A8
WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2019
www.kamloopsthisweek.com
OPINION
Kamloops This Week is a politically independent newspaper, published Wednesdays and Fridays at 1365-B Dalhousie Dr., Kamloops, B.C., V2C 5P6 Phone: 250-374-7467 | Fax: 250-374-1033 email: editor@kamloopsthisweek.com
Robert W. Doull President Aberdeen Publishing Inc. Tim Shoults Operations manager Aberdeen Publishing Inc.
THANKFUL FOR THEIR GIVING MOOD
W
hile development in Kamloops continues to sizzle, it is worth making note of the altruism that runs through the companies that are, literally, changing the face of the Tournament Capital. In recent weeks and in the past year, we have learned of projects being undertaken by companies that include significant donations to agencies and people in need. Earlier this month, the Cooper Family Foundation announced plans to establish permanent headquarters for Kamloops Search and rescue and the B.C. Search Dog Association. The foundation will create the space on property the Cooper Companies own in North Kamloops. That will be done via the development and sale of 73 residential units in Brocklehurst, with $10,000 from each sale donated to the foundation to help create the home bases for the search and rescue and search dog organizations. This project follows last year’s initiative, with saw the Cooper Family Foundation work to secure $1.4 million to complete a much-needed expansion at the Marjorie Willoughby Memorial Hospice Home. Another well-known company with a philanthropic side is the Kelson Group, whose founder, Ron Fawcett, revealed in January that he had spent about $10 million on land downtown to help secure a performing-arts centre. These are but two groups that have done wonders to make Kamloops a better place to live — and the charitable work is aided by many other companies, families and individuals who also continue to give back what they can, when they can. If one were to take a bird’s-eye photo of Kamloops, there would be many empty spaces if not for the myriad developments that have risen from the benevolence of those who realize that giving is the engine on which this community operates.
OUR
VIEW
Robert W. Doull President Aberdeen Publishing Inc. EDITORIAL Publisher: Robert W. Doull Editor: Christopher Foulds Newsroom staff: Dave Eagles Tim Petruk Marty Hastings Jessica Wallace Sean Brady Michael Potestio Todd Sullivan SALES STAFF: Don Levasseur Linda Skelly Kate Potter Jodi Lawrence Liz Spivey
ADVERTISING Sales manager: Ray Jolicoeur Digital sales manager: Chris Wilson Max Patel Bonnie Steeves Promotions: Tara Holmes PRODUCTION Manager: Lee Malbeuf Production staff: Fernanda Fisher Mike Eng Sean Graham Dayana Rescigno Moneca Jantzen Erin Johnson
FRONT OFFICE Manager: Sherrie Manholt Front office staff: Nancy Graham Lorraine Dickinson Angela Wilson Marilyn Emery CIRCULATION Manager: Anne-Marie John Circulation staff: Serena Platzer Rosalynn Bartello
CONTACT US Switchboard 250-374-7467 Classifieds 250-371-4949 Classifieds Fax 250-374-1033 Classifieds@Kamloopsthisweek.com Circulation 250-374-0462 All material contained in this publication is protected by copyright. Reproduction is expressly prohibited by the rightsholder.
Follow us online at kamloopsthisweek.com
kamthisweek kamloopsthisweek
Laundering drama for TV
F
irst it was $1 billion a year (maybe) being laundered through Lower Mainland casinos and real estate. Then it became $5 billion (maybe) in real estate alone for 2018. These dramatic, expanding estimates have persuaded Premier John Horgan and Attorney General David Eby to put aside their serious concerns about cost and a lack of actual charges against actual crooks and reluctantly agree with a strange chorus demanding a public inquiry into B.C. money laundering. Eby and Finance Minister Carole James finally released two thick investigation reports this month, trying to quantify the dirty money in B.C.’s economy. You may have heard the most shocking conclusion, that billions were (maybe) poured into Metro Vancouver real estate, pushing up housing costs by (maybe) as much as five per cent. The real estate report, from a panel of academics headed by former NDP deputy minister Maureen Maloney, weighed in at 184 pages. As fellow academic Murtaza Haider pointed out, “the report does not identify a single laundered dollar or account with laundered money or even a single purchase of property purchased using ill-gotten wealth.” It used computer models and international estimates of crime, going back as far as 1995, extrapolated to Canada and then to its provinces. Contracted investigator Peter
TOM FLETCHER Our Man In
VICTORIA German’s first Dirty Money report dealt with B.C. casinos, estimating that laundering through them may have been as much as $100 million. No one really knows because, among other things, high rollers return to gamble their winnings, running the same money through again. (After all the attention on the River Rock Casino in Richmond, German now allows that this activity has mostly disappeared.) German’s second report, among its 360 pages, deals with a Global TV news story last November. It quoted an unnamed police source saying money laundering may be 10 times as big as previously estimated, up to $1 billion in 2016 alone. Eby frequently cites this story and, indeed, has developed a fawning mutual admiration society with Global TV for its supposedly ground-breaking work. Responding to German’s inquiries about this TV story, the RCMP conceded it has classified reports with similar estimates of
real estate activities. It refused to release them even to German, himself a former senior RCMP investigator. German’s conclusion, based on limited disclosure of RCMP data gathering methods, is this: “The figures now in common parlance are of $1 billion or more per year of dirty money being ploughed into B.C. real estate and of equally large sums being laundered through casinos. Unfortunately, without actually quantifying these amounts using a generally accepted model and having access to the necessary data, all estimates are guesses.” The RCMP further contradicted this TV story, saying its still-classified report of high-end real estate purchases over two years does not focus on organized crime actors and does not measure money laundering. In short, this award-winning TV story was bogus. In an odd move, Global TV joined the B.C. Green Party, the B.C. Government Employees’ Union and other partisan actors in the chorus of demands for this inquiry. Horgan and Eby had given many solid reasons why a long lawyer festival with no authority to lay charges would be a waste of time and millions. But now they’ve decided it’s a great idea to stage an inquiry that will put previous government members on the stand, just months before the next scheduled election in the fall of 2021. They’re hoping for compliant TV coverage of that, too. tfletcher@blackpress.ca