Spotlight on the Pickton Inquiry

As the missing women inquiry draws to a fiery conclusion, every day we read new testimony about how the Hells Angels were tied to the Pickton farm. In fact that is the reason the public inquiry was shut down and transformed into a panel discussion instead of an inquiry.

David Cameron was the champion of justice and Wally Oppal was the snake in the grass scoundrel that censored the inquiry. We had expected that from him. He was likely the worst possible choice to head the inquiry. He fell before Gordon Campbell did because people were upset with what a lousy job he did as AG. Now he’s a giggling Austin Powers as he promotes his new acting career whilst committing welfare fraud at the missing women’s expense.

Most recently we read of three developments. A former sex trade worker recently testified at the inquiry that Pickton had invited her to a biker party on the farm. She said he referred to it as a biker party. We knew Hells Angels attended parties at Piggy’s palace. Pickton referring to it as a biker party would imply they were in charge. We found out that the Hells Angels had a grow op and ran an illegal booze can on site.

Last month the Vancouver Observer reported on a retired nurse named Bonnie Fournier who worked in the Downtown Eastside since 1968 but hasn't been allowed to testify at the Missing Women Inquiry. She had workered with numerous sex trade workers in the DTES for years. Late one night in 2000 she said she saw a black shape being dragged out the passenger side of a large vehicle on Cordova Street which turned out to be a person. If the truck Fournier saw was his, it meant Pickton had an accomplice. She asked the woman if it was him. “I can't say, because I'd be dead,” she told Fournier. “They'll kill me.” They implies more than one person. Wally opal has not allowed her to testify at the inquiry. He should be charged with obstruction of justice.

What’s even more disturbing is the testimony of another witness Bonnie Fournier was working with. “Sharon” said she was in Surrey, shoplifting at a mall -- she supported her drug addiction by stealing, not prostitution, Fournier said -- when two women who knew her from the Downtown Eastside approached and invited her to a party, “with free booze and drugs.” The women went to a “well-known Hells Angels spot” located on the King George Highway, just before it enters Surrey: a rental house they called the “House of Pain.” (We know it as the Surrey House of Horrors. that would have been on 108 Ave just off king George around the corner from Gus' shop)

“They went there, and then were moved by station wagon or van – 'We're going to a party with good music,'” Fournier was told. “They were taken to the (Pickton) farm from this house in Surrey. “After they got to the farm, Sharon said everyone was into the drugs – lots of drugs. When they pulled in there, she got a gut feeling that this was scary. . . she got a gut feeling and bolted from the car and ran to Lougheed Highway. She was picked up by a bus on Lougheed and given a ride in to Vancouver by a sympathetic driver.”

We know Yvonne Marie Boen's DNA was found at the Surrey house of horrors as well as on Pickton's Pig Farm. To hear new testimony of a van taking people from the House of Horrors in Surrey to a Hells Angels party at the Pickton farm is disturbing indeed.

The third new piece of information recently reported in the media is the fact that the police had the Hells angels on the Pickton farm under surveillance and they didn’t want to mention that over optics. They didn't want to be accused of bungling their job.

Bungling their job? That’s an interesting choice of words. Aside from meaning legal liability, it also implies leaking out information about a police operation that went bad. It sure sounds a lot like Operation Phoenix to me. I wonder if that is the operation they are talking about. Gary Bass, the former RCMP deputy commissioner in B.C., agreed during testimony Wednesday that several police operations were targeting the motorcycle gang in the Lower Mainland during that time.

Cameron Ward, the lawyer for two dozen family members of the murdered and missing women, suggested the women were taken to parties at Piggy’s Palace, given drugs and later killed on the Pickton farm. “The RCMP’s organized crime agency was simultaneously conducting intelligence operations on the Hells Angels members and the associates who were frequenting the area. Does that sound accurate?” Ward asked.

