A current BC cabinet minister said before the 2017 election that he was confident his party would soon gain power. His reasoning was that governments are not defeated by their opponents; they defeat themselves.
The Tyee headlined in the dying days of Christy Clark’s government: “98 BC Liberal Falsehoods, Boondoggles and Scandals.” After almost seven years, the BC NDP may be moving down their own road of self-destruction.
A news story is focused on MNP, an accounting and consulting service provider involved in issuing government grants to clean technology projects. The original predecessor of MNP LLP was formed in Manitoba but the company is now headquartered in Calgary.
Days ago, NDP opponents asked for an independent examination of MNP’s actions in BC. Citizens may wonder why a private company is handing out public money despite a huge government apparatus that collects and spends almost $100 billion yearly.
Glacier Media had the story:
B.C.’s three opposition parties united this week to demand the auditor general probe a so-called “kickback scheme” involving one of the companies responsible for administering millions of dollars of government grants to clean technology projects.
BC United, BC Green and BC Conservative MLAs voted for an independent probe of accounting firm MNP, which the government has hired to administer at least two grant programs, but which is also facing allegations it demanded so-called “success fees” of as high as 20 per cent of the grant amount to help firms win money.
B.C.’s opposition parties demand probe into alleged government grant kickbacks
Of course, the NDP and MNP examined their actions and absolved themselves of wrongdoing.
A trusted political commentator today asked me, “Is this kryptonite for the NDP?”
It may be.
Edison Motors had the courage to go public about this scandal. It is difficult for a small company to take on a very large consulting firm and the even larger government of British Columbia. Fearing further harm, many victims of corruption stay quiet.
Edison Motors was founded eight years ago as a log transporter in south-central BC. The company is a true innovator. Wanting to employ trucking experience and solar hybrid power expertise, Edison began developing affordable electric trucks for heavy hauling,
This may to be another example of a large organization profiting through the mistreatment of small operators who have little influence in the halls of power. The Eby government seems to accept this as the way business should be done in British Columbia.
Corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social division and the environmental crisis.
Exposing corruption and holding the corrupt to account can only happen if we understand the way corruption works and the systems that enable it.
Transparency International
Government operations under the NDP are looking more like those managed by the Campbell/Clark Liberals. There is a reason the BC NDP chooses to avoid transparency.
Categories: Corruption
in-sights.ca 
Success Fees is a term coined by Bombardier and SNC Lavalin, who owned patents for the proprietary ART system (erroneously called SkyTrain) using the Bombardier rebuild of the ALRT cars used on Vancouver’s Expo Line, when they paid senior bureaucrats and politicians in Malaysia and Korea, to build with ART as the system was considered poorly built and very expensive for what it does.
It was success fees that started the entire Trudeau/SNC Lavalin scandal!
It is also thought success fees were paid to the NDP for the flip flop from light rail to ART for the Millennium Line.
What are Success Fees? , Well, any other word that illustrates success fees can lead to legal action. The term Success Fees are not actionable.
The NDP learned fast and continue receiving success fees and one wonders if Success Fees were paid for the Broadway subway and the flip flop from light rail to SkyTrain in Surrey?
Success Fees, the way to business in BC and Canada. Welcome to Trudeau’s and Eby’s brave new third world country.
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The strong and smart people surrounding any large pot of public money are rarely in government.
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Thanks Norm for featuring this topic. In the past I have used various impolite words to describe this practice of “toll gating” but grubby politics are non stop.
A personal example from my past might help your readers connect the dots. Early in this century I was partnering with a US engineer . He was talented and had been the Manager of an electro-plating plant in LA where before release of waste water he had to be certain of capturing any pollutants from the factory. He did this using fossilized diatoms.
I was invited to partner with Ed after he rejected the offer to manage the plant now located in Mexico. He had identified several BLM mining claims in the Long Valley Cal. that were open. These claims were for the mining of diatoms.
At that time, the nuclear pollution from Hanford was of great concern to the US Government and all those living downstream on the Columbia River system.
A representative from Washington put out a request for ideas that could solve or partly correct this situation and about six groups showed up for a meeting in Reno, we were one. We had commissioned the university to run tests with pads of our diatoms using water only containing nuclear molecules suspended in pure water. We presented fantastic results at that meeting.
The next step in this story was a request by a US Gov. representative that we strike a sub contract with Bechtel who was designated prime contractor. Ed had a lot of US experience in this business design and refused the suggestion .
For those interested in this story, go on line now to see where the matter of polluting the Columbia River with Hanford nuclear material is 25 years later.
I am debating with myself if I should send the US folks a copy of our filtration report but what is holding me back is knowing that some financial, parasite organization like SNC Lavalin will jump in to “toll gate”.
Cheers Erik
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Did you think the NDP was going to collect $2.65 billion in carbon taxes in the recently ended fiscal year and not have some of it end up going astray?
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Chace Barber is the presenter in these videos and he does a fine job of explaining the scandalous situation.
The BC NDP should be heralding the carbon-reducing innovation of a BC-based company… but now, since they have egg on their face from the scandal, they have to keep their distance from Edison Motors.
David Eby seems to be a good skater in front of the camera when ‘issues’ come up. I’ll be interested to see his footwork on this one.
As Trailblazer says above, we should be seeing tangible results from our carbon taxes. I WANT my $50-ish monthly carbon levy to go to innovators like Edison Motors, or to school and home retrofits, etc. — and every time, we should be hearing about it, so we’ll know that the Carbon Tax is being put to good use.
The BC legislation is in session through May, so this should give the opposition and media plenty of time to highlight this scandal.
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Is there any wonder the ‘axe the tax’ crowd are growing?
If we do not see results from our carbon tax then WTF ?
TB
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