Province columnist Ethan Baron bluntly questions suitability of a BC Liberal insider acting as key advisor to Christy Clark. Online magazines and blogs including this one, have been warning about former Fraser Institute Vice Chair Gwyn Morgan and his role with the new Premier.
Morgan has an undeniable conflict of interest because companies with which he is associated have large financial interests with provincially owned agencies. Additionally, he was the founding CEO of Encana, a major player in BC’s oil and gas industry and part of the plan to have supertankers travelling narrow Douglas Channel to a Kitimat petroleum port. As regulator and fiduciary for the public interest, the BC Government should not be populated with principals of regulated industries.
Financial benefits are probably Morgan’s real interest in government. He is not likely motivated by a sense of public service since he may not even believe in democracy. I wrote last week about Morgan’s worry that aging Arab despots will be abandoned and left to the mercy of Middle East reform movements. He warned they must be supported “even if it means compromising democratic ideology with the reality of preventing global economic meltdown.”
Ethan Baron tried to ask Christy Clark why she wanted a rabid right-winger at her side but the Premier declined to answer. She was busy holding photo ops like the one at the Surrey Hospital where Liberals had the thirteenth media event announcing expansion since 2004. (Despite all the shovels for TV cameras, site work on the expansion finally got underway a few months ago.)
About Clark’s refusal to discuss Morgan, the Province columnist concluded,
“Considering his contribution to her campaign, his company’s intensely close financial ties to her government, and his inflammatory political views, I’m not surprised.
I am, however, a bit surprised that Clark would so quickly demonstrate such a lack of accountability to British Columbians as to select an adviser who is obviously in a conflict of interest.”
As of April 2012, the linked article is unavailable so, as a favour to Postmedia, I repeat the full text here:
BY ETHAN BARON, THE PROVINCE, MARCH 23, 2011
The fox is in the B.C. henhouse: Premier Christy Clark’s new transition adviser chairs a company that does hundreds of millions of dollars of business with the provincial government.
Arch-conservative Gwyn Morgan heads the board of SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal-based firm that built the $1.9-billion Canada Line and will run it for more than 30 years, that has a $587-million contract to expand the Waneta Dam hydro-generating facility in the West Kootenay, and that maintains all B.C. Ferry terminals for a price the provincial ferry corporation won’t disclose.
Industry Canada describes B.C.’s transportation ministry, Canada Line and the ferry corporation as “key clients” of SNC-Lavalin. Adding to the unsavouriness of Morgan’s position with the Clark government is the fact that he donated $10,000 to her leadership campaign.
Clark’s selection of Morgan — the retired founding CEO of natural gas giant Encana — as the man to guide her into her new job says a great deal about her political plans.
In 2006, Opposition MPs on a Commons committee found Morgan “unsuitable” to serve as voluntary chief of a new patronage-watchdog office, because of comments he’d made about immigrants and multiculturalism.
The previous year, in a speech at B.C.’s Fraser Institute, Morgan had blamed immigration for violence in Toronto and Calgary. In a subsequent speech in Toronto, Morgan suggested multiculturalism was the cause of rioting in France and Australia, and warned Canadians to beware multiculturalism doesn’t become a divisive value.
In a September column in the Globe and Mail, Morgan attacked Canada’s public health care, arguing for private delivery of publicly funded care plus a two-tier system allowing Canadians to buy entirely private care. Those who would oppose his ideas were “monopoly-loving union leaders and their left-wing sycophants.” In another Globe column, he described unionized public-sector workers as “abusive” toward the citizenry, and insisted that unionized workers providing “important” public services should be forbidden from striking.
I wanted to ask Clark why she decided a rabid right-winger was the best pick to help her lead B.C. And I especially wanted to ask Clark how she could possibly justify bringing on an adviser who leads a company heavily dependent on B.C. government contracts. She didn’t call me back. Clearly, the premier doesn’t want to talk about Morgan.
Considering his contribution to her campaign, his company’s intensely close financial ties to her government, and his inflammatory political views, I’m not surprised.
I am, however, a bit surprised that Clark would so quickly demonstrate such a lack of accountability to British Columbians as to select an adviser who is obviously in a conflict of interest. If I were the chair of a corporation that was making a mint off B.C., there’s no place I’d rather be than by the premier’s side, steering her along.
Categories: Clark, Christy, Morgan.Gwyn
IN-SIGHTS 
After a decade of Dishonesty, Deception and Deceit by the BC Liberal party, the new premier elect is as arrogant and apparantly, as corrupt as Gordon “the liar” Campbell.
What would constitute a “no-no” to politicians elsewhere, is considered fair game by the BC Liberal party.
How they are able to continue in this vein without prosecution, is amazing – oh, I fogot, they have even “nobbled” the judiciary and a large number of the senior judges.
Time for some serious action on the part of British Columbians as a whole – unless we want to continue to live in a society run by crooked, evil and corrupt politicians – as evidenced by the BC Liberals.
Thanks.
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The politicians are the puppets, people like Morgan and Kinsella are the puppet masters. The BC Liberal Party is thoroughly corrupted by backroom manipulators directing placement of rewards.
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It seems to me that a column as incendiary as that “please, will someone remember the dictators?” screed should be grounds for instant resignation of a political aide in any healthy democratic society.
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It seems that most of the electorate let the excessively biased main stream media (MSM) do their thinking for them. Many citizens quote the tedious mantra “we don't need a election because it will cost $300 million”. In the meantime, billions of dollars are poured out the door with virtually no scrutiny as public assets are given away. The people who don't want an election are either those gorging or benefitting at the public trough, or those that have succumbed to the herd mentality presented by MSM.
Well, I WANT AN ELECTION. This is essentially the only opportunity for informed citizens to express their democratic rights. After the count, we will again have to contend with an unaccountable dictatorship, although a minority regime provides some element of containment.
BTW Norman, your blog is an excellent source of current events. Thanks! RG
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Anon, 9:37 AM
I want an election too!
CBC Radio just keeps blathering on every chance they get to make fun of elections, and keeps insisting no one wants an election.
I'd like to stuff those CBC sock puppets into the drafty corners where the homeless seek shelter. Have they no brains left, those “talking heads” at CBC?
Or are they a bunch of cowards putting their paycheques ahead of their children's futures, just like BC's civil servants, many of whom know exactly how corrupt this government is and who could make efforts to topple it but don't want to risk marring their cosy little worlds.
Soon enough they'll all be running for cover. And their children….?
Shame on them, the hand-maidens of the destruction of our democratic system, mocking the right to vote, the right to hold our leaders to account.
Change will prevail, and it won't be pretty for many, hopefully for the ones who lolled around in plenty while watching the lives of others become painfully constrained.
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