Monday, June 16, 2008

RailGate - The Early Years

AllTheYoungDudes
BeforeTheNewsVille



On Saturday, in the pages of the Globe and (nolongerEmpire) Mail, Gary Mason wrote this:

"An individual has apparently come forward with information about the Crown's star witness, Erik Bornmann. He wants his identity protected. I've been told that the information he has is related to $30,000 that went missing from the coffers of the Young Liberals of B.C. in 1997. Mr. Bornmann was president of the organization at the time......


Which sent us scrambling, a la Sean Holman, through the google-cache looking for connections from those fateful days of 1997.

And, surprise(!), we "discovered"* the following, written by Richard Warnica in The Tyee back in 2005:

"(Sean) Holman always aimed himself single-mindedly towards politics. Before leaving for Carleton (in 1999) he was a member of the University of Victoria's federal Young Liberals. The group he called "the liberal mafia" included senior political aide David Basi, who is linked to the BC Rail scandal, lobbyist Erik Bornman, who is expected to be a witness in the case, and Jamie Elmhirst, the current president of the Federal Liberal Party in B.C...."


As such, I wrote a post about this "discovery"* and wondered out loud if, perhaps, Mr. Holman might have some background/inside info/a gigantic scoop etcetera, etcetera regarding those halcyon days when so many of the young dudes who are now RailGate principals got their first real hits of, as Mr. Holman described it in the Warnica article, "pure politics".

So......

In case you were wondering, it turns out that Mr. Holman is NOT entering the witness protection program anytime soon.

How do we know this?

Because he told us so:

You're absolutely right. Back in my Young Liberal days, I did personally know many of the major players in the legislative raid case - including Erik Bornman. In fact, my first ever drink of hard alcohol was shared with Erik in the basement of my parent's home. But that's an aside. I can also confirm that I am not the secret witness......





Which is fair enough, I suppose, as far as it goes.

But drinking with Mr. Bornman (back when there was only one 'n')?

In his parent's basement?

Gosh.

We can only wonder the following.....


Was there any movement of ceiling tiles involved in getting to that liquor cabinet?




____
*Actually, it was really a 're-discovery'. I'd remembered the Warnica piece because it was good and because it was based on an interview that Mr. Holman gave after he quit the Vancouver Sun while he was on the top of his game. Funny thing is.....there was drinking involved in that encounter also. Which I'm sure was just a coincidence (of course).


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