TakeOutTheTrashDay
RailGateStillRustingVille
The Campbell-Clark government released the Toope report today, right before everyone took off for the Remembrance Day long weekend.
And it most definitely does NOT deal with the Basi-Virk double-down in any detail.
How do we know this?
Because it is stated, up front, by the author himself, on page 2:
“…I was well aware in conducting this review that the concern to reconsider the indemnity policy was prompted in some considerable measure by public interest in the indemnities granted to Messrs. Basi and Virk in criminal proceedings against them. However, my mandate did not focus on those cases alone. Although I consider them, I do so only in the context of fifteen or so years of practice involving many other cases…..”
****
Now.
When Dr. Toope was asked to conduct his review back in the late spring of this year, it was designed, in my opinion, to mollify an angry electorate given that the $6 million that was paid out to Mess’rs Basi and Virk abruptly ended the trial that soon would have seen all kinds of Campbell-Clark government functionaries and associates take the stand to answer questions, under oath, with no Sub-Judice Priests to protect them….
So.
Who was it, exactly, that commissioned this review that did not review the thing that the public most wanted reviewed?
Well, conventional wisdom has it that it was then (but now no longer) Attorney General Barry Penner.
But…
I seem to recall another possibility.
One that was raised by Les Leyne in a little smidgeon of a ‘Day-In-The-Life’ story in the VT-C from back in June that goes like this:
“….There’s also a hint the premier may have been involved in naming UBC’s Stephen Toope to review the $6-million Basi-Virk legal payout.
Attorney General Barry Penner told the legislature about it in May, but Clark met with Toope for an hour on April 15, when unspecified issues were discussed….”
Interesting that, especially given the fact that Ms. Clark is now nowhere to be found given that she is far, far away in China on this, the latest BC Government, ‘Take Out The Trash Day’.
OK?
.
