RCMP Watch

Neal Hall, CanWest News Service

The RCMP “tailored and targeted” their efforts in a bid to nail two former British Columbia government aides accused of accepting bribes involved the sale of B.C. Rail, and failed to properly probe a close relationship between a lobbyist and a former deputy finance minister, a defence lawyer alleged yesterday.

Kevin McCullough alleged the RCMP investigation was focused on Dave Basi and Bob Virk, who are accused of accepting bribes in exchange for leaking confidential information about the B.C. Rail bidding process to Pilothouse, whose client was OmniTRAX, a Denver-based company that was bidding on B.C. Rail.

McCullough argued police failed to properly investigate the relationship between Brian Kieran, a lobbyist with Pilothouse, and deputy finance minister Paul Taylor.

He asserted that despite Taylor’s close relationship with Kieran, RCMP never questioned Taylor whether he gave any documents or information about B.C. Rail to Kieran or another Pilothouse partner, Erik Bornmann.

“They don’t talk to Mr. Taylor about his relationship with Pilothouse,” the lawyer said yesterday in his sixth day of legal arguments for more disclosure of documents from the special prosecutor.

“Where’s the investigation of Taylor? It’s not done,” McCullough said. “The RCMP should have asked Taylor if he gave any information to Kieran.”

McCullough read in court yesterday an e-mail dated Aug. 23, 2003, sent from Kieran to another Pilothouse partner, Jamie Elmhirst.

Kieran said he had been fishing that day with “Paul” — McCullough told the court it was Paul Taylor, then deputy minister to finance minister Gary Collins — and he “got the real goods” on the B.C. Automobile Dealers Association.

Kieran said in his e-mail that Taylor had talked to Glen Ringdal, then president of the association, who said he needed government relations and Taylor had mentioned Pilothouse.

The e-mail said Taylor told Ringdal he would have to pay about $50,000 a year for good government relations work, so Kieran suggested charging $6,000 a month, plus $1,500 a month in expenses, to the association for Pilothouse’s services.

McCullough said Elmhirst sent an e-mail reply that said: “Yeah, well I could come up with this kind of great intel too if I lived next door to a blabby deputy minister.”

The e-mails, found on a Pilothouse computer after RCMP executed search warrants on the Victoria company and the legislature on Dec. 28, 2003, were leaked earlier to the media.

Finance Minister Carole Taylor announced an internal review found no evidence of wrongdoing but the government decided to hire an outside firm to further investigate.

The trial judge, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett, asked McCullough how he knew that the “Paul” referred to in the e-mail was Paul Taylor.

He said Kieran and Taylor live next door to each other on Pender Island.

McCullough also hammered away at what he called the Crown’s failure to disclose an immunity-from-prosecution deal with Bornmann, expected to be the Crown’s star witness.

Bornmann apparently cut a deal with the special prosecutor around March 2004, months after the raid of the legislature offices of Basi and Virk.

McCullough alleged Bornmann, who had ties to the federal Liberals, received special treatment and was not charged, even though he confessed to bribing Basi and Virk while they were involved in the $1-billion privatization sale of B.C. Rail in November 2003.

The lawyer said the special prosecutor, Bill Berardino, had a duty to keep records of his contact and negotiations with Bornmann and his lawyer, George Macintosh, to provide a transparent record of how the immunity deal was reached.

Instead, the defence still is in the dark about the deal, McCullough said, adding the prosecution has released a number of letters sent between the prosecution and Macintosh.

McCullough pointed out that one of Macintosh’s letters, sent April 15, 2004, suggested he had received a “most disturbing message” from Berardino that the agreement reached with Bornmann “is at an end.”

The defence lawyer said there is no disclosure over what prompted Berardino’s message. “He did something to bring about that call from Mr. Berardino,” McCullough told Bennett.

“Something must have occurred and we have absolutely no disclosure of it,” he said.

The defence lawyer speculated that the call may have stemmed from Bornmann issuing a news release that indicated he had been cleared of any wrongdoing and was now a witness instead of a suspect.

It was untrue, McCullough said of Bornmann’s false claim of exoneration, which was reported by a number of media outlets at the time.

The defence lawyer questioned whether part of the Crown deal was to allow Bornmann to pursue a legal career. Bornmann received a law degree from the University of B.C. and then went to Toronto to article for a law firm.

He had applied to the Law Society of Upper Canada to become a lawyer and would have had to disclose on his application that he was under investigation for bribing government officials, McCullough said.

He alleged Bornmann lied about his past in his application, which undermines his credibility.

He said Berardino had a duty to tell the law society about Bornmann but instead did nothing until the law society contacted him.

McCullough told the court that Bornmann now is facing a disciplinary hearing after a member of the public filed a complaint.

Basi and Virk are accused of fraud, breach of trust and accepting money and other benefits during their involvement in the sale of B.C. Rail. The government announced Nov. 25, 2003 that CN Rail was the successful bidder.

Basi’s cousin, Aneal Basi, a former government communications officer, is accused of money laundering for allegedly taking cheques from a government lobbyist and transferring money to Dave Basi.