“I’ve never seen any reports or had any briefings that indicated something like that was happening,” Bass replied. But the records created by the many RCMP agencies investigating the gang haven’t been made available, Ward said. In fact, not only has important evidence been deemed inadmissible, numerous exhibits on the Inquiry’s web site are censored and deemed restricted. That is not a public inquiry.

This is where Wally Oppal committed treason and became an accomplice to murder. He stopped Cameron Ward from asking questions about the Hells Angels presence at the Pickton farm. He denied disclosure of police documents concerning their surveillance of the Hells Angels on the Pickton farm. Oppal said there was no connection between David Pickton, the Hells Angels and Piggy’s Palace and the mandate of the inquiry. That is absurd.

There is no connection between Dave Pickton, the Hells Angels and Piggy Palace with his red hearing mandate but there most certainly is within the real mandate of the inquiry. May I remind the court that the real name of this public inquiry is the Missing Women Inquiry. It is an inquiry about why so many women went missing and how we can prevent that from happening again.

Robert Pickton was convicted of murder on the premise that he may not have been the only person involved in the murders. In fact the judge’s instructions to the jury went so far as to say they could convict Robert Pickton even if he wasn’t the prime suspect, as long as he was an active participant. When new evidence comes forward about possible accessories in the murders and Wally Oppal buries that evidence then he becomes an accessory to murder.

Lynn Canyon

Checked out Lynn Canyon today. I was born in North Vancouver and raised in Surrey / Langley. We used to live at the base of Fromme mountain close to Lynn Canyon park and suspension bridge. My father would take me there when I was very young. He was an avid photographer. A lot of young people have died in the park. Many under the influence of alcohol. Most being swept away in the deceptive current. This time of year the water is high and fast from the melting snow which makes it more dangerous.

Towards the end of summer is safer but even then you see people doing crazy things and you’re got to wonder where their brain is at. Some places are safe, others are not. The 30 foot pool is safe. Yet many people would swim up to the small water fall just upstream and get stuck in the under tow. Sliding down the waterfall looks fun but as the notice on the park shows there are ridges of rock under the water where the under tow can pin you. One person got stuck in there and it took them five days to get the body out.

Nevertheless, if you stick to the trail and the 30 foot pool it’s a wonderful place to visit. Once and a while it’s nice to be like salmon and return to your roots. It’s nice to have roots to return to. I’ve always tried to give my kids roots and wings. Give them a stable place to call home and give them confidence to venture out and explore. The world has many nice places to visit. Something you can’t find in a crack pipe.

PROMIS software used to track medical records in BC

I can’t believe this. A friend from the States sent me this local story. He knows a fair bit about the PROMIS software because it was stolen from him. Turns out it’s now being used to track medical records here in BC.

The PROMIS software is a tracking program stolen by the CIA and modified by Michael Riconosciuto for them. They put a Trojan horse in it and sold it to Canada and other allies to help them keep track of their police records and intelligence files. The Trojan horse gave the CIA complete access to all of Canada’s police files as a result.

Since the software was so good in tracking things is was also used to help them launder drug money. Now they’re using it to keep track of medical records in BC. I can’t believe they didn’t even change the name of the software. You think if they were going to hack into all our medical records, they’d be a little more discreet about it.

Gas tax rakes in $1 billion in Metro Vancouver

Speaking of the outrageous price of gas, it's even higher in Metro Vancouver to help pay for Skytrain. Wouldn't it be cheaper to install turnstiles? The Surrey Leader is reporting Metro Vancouver drivers are now paying more than $1 billion a year in combined gas and carbon taxes, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The lobby group said the latest two-cent-per-litre increase in TransLink's fuel tax on April 1 and the next 1.1-cent bump in B.C.'s carbon tax on July 1 puts the region over that threshold. Drivers in Metro Vancouver now pay nearly 50 cents per litre in combined fuel taxes.

