The report Krog and Bond were referring to was just about future indemnity on legal costs

Are you old enough to remember the story of the little engine that could --- or have you seen the Walt Disney movie "Dumbo", where the work train is taking circus animals to the next town?   

Up the hill it goes saying … "I think I can … I think I can”.  Once to the top, it then heads down saying "I thought I could … I thought I could …”

I bring this up because the whole BC Rail and Basi / Virk Trial is rearing its ugly head again … and at the end of the day this may be a mantra that goes round and round in Christy Clarks head ... albeit with slightly different words.

I think I can … I think I can … keep the whole Basi / Virk mess hidden

I thought I could … I thought I could … keep the whole Basi / Virk mess hidden

How far back does this whole thing go?  Years … and years … AND YEARS. 

Then NDP leader Carole James was asking questions back in 2005, “A deal that was shrouded in secrecy, a deal that is now wrapped up in a criminal investigation involving top B.C. Liberal appointees, and a key public asset to the people of the north and the people of B.C. is lost…We have been denied the information we need to determine if we received full value for our railway. It is very clear that a full public inquiry is needed to get those answers.”

And here’s what NDP MLA Leonard Krog had to say back in September 2010 … “It’s my belief that all these delays have probably saved the Liberals’ bacon in two elections, at least.”

While not the ultimate or entirely factual source of information, Wikipedia does generally have a good overview of things, which provides the opportunity for more digging. 

Here’s a portion of what it has on the BC Legislature Raids; executed because of the sale of BC Rail and suspected corruption:
The BC Legislature Raids resulted from search warrants executed on the Legislature of British Columbia, Canada, in 2003. The legal proceedings were stopped just before government officials were to testify. The BC Legislature Raids has become a collective term for the associated corruption proceedings and ensuant controversies … Defendants Dave Basi and Bob Virk agreed to change their plea to guilty on a reduced number of charges, after the taxpayer agreed to pay all their legal bills.

Type “Basi, Virk, BC Rail” into a Google search engine and thousands upon thousands of stories, editorial, blogs will come up in seconds --- all of them filled with facts and conjecture … suspicions and conspiracies.  The following information comments however leave little room to wonder:

    CKNW Radio (December 13^th, 2010 

• Bill Good: "A lot of people think you have baggage when it comes to BC Rail. Your ex-husband Mark Marissen, your brother, have ties to BC Rail, it was alleged that you shared information with lobbyist Erik Bornmann. How do you deal with that?" 
• Christy Clark: "Well, I mean, you know, those were allegations that were completely and totally false. I don't think I need to deal with that. I was never involved in it."

And as a candidate to become leader of the BC Liberal party, here is what Christy Clark had to say, that same month, regarding the raid by RCMP on the BC Legislature ... "The government has decided they're not going to call a public inquiry into it. As far as I'm concerned, it's case closed."

And a few days later Bill Tieleman made this comment; "... Clark has the most reasons to desperately want to avoid an independent inquiry that would ask embarrassing questions about the role she and her top leadership campaign team backers played in the BC Rail privatization in 2003, when Clark was deputy premier.” 

Oh let's quote Christy Clark once more, at the time however she was still an open line talk show host on CKNW radio:

"Why did they offer the plea deal now? … Did Mike de Jong (the former Attorney General) sign off on the final agreement? … There are a whole number of ways the government could have gotten back some money from the accused … Let's start building our list of questions that we would like to put to the government — if they ever decide to come out of hiding and answer them."

She talked pretty big back then, but as Michael Smyth said just days ago in his column in the Province Newspaper …

“Auditor-General John Doyle is rooting through the government's laundry hamper. He has launched his own review of the plea bargain (Basi - Virk / BC Rail), but had to go to court to force the Clark government to release secret documents about the $6-million deal. By the end of this year Doyle will hopefully answer the questions Clark was so keen to ask back then, but seems so reluctant to answer now.” 

Just to be clear --- there are actually two thing currently happening, with one of them being a look at FUTURE options for the government in cases of paying, and recovering, the legal fees of public servants convicted of criminal charges.

In a story from the CBC, last week, they quoted Attorney General Shirley Bond saying that government would take immediate action to adopt all of the recommendations in the report. 

"We'll take immediate action to change the current policy to reflect all of these recommendations, since it's essential we have a consistent and fair approach that protects public servants and the interests of taxpayers".

But quoting NDP MLA Leonard Krog again; ‘… the report still doesn't clearly answer why the government decided to pay that the $6 million dollar legal bill, and called on the premier to get to the bottom of the controversy.’

Don’t forget however, that report which Krog and Bond were referring to was just about future indemnity on legal costs.  Still ongoing is the latest chapter in this never ending BC Rail and Basi / Virk saga … and news that BC’s Auditor General had to exercise a freedom of information request to get information from the government.

Meantime, an audit of the Basi / Virk legal bills continues with much in the way of roadblocks being through up by the government, as a story in the Province shows.

Audit of $6-million Basi-Virk legal bill expected by year’s end

An audit of the B.C. government’s $6-million legal bill for Dave Basi and Bobby Virk should be finished before the end of the year, says Auditor General John Doyle.  “We are in the process still of getting information from the attorney general’s office,” Doyle said Thursday.

Doyle took the government to court in June to win access to records relating to the defense costs in the B.C. Rail political-corruption trial.  “It’s an interesting experience,” he said of continuing to gather those records three months later.

“We’ll report what we find ... because it’s in the public interest, I believe, that information comes out. We’re looking at indemnities and how they work, and the obvious one was Basi-Virk, but the focus of the audit we’re doing is on indemnities.”

John Cummins and BC Conservatives have said, “Those are taxpayer dollars and that money needs to be accounted for! The Basi-Virk trial ended with the defendants pleading guilty after the Province agreed to pay their legal costs, and tens of thousands of British Columbia have smelled a foul odour emanating from the entire process. They want answers.”

It is long past time for this government, and it’s minister, to come clean on BC Rail … and on WHY the government paid the legal costs for Basi and Virk. 

It’s time to let the Auditor General do his job --- without having to go to the extremes of making a Freedom of Information Request!

I’m Alan Forseth in Kamloops … with the thoughts of one conservative.