Monday, June 21, 2010

RailGate Whitewash....Hey Pundits - Read The Darned Document!

Summertime
AndTheDiggingIsEasyVille



Last week in the Railgate trial, Mr. Martin Brown was highly obfuscatory on the matter of the 'interim' Fairness Advisor's Report which was rushed to release just days before the big deal with CNRail went down way back in the fall of 2003, and then was by BC Liberal Party Lickspittles to wash away any and all 'taint' that was raised by non-CN Rail bidders that ran away scraming that the fix was in.

Here is an example of Mr. Brown's obfuscation for a compliant proMedia nation from Neal Hall in the VSun last Friday:

....(David Basi's lawyer Michael) Bolton also showed another Vaughn Palmer column, published Nov. 19, 2003, which detailed how The Vancouver Sun had received a copy of a letter from CP Rail to the premier's office, complaining about a lack of fairness in the bidding process and withdrawing its bid.

In response, the government released a "fairness report" from consultant Charles River Associates, which concluded the bidding process was "fair and impartial."

Bolton suggested to Brown that the fairness report authors did not contact CP Rail or another bidder, OmniTrax, and instead wrote a "phony report" to justify CN as the winning bidder.

"I don't accept that," Brown said. "I don't believe that for a second. It reflects the highest level of integrity."....


Interesting that, don't you think?

Mr. Brown just did not accept Mr. Bolton's, and this is Mr. Neal Hall's of the VSun's word, 'suggestion' that the Fairness Report's authors did not contact CP Rail or other bidders that complained about the fix being in.

Well, given all that....

Here is a very specific question for Mr. Hall, and/or his Editors, and/or others at the VSun staff who may or may not be following up on Mr. Hall's stuff:

Have they even looked at that 'interim' Fairness Report that was rushed to release in Nov of 2003?

And if they have, indeed, looked at that report, have they read the following very, very explicit passage that does not 'suggest' anything:

"Note: At the time at which this report was submitted, the transaction process was not yet complete. Thus, our observations and findings are based only on the steps that have occurred to date. Also, we have not interviewed the three finalist proponents so their comments and views are not represented in this document."


Look.

Pre-trial publication bans are one thing.

But that Fairness Report' has been used to wave away the 'fix was in' allegation repeatedly by Mr. Brown during his cross-examination by the defense in the real trial, with the jury present.

Thus, there is absolutely no excuse for this "he said/she said" crap from the proMedia without follow-up when the source material is right there for them to peruse so that they can state, unequivocally, based on the documentary evidence, that what Mr. Brown said when he responded to Mr. Bolton's "suggestion" was flat-out wrong.

And if Mr. Brown can be so flat-out wrong about such a fundamental aspect of this case, why should we, the public, and/or the jury, believe that he can be right about anything at all?

OK?

_____
For the record, I and others in the 'cult' first wrote about the 'interim' Fairness Advisor's report way back in 2007, as described here......



.

9 comments:

Kim said...

Of course, comments have been disabled. What a sham.

North Van's Grumps said...

http://www.bcndpcaucus.ca/files/09FOI/Key_documents/kdcharlesriver.pdf is a link to a letter sent to the Highways Minister regarding the report done by Charles River Associates, its not the fairness report.

For all the huff and bluff that has been offered to BC citizens thus far in the trial, perhaps if the first witness had taken the time to write out his achievements in what has been accomplished while he was participating in the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail, he would at least come across as being a more credible witness.

For example we keep referring to CRA as though we know of whom we speak.

We know that Martyn Brown is the Chief of Staff for the BC Liberal government, but do we know what part Larry Shughart (aka Larry Shugart) played in the sale of BC Rail?

Mr. Shughart's name is in the firt link along with others who were sending/receiving the correspondence regarding the report.

