Tuesday, January 02, 2007

 

MARK MARISSEN CONTROVERSY, as told by the Indo-Canadian VOICE ONLINE

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This story may surprise many readers. It is written by an Indo-Canadian who fears (rightly or wrongly) that his community is being politically undermined. This is the only example I could find in which racism is mentioned, as portrayed in Gary Mason's 23 December 2006 story in The Globe and Mail. Sincere thanks to the editor of VOICE ONLINE for permission to republish his entire article (below). - BC Mary.
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From Indo-Canadian VOICE ONLINE - 30 December 2006
http//www.voiceonline.com/voice/thisweek/headline3.php

MARK MARISSEN CONTROVERSY


Decent Indo-Canadians should beware of Mark Marissen's manipulations

By RATTAN MALL


Mark Marissen - the person who as former prime minister Paul Martin's chief hatchet man in B.C. sabotaged the highly respected former federal minister Herb Dhaliwal's nomination and parachuted Gulzar Cheema into the Fleetwood-Port Kells federal riding, bullying one Indo-Canadian candidate to quit and shamelessly sabotaging another Indo-Canadian's attempt to get democratically nominated from that riding - is back in power in the federal Liberal party because he was the newly elected leader Stephane Dion's campaign manager.

So decent Indo-Canadians have to be wary of this man once again - and if anyone experiences bullying or sabotage from him, please do not hesitate to contact The VOICE. Of course, there are other Indo-Canadians who will allow themselves to be used by him - just like Shinder Purewal, who Marissen and the notorious so-called Basi boys used to sabotage Dhaliwal in his Vancouver South riding in 2002, and Gulzar Cheema did in 2004 federal election, only to make utter fools of themselves. Purewal was ordered to step aside so that NDP deserter Ujjal Dosanjh could be parachuted into the riding and Cheema was badly humiliated by Conservative candidate Nina Grewal, a rookie in politics.

Interestingly, even Marissen's wife, former deputy premier of B.C., Christy Clark, showed the same opportunism last year when she suddenly decided to try for the NPA nomination for Vancouver's mayor's election but lost to Sam Sullivan. All of her hubby's contacts and manipulative ways couldn't help her.

But let me go into some of the details of Marissen's operations that The VOICE exposed and vehemently opposed over the past years.

For instance, [I wrote] in an article on January 3, 2004, in The VOICE entitled, "Raid at the B.C.Legilstaure: How Basi boys and Paul Martin's white B.C. boys disgraced Indo-Canadian community".

However, the equally big story that has emerged from this case is about the DISGRACE that the kind of BULLYING AND UNPRINCIPLED politics of the Basi boys has brought upon the Indo-Canadian community.

The most shocking episode was the way in which the highly respected Herb Dhaliwal was stabbed in the back by Shinder Purewal, who was put on the scene by the Basi boys, as the mainstream media itself has been reporting all week.
The VOICE readers know how I had been exposing this filthy politics that was being openly encouraged by Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Martin's WHITE guys used us BROWN guys for their own selfish ambition - only to bring disgrace upon all of us. And we have only ourselves to blame.

Martin's NAKED POWER GRAB to kick out Jean Chretien meant NO PRINCIPLES.

Is this the kind of Prime Minister we can be proud of?

In my honest and blunt (as always) opinion: Paul Martin himself is a disgrace!

I am reproducing all the relevant facts from my stories exposing this disgrace since October last year so that The VOICE readers can see what KIND OF PATTERN was developing all along - something that Martin and his closest advisors knew about. So when this scandal broke, many readers phoned to tell me HOW CORRECT this paper had been all along as usual.

In fact, The Globe and Mail newspaper, Canada's highly respected national paper, reported that "former Sheila Copps supporter Greg Wilson, a member of the B.C. Liberal executive from 1996 to 1999, said that Basi and his young Liberal friends were known as "Basi's Boys" - well-dressed young men who drove good cars and in no way resembled the typical T-shirt-and-jean-clad young Liberal.

