The provincial Liberals could be getting another present from the justice system this Christmas. Rumour has it more charges flowing from Project Everywhichway, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation that resulted last year's raid on the legislature, could be laid later this month, possibly the week of December 20. To date, the government has done an effective job of limiting the political damage caused by that raid. We'll see whether that continues.
The gift that keeps on giving
November 29, 2004
To date, the xxxxxxxxx media has done an effective job of limiting the political damage
So far there has been no political damage mainly because the public doesn`t know anything about the raids, and that`s not a good thing.
Here's to Basi doing hard time and all the political parties reforming their membership rules.
Holman, where's the beef?? We want to know who, what, when, and why.... rumours aren't good enough.
Start digging!
Hmmmm.... many angles, many players, many questions and no answers. Will this be a Christmas to remember?
Mr. Smith, you seem to know what's going on - do you?
What happened to the drug money? Where did this money go? How is this not bingogate times 1000?
Just from the media. It's not bingogate, the allegations are that Basi and Virk bought several properties over the years and some were grow ops which the profits were paying for some of the mortgages. Basi will state that he was renting them out to people who were effectively paying the mortgages and the one in Shawnigan Lake was turned into a grow op by the tenent without his knowledge. The police accountants will figure all that out.
On the political side, Basi signed up large numbers of people for the Federal Liberals at various times and most prominently for the Paul Martin leadership campaign. Some say he paid for some of these memberships with drug profits but I doubt it. People like Basi can tap into donors to fund membership purchases, there's no reason to be laundering drug money that way. That's what the multiple house ownerships are for.
Hopefully, the Parties will tighten their membership rules to discourage "instant" members and only allow actual voters to be full voting party members but I doubt it. The constitutional changes usually require at least a two thirds vote and these instant members will defend their voting rights.
It seems like there should be a lot more money here than just a couple of houses. Even one grow-op can produce many $100k/yr (no mortgage required) and this must have been pretty big to warrant the response that the RCMP gave.
It is a big deal, and involves more than just selling marajuana: "...the sale of B.C.-grown marijuana in the U.S. in exchange for cocaine, which was then sold in Canada." and "trafficking marijuana across the Canada-U.S. border in exchange for Cocaine" (Dec30, 2003 and Jan 6, 2004 CP NewsWire).
Bingogate was a few thousand trickling their way into the NDP membership fees over many years (and NDP members lost money at certain times due to NCHS debt, everyone was being scammed). If the drug money went into the liberal memberships it could easily be bingogate times 1000, esp. since we don't know how long this was going on.
On the up side, I think paries are already moving to limit the 'instant' members, such as the numbered forms that tie the recuiter to the member for the liberals and the '90 day' rule and recruiter member number on NDP memberships.
You people had better be careful! With your initimate knowledge of the facts surrounding this case, the police may come looking for you.
There seems to be a lot of hype with no substance. I have a few rental properties that have been victimized by grow-ops. A friend of mine had a tenant in his basement suite operating a grow show. I like a good political scandal like the next guy but this doesn't strike me as a big deal. Its all too common as far as rental properties are concerned. Now, if they found a grow-op in the legislature that would be juicy.
It happened to me. The tenants gave me the whole song and dance about how wonderful they were and how they loved my rental home. When we called the police they couldn't be bothered to show up. My wife and I took pictures and cleaned up the whole mess.