Killing Canadians for Private Corporate Profit (Updated!)

<strong>Written By:</strong> Robin Mathews
<strong>Date:</strong> 2006-04-11 13:18:13
<a href="/article/131813331-killing-canadians-for-private-corporate-profit-updated">Article Link</a>

The children and families story begins with the deaths and the neglect of the kinds of people predator Private Corporations and governments of the Gordon Campbell kind care least about. They are – in some kind of order – native children in distress, other kinds of children in distress, disabled youth, and dysfunctional families unable to cope with modern stresses.

Fittingly, when attention was finally focussed on the B.C. ministry of children and families (it has had different names), the place was found to be in chaos. It was a scandal centre, involving charges against a Gordon Campbell relation and the resignation of both a minister and deputy minister. (Ted Hughes, who did the review of the ministry, doesn’t mention those matters, ever.)

Perhaps worse, the ministry was, slightly later, shown to be flagrantly delinquent in the performance of its obligations. The much publicized “loss” of hundreds of death records of B.C. children was only the tip of the iceberg. Now, the latest stench erupting from the ministry is an “independent” Report by Ted Hughes, QC, former judge, honorary Ph.D, etc., etc. He was appointed by solicitor general John Les to “conduct an independent review of the child protection system for British Columbia”.

The Report by Ted Hughes is a scandalous cover-up, as we shall see. Absolutely key in this matter is the intricately constructed attempt by Hughes to say he couldn’t name individuals. That means, as I read his Report, that he knows Stan Hagan, minister, should be forced to resign, and he knows that Gordon Campbell should also be forced to resign, among perhaps several who should be removed.

Evidence for that last statement comes near the end of this column.

All over the world, as you read this, predator Private Corporations in league with governments like the Gordon Campbell government are actively destroying democracy and the lives of ordinary people in order to increase Private Corporate profit.

An expert on the sudden and remarkable appearance of enormous slum, tin shack, tent city populations in the world – which now make up hundreds of millions of people – declares they are new and unnecessary. He declares they are the result of policies by predator Private Corporations in close league with governments, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – the last two largely the brain-children of U.S. interests.

One need only observe that when Hugo Chavez took (democratically elected) power in Venezuela, the U.S. backed the four day coup against him. And in that four days – with U.S. approval – the Venezuelan Parliament was shut down and the Supreme Court erased. When Hugo Chavez returned and began to re-build Venezuela, having wrested it from predator Private Corporations, one of his first moves was to import fifteen thousand doctors to bring minimal health care to the millions who were left to rot by the U.S./Private Corporation/Venezuelan government troika.

During the Nazi regime in Germany, Private Corporations accepted large numbers of those condemned and racially repugnant to the Nazis. The Private Corporations literally starved and worked their slave “employees” to death as a way of increasing Private Corporate profit. That (as I have said in another column) is the “mature” state of present Gordon Campbell fledgling government policy. I call it Corporate Totalitarianism, but it can have many names.

Canadians must realize that predator Private Corporations are happy to kill in order to increase profit. Human life means nothing to predator Private Corporations. As a servant of those Private Corporations, the Gordon Campbell government, too, may fairly be said to consider human life worth sacrificing in the pursuit of Private Corporate profit.

The situation in the ministry of children and families when Ted Hughes was called in to do his review and Report was as I have described it. Death files were “lost” in the hundreds. Unnecessary high-media-profile child deaths were occurring. Conscientious workers in their fields couldn’t do their work because of apparent administrative chaos and the deliberate slashing of funds by the Gordon Campbell cabinet.

A reasonable and prudent Canadian might fairly say that the Gordon Campbell government knew unnecessary deaths were occurring and permitted them or even actively created the conditions to make them happen.

Then the heat of public concern became so great the solicitor general of B.C. appointed Ted Hughes QC to do an independent Report on children and youth in relation to the ministry’s (planned?) chaos, and to related officers and institutions.

Before looking at the 172 page Report, let us ask who Ted Hughes is.

In brief, Ted Hughes, sole investigator, wrote the nearly 500 page Report for the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP on the unquestioned police violence during demonstrations (in the middle 1990s) at the UBC Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The demonstrators objected to murderer/despot President Suharto of Indonesia (a close friend of the U.S.A.) being allowed entry into Canada.

Ted Hughes was appointed after the three-person expert panel of investigation resigned because Jean Chretien’s personally appointed head of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP interfered so effectively they couldn’t do their work.

So Ted Hughes was appointed to do the job.