Bio for Larry Shughart http://www.glgroup.com/Council-Member/Larry-Shughart-74827.html

If you do a search using the words:

Larry Shughart BC Rail bio you get this result

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bio+larry+shughart+bc+rail&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

The first of two items is:

Larry Shughart is the Vice President of Business Development at Innovative Scheduling. He ... and privatization of BC Rail 。 Strategic advisor to the ...
www.innovativescheduling.com/publications/ISemployeeResumes.pdf

Second item is:

[PDF]
BNSF
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
early as the first half of October, with information from BC Rail .... Co: Shughart, Larry; Monro, Ian; Foster, Harry; Miller, Brad; Matauda, Aramon ...
www.bcndpcaucus.ca/files/09FOI/Key_documents/kdcharlesriver.pdf

Which takes you right back to the first link at the top of this page.

At the bottom of the google search, way down below the first two items is this:

10. [PDF]
L. Shughart, A. Matsuda, and M. Hasan. October, 2004. Determinants ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
17 Charles River Associates (incl. Larry Shughart, Rob Finley, Kevin Immonje, and Ammon Matsuda), “Fairness. Evaluation of the Restructuring of the BC Rail ...
https://transportation.northwestern.edu/docs/.../shughartMatsudaPaper.pdf

and this where it gets interesting.

If you type in the Find component of the document BC RAIL, up pops a paragraph that contains this:

"the importance of a selling railroad’s financial health, as
measured by operating ratio in the year prior to a transaction"



For 22 years BC Rail ran a profit and for the first time the BC Liberals get their hands on BC Rail they say it ran a deficit.

Question is, did they do it so they could fit within CRA criteria or did CRC do it because .......

North Van's Grumps said...

And as Martyn Brown is the Chief of Staff, Mr. Shughart is the Lead Advisor to the Provincial Government in the sale of BC Rail on behalf of CRA.

Here's the link, and don't make a typing mistake, just copy and paste into your browser. And do a search for "BC Rail" or look to Mr. Shughart's bio on page 29.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ezRanp685dwJ:citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.122.7865%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf+Howard+Rosen+Canac+%22BC+Rail%22&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi9pxppBYixls9UVzME3Wb6Ex3ZIJbBfpAQZ5xXkkY2Zly8SQe7ULtYR5gng3sr5Xivp38UBv5K1SgYNzxdctVcbj2M8OVKek3XVivMdLJLjS1S6D7kQ6IBqoVscQ-CdCxblN5Q&sig=AHIEtbSvsHKwAbhCzXECk6u70xySl1fCwA

Mr. Shughart takes pride in his achievements, I only wish others would follow his example.

Ian said...

RossK, Good, good catch. And this reminds me; there is an exchange between - I think - Yvette Wells and others on the Review Committee about the CRA report and the 'editing process', one of the allegations - and by that I mean facts - Bolton referred to.

Anonymous said...

The BC Liberals were barely elected, with a landslide majority, but by November of 2001 they had hired Canac Inc., a David McLean owned subsidiary of CN Rail to do this Study:

"HIGHER SPEED PASSENGER RAIL VANCOUVER TO WHISTLER"

http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/publications/reports_and_studies/Sea-to-Sky_Reports/High-Speed_Passenger_Rail.pdf


On page 13 of this document it states:

"It should be noted that on BC Rail, government regulations prescribe that locomotive drawn passenger equipment be restricted to freight speed. However, for the purposes of establishing future operating speeds, in recognition of operating practices elsewhere in North America, simulation speeds were set based on equipment capabilities and not constrained by current imposed limitations."

I seem to remember your pointing out a change in Legislation in a Misc. column which ended up benefiting .... CN Rail

Has Rocky Mountianeer been given an exemption on the Freight speeds when they're hauling passengers on the sea to sky corridor?

RossK said...

Oh, my.....

Leads aplenty.


Thanks all!

_______

(Ian...could someone find that exchange anywhere else besides the currently verbotten diaries?)

.

deeby said...

A bit OT, but Douglas Todd has blogged about Campbell's 'storm' this morning.

He's taking comments.....

RossK said...

Thanks deeby--

And a heckuva comment you left over there by the way.....

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Skookum1 said...

One thing about CRA - they've washed their hands of the report, saying that those who wrote it are no longer with their firm. Talk about corporate accountability, or lack thereof.....