Vancouver Province
for March 14, 1999

Hey, folks, are we missing something with this bit about the raid on Glen Clark’s house? I mean what about this gaming license that’s being tossed around so lightly? We know all about the problems this government is having but what about the casual way we treat the backgrounds and reputations of those getting licenses to print money?

The "procedure" for getting a casino license is, if you try to wade through the government spider’s web of commissions and corporations looks like one would never ever be granted but now we know that in at least one case, a single minister and a junior one at that has the only – not just the final – but the only say-so!

And in targeting Glen Clark – who deserves to be the bullseye for so many catastrophes – are we not missing the fact that Minister Mike Farnworth either dissembled (lying being an unparliamentary word) or was grossly incompetent?

The self appointed damage control chief for all matters New Democrat in the province and indeed the country is Svend Robinson. (I can’t help but note in passing that Ed Broadbent was quick off the mark to condemn the RCMP yet not a peep was heard when it was Bill Vander Zalm whose personal privacy was invaded every minute of every day none years ago … but of course Easy Ed hadn’t taken the six figure, I dare not say bribe, to leave Parlaiment. But I digress.) If Mr Robinson is given long enough he’ll hang not only himself but everyone he’s protecting and last Monday on my show he did just that. Why, said suave Svend, everyone, I mean everyone knew that the Lumbermen’s Club was a nest of illegal gambling with connections to the bikers. (For those who have been in Outer Mongolia for the past couple of weeks, that’s the club that the Premier’s personal contractor and a creep named NG got the gambling license for.) Why, says Svend, everyone knows that – it’s notorious!

Right. Leaving aside my series of questions to Svend which, trust me had him on the canvas, about why he as MP didn’t blow the whistle – that being his game – if this fact was so notorious how come the Gaming Commission, who vetted the two Burnaby proposals didn’t hear of it? Don’t these folks know about notorious facts about the applicants for gaming licenses? But more importantly, why didn’t the gaming Czar, Mr Farnworth know of it? Remember, gang, the NDP started this destination casino mess and they assured us over and over again that they were concerned about the criminal element getting into gambling. That’s why blah, blah, blah. They knew that a casino with 300 slot machines was not only, literally, a machine to make money but that it was ideal for laundering drug money. Yet Mike Farnworth gave a man who the whole community knew was running an illegal gambling operation and his buddy Ng who specializes in strip joints and lewd websites a destination casino license.

But – and this is surely the nub of the matter – if the entire community of Burnaby knew about this joint and the guy that ran it, as Svend with a knowing chuckle admits, how come Glen Clark didn’t know?

Mr Clark lives next door to Burnaby. His neighbour, good friend and personal house fixer upper Dimitrios 8888888 ran an illegal card game which made about $500 an hour 24 hours a day. Are we to believe that the subject of gambling never came up in their conversations as they had a beer or watched their kids play hockey? Is it even barely credible that Premier Clark lived where he lived, mixed with whom he mixed with and was a political pal of the MP Svend Robinson, yet had no inkling that his buddy was into illegal gambling up to his armpits? As the Duke of Wellington responded to the man who, when meeting him on the street, said "Mr Smith, I believe", "if you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything."

Quite apart from all the hullaballoo about the search warrant and the failure of the Premier to report an obvious conflict of interest to the Conflict of Interest Commissioner and forgetting for the moment this breathtaking assertion that the Premier had nothing to say to anyone about his pal’s gaming license application, this business shows gross neglect of duty. Nothing less.

When you add it all up – the failed jobs program, the inane Forest Renewal Fund, the ongoing fisheries bungle where he’s managed to make David Anderson look good, a daunting task indeed, the fudged budgets and the fast cat ferry fiasco, this must be the most incompetent government in the history of this province and that is indeed saying a mouth full.