His nearly 500 page Report is a gigantic sham, a travesty of responsible reporting, a cover-up, and a betrayal of the Canadian people. I will give one simple example.

Before the APEC summit event, an innocent activist was walking across a lawn at UBC. He was set upon and attacked by three plain clothed RCMP officers. He was thrown to the ground. He was then tossed into the back seat of an RCMP vehicle and driven to the UBC RCMP offices. He was arrested and taken to the court complex in downtown Vancouver. A justice of the peace and a judge were involved in forcing him, wrongfully, to sign a statement saying he would not approach UBC grounds for a long time.

Ted Hughes remarks in his Report that he does not intend to investigate that matter, and – besides – he doesn’t have the power to do so. But the terms of his Inquiry gave him full liberty to investigate the very probably criminal actions of the five or six people involved.

Those actions – which Hughes faked his way around in order to avoid – provided only one obvious proof of criminal violence, planned at the highest levels by the RCMP and others, against innocent Canadians before and during the APEC summit.

In his huge Report Ted Hughes could not find one shred of evidence upon which to recommend court action against RCMP officers and others. His Report, embarrassingly, jumps through every hoop necessary to whitewash police violence and to protect involved high officials.

Clearly, Ted Hughes was just the kind of person Gordon Campbell desperately needed for an inquiry and review into the probably criminal responsibility for children’s deaths in the ministry of children and families.

Hughes’ Report, as I have already written, is a disaster. In very simple terms Hughes has to provide important information that gives him away. But he won’t tell us directly the situation in the ministry of children and families, because – I allege – he is protecting the Gordon Campbell cabinet every step of the way. In fact, Hughes deliberately fails to fulfill the terms of his Review. I believe he misleads readers of the Report in order to disguise the fact that he is failing to fulfill the terms. And I believe he does those things to protect, specifically, the minister Stan Hagan; the premier, Gordon Campbell; and other highly placed officers of the crown.

He says three things which he buries and separates in an attempt, I believe, to disguise their importance. First, he says that more might be learned by a “more extensive investigation”. That is a hint that he knows serious liability may have been incurred by the ministry. He hints that some of that liability may rest in Gordon Campbell’s cabinet. For elsewhere he writes: “There may be cabinet documents or other information, of which I am not aware.”

But why is he not aware of them? Why didn’t Hughes ask to see all cabinet documents related to the ministry of children and families? He had a perfect right (and an obligation) to do so. Why, moreover, does he dissuade the reader from asking for “more extensive investigation”? He says if effect, forget it, and move on.

What he reveals, but is loathe to say, is that with a few minor problems the previous NDP government had set up an admirable system that should never have been hatchetted to pieces as it was, deliberately, by Gordon Campbell and his cabinet, causing terrible despair and deaths among the unprotected. Using a lot of bobbing and weaving and pretending, Ted Hughes recommends what is a restoration of NDP usage.

But don’t be mistaken. Hughes suggests the appointment of three people, representatives for children and youth, to be answerable to a yet unformed Standing Committee of the legislature. There is not the slightest evidence that will happen. If it does, the ministry of children and families will still be run by people who are content to see children killed unnecessarily. That is so because Ted Hughes refused to complete the task he was appointed to complete. So clear is the malevolence of the ministry of children and families that Hughes recommends the Representatives for Children and Youth have the power to force the ministry to fulfill its legislated obligations.

Hughes says: “It is unusual to have an external body overseeing the functioning of a government ministry”. Indeed, it is. We might believe Hughes is saying: “I covered up and refused to report criminal liability. Now you come through with the appointments I recommend.” But since Ted Hughes can’t force his terms, he is probably merely trying to show what a brave, principled person he is. Incidentally, CBC news on Monday, April 10 reported a comment by former Child Commissioner Cindy Morton to the effect that the appointment of a Representative of Children and Youth (with two deputies) would [fortunately] take power out of the hands of the politicians.

Consider that statement. Ms. Morton is saying that the politicians who are finally responsible for the well-being of children and families are too dangerous and too irresponsible to be allowed to exercise their responsibility.

In 2004 such destructive chaos was present that three former top officials of the ministry were pressed to approach Gordon Campbell. He ignored them completely. Ted Hughes, of course, says there is uncertainty whether Gordon Campbell received their very important letter. The uncertainty, I suggest, is present in the mind of Ted Hughes alone. He defends the Gordon Campbell cabinet as a reflex action. Pavlov’s dog.