"The Basi Boys were involved in a battle launched by Mr. Marissen that saw the Martin camp take over Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal's riding association last November, Mr. Wilson said.

"Mr. Dhaliwal, the first Indo-Canadian federal cabinet minister, was a staunch supporter of former prime minister Jean Chretien and the political minister for B.C. It was a humiliating defeat for him and revealed the divisions within his community as well as the Liberal Party.

"Meanwhile, Mr. Basi's ethnicity, organizational skills and aggressiveness made him an attractive prospect for a job in Ottawa with Mr. Martin."

The story also brings about the HYPOCRISY of the PROVINCIAL LIBERALS as well.

First of all, Premier Gordon Campbell had reportedly asked people working for the provincial party not to meddle in federal politics. Yet the Basi boys were doing so openly.

What is more, their boss was none other than the husband of Deputy Premier and Education Minister Christy Clark - Mark Marissen.

Meanwhile, Herb Dhaliwal is demanding that the Premier explain how two members of the political staff of his ministers were undermining a Cabinet Minister (Dhaliwal was then the federal Natural Resources Minister and the political minister for B.C.) even while they were being paid as full-time members of his provincial setup.

Dhaliwal pointed out that at that very time he was actually helping out Campbell's government with federal funds and other things. He said Campbell should ask his Finance and Transport ministers some tough questions about this.

However, with politicians being the kind of people they are, don't expect the ministers to come clean. The obvious answer will be that they weren't involved in Dhaliwal's riding.

Yeah, right!

Marissen's UNDEMOCRATIC and DICTORIAL behaviour was also clearly reflected in the way Cheema was parachuted into the Fleetwood-Port Kells riding while bullying Surjit Kooner, a former Surrey school trustee, to quit and sabotaging Jaswinder Toor's nomination.

In that incident, Marissen actually got back to me with his own version (The VOICE of March 27, 2004) in which he claimed that there had been a misunderstanding with Kooner and that Toor was late in filing his nomination.

So I carried both Toor and Marissen's version in this paper - and you could clearly see how Toor's nomination was blatantly sabotaged.

So that readers interested in having a second look at that controversy can judge for themselves, I am carrying those two articles again this week at www.voiceonline.com.

Read them carefully.

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http//www.voiceonline.com/voice/thisweek/headline3.php

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Comments:
Great to see this article from Indo-Canadain media. They are big players in the legislature raid and to fully understand how the Liberal Party does their ethnic organizing, we have to know the details of how Mark Marrissen operates and expose his sociopathic manipulation.

I would like to see more articles from the Indo-Canadian press including those from the Times as well, even if they have to be translated.

I don't know what Basi and his organizers were thinking though when they worked on a campaign for the BC Liberal Party who used the KKK slogan "one law for all" as the cornerstone of their aboriginal policy.

Who would not have anything but utter contempt for people who work to promote such a policy - especially visible minorities. And now contempt is what they are receiving from Bornmann.


It is interesting that on some industrial farms in BC, the workers are purposely divided along linguistic lines, so that the foremen are French speakers and field workers are English and Punjabi speaking. So, if you are a field worker and have a complaint, it is hard to get your point across to the Quebecois foreman who may just act as though he does not to understand you.

Similarly, it would be easy for Dion to pretend not to understand the problems in the Indo-Canadian community. As well,Marrissen has probably been told to keep Dion in the dark about the conditions of party organizing in the BC Indo community. Do you think Dion would even care about getting reliable info on the Indo-Canadian community anyways? Ah, ignorance is bliss.
 
since all the parties have Indo-Canadians supporters, and MP's I don't think they aren't particularly silent on issues.

It's really easy to read more stories from ethnic news papers, just go find them on line. Or drop into a store in the community of your choice and pick up a paper copy.
If you are in the Vancouver area try listening to Co-Op radio, lots of ethnic groups there. dl
 
So, Mark Marissen, as a campaign organizer, stopped some people from running in an election. So he took over Herb Dhaliwal's riding for Paul Martin. Was Mark a racist for getting Ujjal Dosanjh to run instead of Shinder Purewal? Gulzar Cheema instead of Jas Toor?