"This is highway robbery," said Jordan Bateman, the CTF's B.C. director. "Drivers are tired of seeing their hard-earned money evaporate into government’s coffers.” The federal and provincial governments and TransLink took in a total of $958 million from Metro drivers last year through taxes at the pumps, and the CTF calculated that will rise to $1.02 billion this year.

TransLink's portion will account for more than $350 million – the biggest chunk – while the federal government's 10-cent tax pulls in $208 million from Metro, provincial gas tax of 8.5 per is worth $177 million, the carbon tax of 6.67 cents as of July will be nearly $140 million and the five-per-cent federal HST generates another $145.6 million.

Let me get this straight. The NDP oppose consumer taxes like the gas tax and the HST. Harper claims the NDP will tax and spend indiscriminately. Yet that’s exactly what he’s doing at record levels. In all fairness, John Cummings opposes the gas tax and the HST as well. That’s because he’s a conservative and Stephen Harper is not.

The Red Patch

Another concern I have with the striking university students in Montreal is their red patch logo. Surely with such a longstanding history of the biker war in Quebec, everyone there knows what a red patch means in the biker community. If you don’t know, you’re gonna have to find out for yourself.

For the rest of us, the red patch or the red square represents Stalin’s death camps, red square in China and the wrong side of the Berlin wall. This is what I mean by mindless blind sheep. Every time there’s a protest, extremists from the Marxist Leninist party show up with a Communist flag. No one really pays them much attention but everyone has a right to their say. Yet we need to be clear what that flag is really saying.

There is no charter of rights within the Communist Manifesto. Everyone talks about how bad totalitarian states are. Indeed we should. Let’s take Poland for example. They were screwed first by Hitler’s Nazi’s then by Stalin’s Communists. You ask anyone from Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall and you ask them how they feel about that red patch. In East Berlin they had barbed wire and machine guns pointed inwards. So no one could escape.

Lenin wasn’t the leader of the workers revolution in Russia. Shiplov was. When the trade unions had a complaint and went on strike, Lenin sent in the machine guns with live ammunition. The families were too afraid to even collect their dead. That is not a free republic.

In Ireland the term republican has a very different meaning than it does in the US. In Ireland a republican is anyone who believes in a free republic as opposed to a dictatorship. James Connolly was a communist. Yet he supported a free republic where individual rights are protected. That is not what we saw in Russia, China or Eastern Europe.

Free education is a wonderful goal. Australia has it and I’d hardly call them a Communist dictatorship. Yet it’s a goal we have to work towards. Alberta is what people see as right wing. They don’t have sales tax and as a result business prospers. Since they are doing so well financially, the provincial government pays the premiums on everyone’s medical insurance. That is a great idea.

Yet there are some serious problems we need to fix first. Harpers bank bail out is one. The BC Hydro fraud is another. If we want free university education we have to talk about where the money is going to come from. Do we raise taxes? Do we close homeless shelters and old folks homes? Or do we nationalize crown corporations and use those profits to add to the tax revenue? That is my preference.

Yet nationalizing the oil industry in Canada will meet huge opposition from the wealthy oil companies who are consumed in their greed. In the mean time, I will not wear a red patch. To me that is no different than wearing a Nazi Swastika. It is offensive. It represents just another totalitarian society created by lies and false promises. From one extreme to the other.

Free university education is a worthy goal but it is not a right. Buyer Beware.



Motive for nude protests cloaked in mystery

The Mismanagement of BC Hydro

Michael Smyth hit the nail on the head in today’s column. He claims the BC Liberals are just postponing BC Hydro rate hikes until after the election. No doubt. At first is sounded like they were promising us BC Hydro rates would drop some time in the future. Yeah right. Now it seems they simply ordered BC Hydro to cut it’s proposed rate increases by half. So the increases are still here. There’s just not as big as they were going to be until after the election. Shysters.