The third set of things Hughes writes reveals what I allege is an astounding failure of trust. The Terms of Reference for the Review Hughes undertook include work to “consider the roles and responsibilities of the Ministry of Children and Family Development”. The solicitor general, Hughes writes unequivocally, gave “public assurance … December 4, 2005” that Hughes could name individuals responsible for actions.

For some reason not explained, Hughes sought legal advice in Victoria, and lawyer Paul J. Pearlmen told him the nature of his Review didn’t permit him to name individuals. Hughes wrote John Les, solicitor general, who wrote back saying: “I understand your concerns….” But John Les did not say the terms would be changed to give Hughes the power to name names. Whether Hughes and Les intended the restriction all along and set about to pad the Report with staged question and answer, one cannot tell. But one may ask why the solicitor general did not move without delay to give Hughes naming power. Or why Ted Hughes didn’t resign unless given that power.

Almost at the end of the Report, in an appendix, Hughes includes a letter to the solicitor general on February 10, 2006. In it Hughes says: “I do wish to reiterate that my Terms of Reference do not authorize me to inquire into, or make findings of misconduct regarding individuals involved in the transition process [involving (temporary) loss of the death reports]."

With that, Hughes pretends he has grounds to escape his trust responsibility. First. Why did John Les tell Hughes publicly he could name names if he couldn’t?

Secondly. Did Hughes himself know “an independent review” doesn’t have the power to name names? Probably he did, or why did he do the strange thing of seeking the advice of Victoria lawyer Paul J. Pearlman? After all, Ted Hughes is a lawyer, served as a judge for some time, and has been otherwise very active in judicial matters.

To put the matter bluntly, I believe the solicitor general and Ted Hughes knew from the beginning the “independent review” was to be a sham.

The final irony among all the games played by Gordon Campbell, John Les, Ted Hughes and others in order to protect the Gordon Campbell cabinet is that Hughes is NOT excused from failing in his trust. His Terms of Reference make clear he “should consider the roles and responsibilities of the Ministry of Children and Family Development”. He himself writes in his Report: “under our system of government, a Minister is accountable to the Legislature for the effectiveness of his or her Ministry, for ensuring that the right governance and organizational structures and powers are in place, and that the organization is led by a competent staff”.

Hughes had perfect freedom, therefore, under the Terms of Reference of his Review to make very clear to all readers that Stan Hagan, minister, grossly failed in his responsibilities and does not deserve the confidence of the Legislature. Hughes not only had perfect freedom to say that, he had an obligation to do so under the trust conferred upon him by the people of British Columbia as a function of his accepting the appointment.

That was only the first thing Ted Hughes was obligated to say under the trust conferred upon him which he did not say. There are many, many more.

This Report on the child protection system for British Columbia, like Hughes’ Report on the APEC summit violence, is a gigantic sham, a travesty of responsible reporting, a cover-up, and a betrayal of the people of British Columbia.

And so, wait. Unnecessary child deaths will continue in British Columbia because the Gordon Campbell government is happy that they should and because Ted Hughes has provided license for them to continue.

[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 12, 2006]

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Updated: April 12, 2006, 13:00 MDT

Contributed by: Robin Mathews
*Update*! The Children and Families Scandal in British Columbia. *Update!*

It is to laugh. (Or cry.)

Stan Hagan, minister of children and families, appeared on CBC morning radio (April 11). He expressed delight at the Ted Hughes sham Report on child protection in B.C. He praised Ted Hughes. And so he should. For Hughes goes through an intricate dance in his 172 page Report in order to claim he can’t name the people responsible for what might be criminal negligence – but who should almost surely be forced to resign, including cabinet ministers, in the handling of ministry affairs and the deaths of B.C. children.

Hughes, I insist, is making a baseless claim, saying he cannot name names.

He should have demanded Stan Hagan’s head, at least. He didn’t. Hughes should have requested cabinet documents related to the ministry of children and families. He didn’t. Those documents might very well have directly implicated Gordon Campbell, premier.

On CBC radio Hagan couldn’t praise Hughes enough. Surprise.

The Black Humour continues.

On the same day in the Globe and Mail (S1, S3) Gary Mason, special columnist on B.C., plays the same game. To establish the tough integrity of Ted Hughes, Mason tells us a 1991 Report on (premier) Bill Vander Zalm’s business dealings by Hughes forced Vander Zalm to resign. Mason chooses a very old Report. He doesn’t tells us that the much later Report by Hughes on the APEC violence of the RCMP at UBC – with connections into the Prime Minister’s Office – was a scandalous whitewash, a sham, a disgrace.