Sounds like heavy-handed politics to me. But it doesn't sound like racism.

The editor of the Indo Canadian VOICE is a personal friend of Herb Dhaliwal's. He cries "racism" whenever it suits him. He is even more biased than Gary Mason, who really belongs in these kinds of tabloids.

This is not useful for this site -- in fact, it makes a mockery of the serious issue of the legislature raids.
 
It's great to see the positive feedback on this story. Thanks especially to Anonymouse #1 for that inside information, all of which helps us understand the province we live in.

Anon #2: yes, I'm going to try reading the Indo-Canadian papers more often ... remembering, as I read, the editor Tara Singh Hayer, who was shot and crippled on the first attempt, shot and killed on the 2nd attempt, apparently displeasing somebody by being an editor.

Anon. #3: as the editor of this small inconsequential blog, I felt that Rattan Mall's opinions did provide a new and vivid look at the topic already raised in the Gary Mason article ... an article which, in my view, was trying to manipulate opinions and events connected to the legislature raids. But I must admit, I'm nowhere near as brave as the editor who wrote the following, in reply to a well-wisher who had tried to forewarn him:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rattan Mall editor@voiceonline.com
Date: Jan 3, 2007 12:14 AM
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks a lot. I know they are a bunch of scumbags and they hate my guts, but they can just go f--- themselves for all I care.
rattan
....................................................................

Me, I'd say that Rattan's opinions so far, make a mockery of anyone who tries to manipulate issues or events for their own benefit. And who care nothing for the public interest.
....................................................................
 
A certain 'Liberal' blogger has some interesting news for his readers just before Christmas.

Here's what Jonathan Ross posted to his blog:
December 20, 2006- So here is the latest from the Liberal gossip mill: It looks like in spite of Hedy Fry's recent nomination acclamation, the Vancouver Centre riding is being groomed for Christy Clark, former Deputy Premier and wife of Mark Marissen, who is surfing a wave of political stardom after guiding Stéphane Dion's campaign to victory. I am also hearing that Gary Collins, British Columbia's former Finance Minister, is eyeing Vancouver Quadra, a riding currently occupied by MP Stephen Owen. Mr. Collins just recently resigned from his post as president of Harmony Airways after two years with the Vancouver-based company.

Could it be that the recent rush of SPA posters to a couple of Wikipedia articles in an attempt to white-wash the REAL stories of Mark Marissen and his wife and Erik Bornmann and the connections of Liberal insiders to the Basi Boyz has something to do with Johnathan Ross's little scoup?

I wonder? It would be nice for all these ambitious 'Liberals' to start out the new year with a tabula rasa.
 
ccording to Bill Tieleman this evening in his blog, Clark was asked if she was going to run. Spector suggested she should and the naswer was NO. Mind you she retired once for her child but then attempted to become the mayor of vancouver. In politics the old expression is, never say never.
 
Gary Collins and Christy Clark are NOT running in the next federal election!

You heard it here first.
 
hope you've told Jonathan Ross. It was just a 'Liberal' rumour after all
 
Good one, In-da!

We already heard the rumour and Norman Spector's retort. Ha ha ha. Very funny indeed.

And Christy Clark became a stay-at-home Mom with her small son, Hamish, just like she said. And she didn't campaign to become Mayor of Vancouver, either.

Plus Gary Collins was returning to his true-love: flying, like he said. Ha ha ha ... Flying! As in Air Canada -- First Class -- Vancouver-Toronto-Ottawa and return, as in Frequent Flyer flying. Ha ha ha ha.

Ya gotta keep up, In-da-boy.

Betcha one trip to Tim Hortons and all the doughnuts you can eat at one sitting, that both Clark and Collins will be flying the Mark Marissen flag when the next federal election is called. OK?
 
Actually Mary, there is a non-stop Ottawa to Vancouver, return.....nicely scheduled too, for those weekends when Mr. Collins might want to spend a little quality time talkin' strategy with the rest of the old provincial gang waiting in the weeds for the Spidey sense to finally stop tingling for good.