Last year when BC Hydro proposed the 30-per-cent increases, the government ordered a review of the corporation. Sounds like cheap haggling to me. Isn’t that kind of like wanting a 10% increase, then getting BC Hydro to ask for a 30% increase only to have the government step in and save the day by cutting that in half and making it a 15% increase? It’s still a 15% increase. The Liberal government’s mismanagement has created a serious problem and we are being conned.

The union representing hydro workers said the government is hiding its own mismanagement at BC Hydro, while holding back rate increases until after next May's provincial election. I think that’s the key hear. Campbell Clark disastrous mismanagement of BC Hydro. Keeping p[art of BC Hydro public while privatizing the brokers that sell power to BC Hydro at an inflated price. That is the ultimate scam.

So here we have this massive artificially created debt that BC Hydro keeps hiding by deferring it which we will one day have to bail out. Then they spend a huge amount of money on flawed Smart Meters that over charge consumers as well as monitor them over a wireless network for thieves to intercept. Those flawed meters are a huge extra cost. Further debt and further expense to the taxpayer. They are doing this to create a manufactured emergency to rationalize privatizing BC Hydro completely like BC Rail. How about disband the privatize power brokers ripping off BC Hydro so it can return to a profit making dividend paying tax revenue creating entity. Imagine that.

We need to address this because upgrading to electric cars is important but we need the chargers in our homes and condos for charging over night.

The Hells Angels and the Surrey House of Horrors connected to the Pickton Farm

Last month the Vancouver Observer reported on a retired nurse named Bonnie Fournier who worked in the Downtown Eastside since 1968 but hasn't been allowed to testify at the Missing Women Inquiry. No wonder.

Fournier said she saw a black shape being dragged out the passenger side of a large vehicle on Cordova Street late one night in 2000 which turned out to be a person. If the truck Fournier saw was his, it meant Pickton had an accomplice. She asked the woman if it was him. “'I can't say, because I'd be dead,'” she told Fournier. “'They'll kill me.'”

They'll kill me. That implies more than one person. Willy may have been deranged but he certainly wasn't threatening. People wouldn't be afraid to testify against him. People would be afraid to testify against the bikers at the parties on his farm. In the CTV documentary the Pig Farm one resident of the farm claimed a couple of Willy's "friends" accused him of stealing something and beat him up right after Willy mentioned killing prostitutes. He took that as a warning to keep his mouth shut.

In another chilling incident – forever burned into her memory – a young woman Fournier calls “Sharon” told her that in 1999 or 2000: “'Bonnie, I escaped from the farm.'”

“Sharon” said she was in Surrey, shoplifting at a mall -- she supported her drug addiction by stealing, not prostitution, Fournier said -- when two women who knew her from the Downtown Eastside approached and invited her to a party, “with free booze and drugs.” The women went to a “well-known Hells Angels spot” located on the King George Highway, just before it enters Surrey: a rental house they called the “House of Pain.” (We know it as the Surrey House of Horrors. that would have been on 108 Ave just off king George around the corner from Gus' shop)

“They went there, and then were moved by station wagon or van – 'We're going to a party with good music,'” Fournier was told. “They were taken to the (Pickton) farm from this house in Surrey. “After they got to the farm, Sharon said everyone was into the drugs – lots of drugs. When they pulled in there, she got a gut feeling that this was scary. . . she got a gut feeling and bolted from the car and ran to Lougheed Highway. She was picked up by a bus on Lougheed and given a ride in to Vancouver by a sympathetic driver.”

We have heard testimony claiming the House of Horrors were supplied with crack cocaine from the Hells Angels. One witness claimed a Hells Angel or at least a Hells Angels truck was parked at a house on the same street as the Surrey house of Horrors. The house of horrors was at 13832 108 Ave. The Hells Angels truck was parked between 13710 and 13734 108 Ave. Yvonne Marie Boen's DNA was found there as well as on Pickton's Pig Farm. To hear new testimony of a van taking people from the House of Horrors in Surrey to a Hells Angels party at the Pickton farm is disturbing indeed.

