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Legislature raids, five years later: A dismal failure

Times Colonist
Published: Sunday, December 28, 2008

Today marks a sorry, sordid anniversary. It is five years since police searched the legislature offices of two political aides to provincial cabinet ministers.

The investigation, an RCMP spokesman said then, was linked to drugs and organized crime. Criminal activities had become "a cancer on the social and economic well-being of all British Columbians." They had reached "epidemic proportions" and were "touching every region and every major street corner."

The implication was that organized crime had gained a foothold in the legislature building. The police and government provided no real information about the investigation. Dave Basi, ministerial aide to then finance minister Gary Collins, was fired. Bobby Virk, aide to then transportation minister Judith Reid, was suspended.

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Premier Gordon Campbell would not explain the reasons for the different treatment when he returned, more than a week later, from vacation.

In an editorial six days after the search, we said that while a criminal investigation could require the withholding of some details, the silence should not continue.

"There is a cloud over the political life of our province, and it must be dispelled sooner rather than later," we wrote on Jan. 3, 2004. "We all know that police investigations take time, and that the legal system's first responsibility is to ensure justice for all. But are British Columbians expected simply to wait for weeks or months until the police and politicians choose to tell us more?"

Five years later -- almost seven years after police launched the original investigation -- there are still too few answers. The trial of Virk, Basi and Aneal Basi, a government communications staffer who was also charged, has yet to begin.

The public has learned, through court proceedings and search warrant forms, some of the RCMP's suspicions. Police believed that lobbyist Erik Bornman paid Dave Basi about $24,000 over the course of a year for information, documents and steering clients to his firm, Pilothouse Public Affairs. Bornman's business partner, Brian Kieran, allegedly picked up the costs of a trip to Denver for Basi and Virk.

It was revealed that the payments allegedly involved the government's controversial plan to sell B.C. Rail, a $1-billion deal. Kieran and Bornman were lobbyists for OmniTRAX, a Denver-based unsuccessful bidder for the rail line. Neither has been charged with paying or offering bribes; both are expected to be prosecution witnesses.

And, despite Campbell's initial claim the government had not been compromised, the public learned that the sale of a B.C. Rail subsidiary was cancelled because of fears the bidding process had been compromised.

The cancellation cost taxpayers more than $1 million already spent on the process.

But almost of all the questions that were raised in the days after the search remain unanswered. There has been evidence of police surveillance of Collins, allegation of political dirty tricks by Liberal operatives and suggestions Basi and Virk always acting based on their instructions from above. But no real facts or answers.

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