything?
Good grief.