The one corner of the government that remains politically untainted is the Criminal Justice Branch. My belief is that they will release the search warrant documents today,

UNLESS the Judge bows to the defendants' lawyers. The courts have become ultra politicized; a great loss to democracy, indeed.

The way things are going perhaps that name should be changed to Major Major.....

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Article is up on CBC BC.

http://www.cbc.ca/bc/

Bad, but just looks bad for Basi etc. Still no implication of elected officials to the dismay of all crazy dippers out there.

"Bad, but just looks bad for Basi etc. Still no implication of elected officials to the dismay of all crazy dippers out there."

Except for the fact that Collins apparently knew about the trip. Whether the tickets were paid for personally or not you have to wonder about why David was meeting with proponents for the BC Rail tender.

Not to defend Collins etc. but the warrants say clearly that Basi told him that the trip was paid for personally and did not relate to Government business, no mention of Omnitrax.

I am assuming that the Minister does not have to track the vacation destinations of all his employees to ensure that they are not going anywhere that Company's doing business with the Government are located, I think the fact that he inquired about it speaks well to Collins.

So here are some questions I have:

The police seemed to have come across this whole thing during a completely different case. Why did they not go to Dave Basi and ask him to help them go after Bornman and Kieran if it is true that he was being offered bribes by them?

So the allegation is that Bornman was offering bribes to Dave Basi - if this is indeed the case, why would anyone on the police force believe that Bornman was giving them an accurate story?

Are the principles of Pilothouse being investigated to see if offering bribes was a normal way for them to do business?

So in that Denver related search warrant, there are some very interesting pages missing. What is on them? When will we hear about it?

So who are these other people charged in the ALR case?

When will we hear about the rest of the search warrants?

What has ever happened to the orginal investigation that had no connection to Dave Basi, Everywhichway?

All of these search warrants are dated months AFTER the raids. Looks like there is still no disclosure on what led to the raids themselves.

For the Collins apologists:

Who hired David Basi in the first place?

Bernard--

To answer your first question you might have to look (or better yet listen) 'Everywhichway'.

Here some more questions:

Based on the stuff in the search warrants released today, what is taking the police so long to go through this stuff? Either they are very, very slow or this a lot more stuff out there. From what I can see, there is not a lot of complexity in this case, so what else is there?

Have there been more searches since Oct 2004?

I would love to see the January 2004 search of UVic for the student records of Basi and Virk. I am trying to think of what possible relevance that has to anything.

And there is some search warrant from sometime before Aug 7 2003 - what is this one about?

When looking at what seems to be coming up in this case, it strikes me as less than was there for Vander Zalm, Clark or even Bennett with the sale of the Doman stock.

I would love the media to tell us what has ever come of the main case - "Everywhichway"

"For the Collins apologists:

Who hired David Basi in the first place?"

Most likely it was cleared by Martyn Brown.

Used to be the Ministers hired their own MA's and
EA's, but all of that is cleared through Brown who controls just about everything in terms of
political staff.

Basi and Virk like others were granted an Order In Council, formalizing their appointment.

Basi and Virk were political organizers for the
BC Liberals, previously.

Looks bad for Basi. Guy made some stupid moves.

He could have said "no, get out of my office", but didn't. He wanted to make a few bucks and
attend that Denver Broncos NFL game (guess a
Seahawks Game in Seattle was too short a trip for him).

"Used to be the Ministers hired their own MA's and
EA's, but all of that is cleared through Brown who controls just about everything in terms of
political staff" Right you are 'basifan'.

Which brings us back to reflecting on M.A. Kuzminski's often ill conceived beliefs and attitude. It is not difficult to see where the source of influence was rooted. Brown afterall dates back the the Zalm era - that sheds light on many of the political tactics presently in play.

Don't feel too sorry for Basi, the guy has landed on his feet.

I don't think we will ever hear the full story. Basi and Virk will "settle" and the records will be sealed. The only reason why the Government didn't contest the release of some of the details today was to deflect the media away from BC Ferries for a while.

Perhaps if the media chases search warrants for a week or two they won't ask questions like why after two weeks can nobody explain why a ferry was nearly 2km off course.

I just wanted to say I think this investigation is going great guns.

Too bad there aren't more ethical people in BC politics like Paul Reitsma.

How do you figure that Dave Basi landed on his feet???

The guy has been made unemployable in his profession since Dec 2003.

He is in a no win situation in any case:
1) Crown stays proceedings - he is left with the taint of guilt forever.
2) Crown losses the case and he is found innocent. He still will have lost three or more years of his career years. He is also unlikely to ever be able to as effectively step back into his profession. You will note that there has been no move to bring Glen Clark back on any level in the NDP.
3) Crown wins the case and it is appealed - it draws on longer for him.
4) He accepts a plea bargain, may do a very small amount of time (one would presume a few months of electronic monitoring or probation) but he still remains out of his line of work.

So the saga continues. Those fellows are innocent till proven guilty, but as our new Prime Minister says. Do the crime, do the time, so let's get on with the court case and they either walk or they don't. Mind you some cases just seem to drag on for a long time

I always find it interesting that the media only uses lines like "the allegayions have not been proven in court" when people of a certtain standing in society are charged.

You never see that line when someone is charged with holding up a 7-11 or arrested in a 'drug sweep.'

Another emdia gripe is that in labour storties companies always "offer" but unions always "demsnd"

and don't get me started on the frequent use police-ese like "pending notification of next of kin"kin."

"How do you figure that Dave Basi landed on his feet???"

Those of us who actually knew/know David Basi always understood that he had business and financial interests outside of his role as an MA. I am not suggesting anything wrong, just that the cars, houses, clothes and the lifestyle that his wife and kids lived were not being supported on a $60K a year job.

There is no suggestion that these other business deals went away simply because he was fired as an MA. In fact, from what I hear, his influence within the Indo-Canadian community has never been stronger.

Polishing Gary's shoes provided access and power but I don't thinbk that anyone ever thought that David's long term goal was an elected position within Government.

"In fact, from what I hear, his influence within the Indo-Canadian community has never been stronger... Polishing Gary's shoes provided access and power"

That's the problem. This guy knew crap about finance and as a BC Liberal regional organizer hack. That's what he was interested in was power.