A reasonable person might ask why Mason didn’t mention the later, very disturbing Report. To some, the answer will be self-evident.

Then, Gary Mason, quite outrageously, ignores the fact that even Ted Hughes admits the ministry of children and families is in a state of destructive chaos. Instead Mason ignores what everyone knows (or you can be sure Ted Hughes would not have admitted it) that there is serious mismanagement, for the dirtiest political reasons, in the ministry. Culpable mismanagement.

In what looks like it must be a cover-up, Mason says the trouble all comes down to the delicacy of Native/White relations. That is sheer balderdash. It comes down to the Gordon Campbell cabinet’s determination to take revenge on the poor, vulnerable, destitute, and defenceless in B.C. It very, very likely comes down to criminal negligence.

In a shocking distortion of reality, Mason refers to a Native girl’s death. Then he writes” “The media have a field day. So do opposition parties, which exploit the deaths as much as they can. The names of bureaucrats and ministers are dragged through the mud”. That, I suggest, is grossly irresponsible “commentary”. Gary Mason doesn’t tell us that in that same ministry less than two years ago a relation of Gordon Campbell’s was removed and charged over misuse of money, the deputy minister was dismissed and the minister forced to resign. None of the three was a Native person.

Ted Hughes has failed – I insist – in the trust placed in him by the people of British Columbia. Gary Mason obfuscates. The Vancouver Sun continues the smokescreen.

Its editorialists tell us Hughes is a tough, straight-talking fellow (Apr 11 A10). Because of a few things said to reporters, the Sun alleges Hughes has squarely placed the blame on Gordon Campbell. Hughes, say the Sun editorialists, thinks there is blame and “whom he thinks it should stick to”. That is false, completely false, and saying that is, in itself, a cover-up. As I wrote in my column “Killing Canadians for Private Corporate Profit, First Part”, Ted Hughes (baselessly, I allege) claims powerlessness to name those responsible. He names neither Stan Hagan nor Gordon Campbell nor any others who should be named in his most important, and his formal, statement – the Report..

If he had named (as it was his responsibility to do) Hagan and Campbell and others in his Report, the next step would have been for the public and the Opposition to call for resignations, further investigations into criminal liability, and more.

Instead, Ted Hughes produced what I have already called a gigantic sham, a travesty of responsible reporting, and a betrayal of the people of British Columbia. The reactionary and monopoly Private Corporate press then backed him up. All engage in keeping the Gordon Campbell forces in power – for those forces serve Private Corporate profit. Private Corporate profit is, of course, what the monopoly Vancouver Sun, the Globe and Mail, and the CanWest media operation are all about. The need for responsible reporting to British Columbians rarely crosses their minds.

This sounds a lot like the time I suggested to Allan Rock, as health minister , that an additive be added to date rape drugs like Rohypnol, Halcyon, and others to give them a strong taste or odour to make them impossible to slip into someone's drink, unoticed.Legitimate users of the drug could take them in a gelatin capsule. Rock told me that that would be too expensive for the drug corporations, and under his values, the profits of multinational drug corporations takes priority over the safety of rape victims.Right wing governments of either the Liberal or Tory stripe always value corporate profits over the safety, health and wellbeing of Canadians, even if those Canadians threatened are their own daughters.You get the values you vote for. So how much do you value the safety of your family members?
Brent

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Brent

As you know this is just a token to appease the mass's. The BC Coroners department could do no more and never could. The coroner & jury can only recommend but not formaly name or accuse the guilty. Glen MacDonald, in his time, on occassion overstepped the boundry by not directly aiming at the target but leaving no doubt who the target is. "Mac" had enough strings to pull. Hughs is limited to his boundries and the strings as well.
One may consider that the upperhand is always the government. Voters forget on election day if it don't effect them directly. Campbell can lay off thousands, ban others from receiving benefits and yet be forgiven for impaired driving. Meanwhile billions are being wasted on a highway to a luxury resort for a single event.
My sister is working for an association under the childcare program. She had to take a cut so that an "accountant" could be brought on staff. The budget is not to be increased but the man who counts the dollars is more important then the worker.

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Expect little from life and get more from it.

"Voters forget on election day if it don't effect them directly. Campbell can lay off thousands, ban others from receiving benefits and yet be forgiven for impaired driving. Meanwhile billions are being wasted on a highway to a luxury resort for a single event."
You are quite right on this of course and it id the voter where I squarely lay all blame.
it is not as though warnings had not be given, but in a society that values inorance and foolhardiness over the tlame confession I once read on these pages "Hey! I Got bill sto pay and a living to make." (or words to that affect) what the hell can be expected?

