Gordon Campbell, Richard Nixon, and the B.C. Rail case

Hi Charlie, I don't want this to come off as a personal attack and it is not but can you speak to why this trial has been almost completely absent from the media for the last 6 years?

Has there been legal threats or coercion or has it just been deemed not newsworthy?

I appreciate your reporting.

Why isn't this front page news?

I too, am also extremely concerned about this destruction of critical evidence. I have to say that I believe there is a substantial media bias in the Liberals' favor. They just seem to not make some of the issues very visible, glossed over, perhaps.
Its very disillusioning. We are constantly fed the diatribe about the sanctity of the legal process, and how justice works, ad nauseum.
Situations such as this point out just exactly who and how the shots are called. " My bat, my ball - my rules".

But let us hope that there is still enough separation from the judicial branch, that charges of obstruction can go forward. However, I despair that that separation had eroded. If so then we now live in a tin pot dictatorship, with little hope for justice.

Indeed, more disturbing than Railgate itself is the fact that it has been largely absent in mainstream media. Bill Tielman is the only reporter who has consistently worked the story like Bob Woodward did in Watergatge. Krog says the Libs breached public trust. Mainstream media is just as guilty of the same, and are therefore duplicit in the scandal.

To the first commenter, it's a good question. Here are my answers:

* Criminal trials are challenging for alternative weeklies because of the time involved and the fact that daily media outlets are in a position to give timelier coverage. This was a problem with the Pickton trial and with the BC Rail corruption trial. In civil trials, it's easier to gain access to documents, including affidavits, and there's a wider latitude to report in this area, thanks in part to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling. The criminal registry isn't nearly as open to the public so you have to be in the courtroom as the evidence dribbles out.

* The Globe and Mail has covered the trial, as has Bill Tieleman, BC Mary, and, from time to time Canwest. Tieleman has clients, so he can allocate his time in a way that enables him to cover this trial and still make a living. I'm glad he's doing this. I think he is performing a valuable public service, and perhaps there will be a book at the end of all this.

* When there are bigger developments, we wade in with a story or a blog posting.

* Criminal trials don't always leave a great deal of room for analysis because the case is sub judice, though in this instance, there is room for analysis of the political response.

* There have been no threats or coercion.

* After the raids first occurred in 2003, we had lots of coverage in the Georgia Straight.

* I like covering public-policy stories, which are sorely lacking in much of our media coverage. This trial is very important--particularly for BC Rail workers, shippers, communities along the line, and people interested in honest, open government--but so are other issues, such as the regional growth strategy, peak oil, climate change, Campbell's income-assistance policies, transit, and homelessness, which affect a large number of people's lives.

Today, Jon Ferry wrote in the Province newspaper that this trial has put the integrity of our government at stake. I laughed when I read that because the B.C. Liberal government has already demonstrated its lack of integrity in its dealings with Cambie Street merchants and non-Canwest/non-Black Press newspapers like the Georgia Straight, and in the way it treats single mothers in this province, not to mention its response to child poverty.

It's a long answer. I hope it addressed your question.

Gordon Campbell ie; Mr. Free Trader is this type of deal what you consider free trade if it is shove your free trade you know where.
It will be interesting to see how many Premiers even listen to him this August, when Mr Free Trader ask them to sign on to a massive free trade deal with his American friends.
I would say during the photo op at the end of the upcoming meeting all of the other Premiers will be stuck in the Loo.

I feel heartened to see this issue being given the importance that it deserves.
Campbell's Government had lost its integrity on many fronts as Charlie has sagaciously noted, but for me this government's treatment of the homeless and the First Nations will have the boomerang effect of bad karma known as Railgate.
There should be an inquiry to see if there was obstruction with a maliciously deceptive intent to destroy any evidence that could have been used to prove that corrupt practices that took place.
Campbell be be forced to resign..and at the point.. his karma will have run over his dogma.
It going to be hard to prove, but not impossible.

The BC Railgate case is one of pure political corruption. The mainstream media which is supposed to be the "fourth estate" and hold politicians feet to the fire, have been all but absent.

BC Mary and Tielman have been following this foul story for years and in any other country this would not only be national news, but a national disgrace. One can say that BC's corrupt political arena is abetted by the mainstream media.

Not so long ago, during the contentious RAV debate, Vancouver Mayor "DaVinci Campbell" promised over and over again that he would vote against RAV if the cost were to rise above $1.5 billion, but by a strange coincidence Mayor Campbell became a Senator and the cost of RAV is now (according to Susan Heyes courageous court battle) almost $2.8 billion!

We now live in a corrupt society, abetted by a corrupt MSM and a public overwhelmed by political sleaze and hooliganism. Drug wars now and public executions of waring drug dealers are now common place; friends of the government are amply rewarded with highways/transit/bridge construction contracts. And for bigger and more wealthier friends of the government, railways, hydro (run-of-river) power projects, and even the province itself it seems.

In other countries, this would be a call for revolution, but not here, we are the land of the lotus eaters and as long as we can drive a SUV, have a cup of Starbucks, and laze in the sun, we let Gordo and his mob of con-men destroy this once great province.

The BC electorate is dumb and apathetic - worse even than the idiots who voted twice for George Bush. Campbell's been a low-character scumbag since day one when he was charged with a DUI.

Railgate is a drop in the bucket. Campbell is decimating public health care; selling the whole thing off to American multinationals (lowest common denominator companies that don't give a rat's ass about health care, only profits).

Campbell is a neoconservative. I don't know how he gets away with the Liberal label. He makes the old Socreds look leftwing.