Merrit Staff Sergeant charged with stealing and using cocaine

OK here's the new one involving an RCMP Staff Sargent from Merrit. It's even more absurd than the last one. We first heard about it last January. Two more charges have been added to the case against the former top-ranked Mountie in Merritt, B.C., who is accused of stealing and then using cocaine from evidence lockers. Staff Sgt. Stuart Seib was arrested in January and charged with one count of theft under $5,000 after he allegedly told a fellow officer about what he had done.

He made his first appearance in provincial court Wednesday, when additional charges of theft and breach of trust by a public officer were read. The charges date back to June 2010 and relate to offences allegedly committed in Merritt. Seib was transferred to the detachment in November 2011 after years in Clearwater. An RCMP spokesman told ctvbc.ca that Seib has officially resigned from the force and therefore will face no internal discipline.

I'll tell ya why this case is disturbing. He was caught because he told another police officer about it. He likely told the other police officer about it thinking he might gain some assistance from the old boys club. The scary thing is, how many police officers in his previous jurisdictions knew about what he was doing and were in on it? He had previously worked in Prince George where the Hells Angels control the drug trade and Judge Ramsey was convicted of sexual assault of under age native girls. Keeping an unlawful secret is unlawful. It makes one an accessory to the crime.

That's not even including Keith Wiens, the former RCMP officer from Okanagan who has been charged with the murder of his wife.

Disgraced Alberta Staff Sergeant coming to BC

Why us? Everyone is talking about the disgraced Alberta RCMP officer who is being transferred to BC. There is another similar case breaking as we speak but first I will address Staff Sergeant Don Ray. Here we have another nut bar who somehow rises within the RCMP ranks to a management position. He was the officer in charge of the polygraph unit at Alberta's RCMP headquarters in Edmonton. Which kind explains how he can be RCMP and from Edmonton when Edmonton has it's own police force.

In that management position he was hosting after-hours parties in his office and kept a bar fridge stocked with Budweiser and Appleton Jamaica Rum. Well there's the problem right there- Budweiser. He's drink a fruit of the Loom label. Perhaps he just had that on hand for the ladies. I think they would have preferred Smirnoff Twist. The investigation found Ray would encourage female subordinates to drink and make sexual advances when alone with them.

In 2006, Ray offered beer to a public servant employed by the RCMP who was a subordinate in rank/position to him, but not under his command. Over drinks, the pair engaged in conversation that led to sex in the polygraph suite. Ray had a sexual relationship with the woman for approximately a year. During this time, he used the polygraph suite for drinking booze and having sex with the woman during lunch breaks and after business hours. He also used an unmarked RCMP vehicle assigned to him to travel to places where sexual relations occurred with the woman.

In April 2009, close to the end of one work day, Sgt. Ray invited his staff to a private office party at which he invited them to sit down and have a drink. One of his female subordinates consumed four beers over two hours, and once the others left, Sgt. Ray unzipped his pants, exposed himself and told her to touch his penis, according to RCMP files. She refused.

"S/Sgt. Ray then wanted to have sexual intercourse with Ms. A, which she refused. S/ Sgt. Ray insisted but Ms. A. maintained her refusal. They then both left the building without further sexual contact," a senior disciplinary officer wrote in his findings in February. The investigation said Sgt. Ray exhibited a "serial" pattern of "disgraceful" conduct.

A serial pattern of disgraceful conduct. This wasn't just one offence. The guy gets a 10 day suspension, demoted one rank and a transfer to BC. That is insane. Any other industry he would be fired. RCMP leaders defending their decision not to fire a him for disgraceful conduct makes then legally liable for it. The police hold a position of trust. That's what makes his ridiculous conduct all the more serious than in other industries. Kash Heed is trying to cash in on the exposure once again and I'm just going to set Kash Heed aside and address the issue. Kash Heed and his political party have enough of their own scandals to deal with. Banning the media from reporting on the location of outbreaks of agriculture-related disease like the bird flu is but one example. We'll let Kah Heed address that before he addresses anything about the RCMP.