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Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
Ezra Pound
The only good is knowledge...

The point is simple: If you don't have money, you don't count.
The more money you have, the more you count.

Period.

I also have no doubt that Gordon Campbell has been caught DUI here in BC more times than once, but due to the position etc he has, he got away scott free.

Maybe one of these days, a civic minded tree will jump out in fron of his car while he's sauced and put him out of our misery.

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

Great article, thank you Mr. Mathews.

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These days, if you are not confused, you are not thinking clearly. Mrs. Irene Peters

Ah yes, where would Vive be without the disjointed turd-flinging, spleen-venting and paranoia of the old gasbag Robin Mathews? And he even managed to throw a reference to the Nazis in. Now that's subtle.

The truth is the truth, no matter what form it comes in.

The function of ALL Liberal and Conservative governments in ths country has been to shovel public money into private pockets. Holds true right from Confederation, if not before.

Today's pissant governments have added a refinement however. They, through the use of elaborate smoke and mirrors, seek to divert attention away from this primary function. And the picayune government of Gordon Campbell is especially adept at this, rivalling even Mr. Bush's government, in all but scale.

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RickW

"Ah yes, where would Vive be without the disjointed turd-flinging, spleen-venting and paranoia of the old gasbag Robin Mathews? And he even managed to throw a reference to the Nazis in. Now that's subtle."

Yes, but I notice that nowhere in the above do you say that you either disagree or find any factual fault in his "rant".

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

Okay, here you go...

"What is an accepted fact is that the Gordon Campbell government has slashed almost all protections of people and environment in order pander to profit-making greed among predator Private Corporations."

How is this an "accepted fact"? It's an expression of opinion. And no, the onus should not be on me to disprove this kind of sweeping generalization. It should be on Mathews to substantiate it, which he does not. But since Mathews is a hit-and-run polemicist, he's not about to stoop to the pedestrian level of justifying his attacks. That's for us ordinary folks, not great poet-warriors like himself. Instead, he resorts to guilt by implication and association.

I can name about 30-40 people in the local forest district alone: fallers, foresters, etc who can tell you chapter and verse what Campbell's slash and burn policies have done to that industries safety record and to environmental standards enforcement.

That's just here in Prince George. I'm sure that if I spoke to friends and associates in Terrace, Hazelton, Smithers, etc I could easily increase that number by fivefold.

You might not like his style, but the man is telling the truth.

Whether or not you can accept that reality is something else entirely.

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

Sounds very much as though "individualist" is a bean counter and minutia minder. If a text forgets to dot an "i", the whole thing is thrown out with the bathwater....

What he demands by way of "proof" is the very thing that "experienced" politicians are so very good at applying goose grease to......

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RickW

It appears to me that Individualist has lost the ability to discern "self interest" from "enlightened self interest".

Enlightened self interest realizes that one is not alone, and that everything is interlocked. It also realizes that if it to survive, then it must take into account the consequences of it's choices. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

Self interest is merely a short sighted snatch and run without any thought to the outcome. It exists without regard to long term consequences.

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

There comes a point where exaggeration for effect crosses into cheap demagoguery or even plain dishonesty. One good hint for when such a crossing has been made is the careless tossing around of comparisons or references to Nazis. Another is presenting something as "an accepted fact" when it's nothing of the kind. It's hardly bean-counting to hold bitter old academics to the same standards of debate as anyone else.

It boggles my mind just how ideologically polarized politics is in BC. Each side seems to literally think that the other is Satan (or perhaps more accurately, Stalin or Hitler, depending on who we're talking about).

Let me ask you one thing. How over the top does Mathews have to get before you find it objectionable? Does he have to accuse Campbell of eating babies?

"Enlightened self interest realizes that one is not alone, and that everything is interlocked. It also realizes that if it to survive, then it must take into account the consequences of it's choices. Nothing exists in a vacuum."

The problem is that some people embrace the "interlocking" precisely as a way to avoid the consequences of their own actions.

I screwed up, but hey, you're your brother's keeper, so it's your job to bail me out of trouble. Oh, did I screw up again? Well, good thing you and I are so interlocked.

When the Berlin Wall fell, I (naively) thought that we would move beyond the simply left-right dichotomy. But there will always be leftists, as long as there are people who believe that the value of whatever it is they have to offer should not be measured by whether other people actually want it.