The last thing we need is another fruit loop in BC managing the RCMP. We need to remember that these allegations from Krista Carle, a former RCMP constable, who spoke out about sexual harassment on the job came after Catherine Galliford, a former spokeswoman for B.C. RCMP, told the media she suffered sexual harassment from senior officers for years. Catherine Galliford was the RCMP spokesperson during the Pickton arrest. At that time she testified to a ridiculously unprofessional practice of ongoing sexual harassment during that investigation.

Which certainly opens pandora's box with regards to allegations from sex trade workers that during the Pickton case police officers blackmailed them into having sex with them. If they didn't have sex with the police officers, the police officers would arrest them for prostitution. I kid you not. I will remind you that this isn't just testimony from two former RCMP members who experienced ongoing sexual harassment at the work place. This is a class action law suit from many witnesses which clearly establishes a long standing tradition of tolerance of illegal sexual harrassment within the RCMP management for years.

These shocking revelations show a pattern unprofessionalism. Any other industry and these guys would be fired. The cover ups are not acceptable. Keeping an unlawful secret is unlawful. It makes one an accessory to the crime. Just like when IHIT literally screwed up by allowing and covering up for an RCMP investigator in the Surrey Six murder to have an affair on his wife by sleeping with a witness in that case. That was absurd.

The key thing here is that this absurd conduct isn't just unprofessional. It's illegal. That's why there is a class action law suit. Any other industry will tell you the employer has a legal duty to protect employees from sexual harassment. They are legally liable to do so. If they have shown to be negligent in tolerating sexual harassment, they become legally liable and subject to court awards of damages. That is why the police have lawyered up so much at the Pickton inquiry. If they were found negligent in obtaining a search warrant for the Pickton farm, the families of the victims including their children could feasibly be awarded court settlements. That is what everyone wants to avoid and is the reason for the absurd cover up with heavily censored documents. I'm not saying I want the police to be sued over their handling of the Pickton case. Most of us just want the truth. If there was corruption involved, then address it. Keeping an unlawful secret is unlawful. The only way inappropriate conduct is corrected is if it is confronted.

Pickton invited a sex trade worker to a biker party

A former sex worker testified at the Pickton inquiry last Thursday. She said sometime in the fall of 2000, she was working the street in Vancouver's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, several kilometres south of the notorious Downtown Eastside. A grey cube van approached her and she got inside, where she encountered a man who propositioned her to come to a biker party at his farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., the woman testified. She told the inquiry she declined the offer because she had heard a warning at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre not to get into a vehicle with a man offering to bring women to Port Coquitlam.

A "biker party." That's interesting. Sure isn't surprising since we know the Hells Angels frequented parties at Piggy's Palace in colours. In fact the inquiry was told the Hells angels had a grow op on site and ran an illegal booze can there. My understanding is that there was only one illegal booze can on site and that would have been Piggy's Palace. The non-profit society registered in Dave and Willy Pickton's name. That's the one the inquiry was told was run by the Hells Angels. That would explain why Willy referred to it as a bikers party.

Yet we know the Hells Angels weren't the only people who attended those parties. Lots of other people did. I'm told it was an after hours club for when roosters closed down. We were told that the inquiry will hear evidence that off duty police officers also attended parties at Piggy's Palace. Last Tuesday the inquiry heard a civilian RCMP worker saw Robert Pickton at a New Years Eve party on his farm with a woman she later recognized as one of the missing sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The inquiry is hearing the police had many tips about the farm before they finally got a search warrant. One could argue that the credibility of the witnesses were in question which made getting a search warrant difficult. Let's hope that's the only reason for the delay. Yet one would think a tip from a civilian RCMP worker would have been credible enough to get a warrant. We're still waiting to hear testimony about off duty police officers attending parties there. We're also still waiting for the public inquiry to become public.