.
 
MARISSEN COMES TO INDO-CANADIANS WITH BEGGING BOWL - BUT COMMUNITY DEMANDS PROPER REPRESENTATION
By RATTAN MALL


Federal Liberal bosses in B.C. - Mark Marissen and Bill Cunnigham - are back playing games with the Indo-Canadian community, just as The VOICE has warned the community in its December 30 issue in an article entitled: "Decent Indo-Canadians should beware of Mark Marissen's manipulations."

The same old Paul Martin gang has taken over the reins of power in this province and they don't seem to have learned anything as some Indo-Canadians found out to their dismay a couple of weeks ago at a December 7 meeting at Vancouver's Fraserview Hall.

The top federal Liberal leadership candidates - Stephane Dion, who won the leadership contest, Gerard Kennedy and Bob Rae - have racked up huge debts that run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

o whom do they turn to now?

Indo-Canadians!

That is why Marissen and his gang summoned some Indo-Canadians to suggest that they get about 1,000 supporters to hold a $100-a-plate fundraiser. That would net them a cool $100,000.

Though some Indo-Canadians, including, I am told, an M.P. from Surrey, were quite ready to lick the boots of these white masters, some showed some backbone and resisted these dictators.

They wanted to know why the Indo-Canadians had to be exploited in this way. Some suggested that the Chinese-Canadians and others also be included in a bigger fundraiser where tickets could be $10 per plate.

Also, Ujjal Dosanjh, M.P. for Vancouver South, who was parachuted into his riding after the Marissen gang sabotaged Herb Dhaliwal's campaign by using Shinder Purewal, was not present at the meeting. Some found that a bit odd.

Indo-Canadians are mighty pissed off that while these white politicians used them in the leadership race, no Indo-Canadian was appointed as co-chair of the party's B.C. election readiness committee.

Instead, two white people - Pam Macdonald, who was supporting Rae in the leadership contest, and Bruce Young, who was part of the Kennedy team and who supported Paul Martin's leadership bid way back in 1990 - were chosen as co-chairs by Marissen.

WHY WAS THE COMMUNITY NOT RECOGNIZED BY THESE UNGRATEFUL LIBERAL LEADERS?

That is the angry question that all respectable Indo-Canadians are now asking.

They argue that there is no dearth of competent Indo-Canadians to be appointed to responsible posts such as the co-chair of the election readiness committee. In fact, they point out, the co-chair for the Kennedy group in B.C. was an Indo-Canadian.

The fact is that Stephane Dion's camp had only some seven Indo-Canadians from B.C. while Gerard Kennedy had about 100 Indo-Canadians as did Bob Rae. Kennedy's supporters loyally followed his instructions and switched their support to Dion - Dion could NEVER have won without Indo-Canadian support from B.C. and Ontario.



In my article on Marissen just three weeks ago I had written the following:



Mark Marissen - the person who as former prime minister Paul Martin's chief hatchet man in B.C. sabotaged the highly respected former federal minister Herb Dhaliwal's nomination and parachuted Gulzar Cheema into the Fleetwood-Port Kells federal riding, bullying one Indo-Canadian candidate to quit and shamelessly sabotaging another Indo-Canadian's attempt to get democratically nominated from that riding - is back in power in the federal Liberal party because he was the newly elected leader Stephane Dion's campaign manager.

So decent Indo-Canadians have to be wary of this man once again - and if anyone experiences bullying or sabotage from him, please do not hesitate to contact The VOICE. Of course, there are other Indo-Canadians who will allow themselves to be used by him - just like Shinder Purewal, who Marissen and the notorious so-called Basi boys used to sabotage Dhaliwal in his Vancouver South riding in 2002, and Gulzar Cheema did in 2004 federal election, only to make utter fools of themselves. Purewal was ordered to step aside so that NDP deserter Ujjal Dosanjh could be parachuted into the riding and Cheema was badly humiliated by Conservative candidate Nina Grewal, a rookie in politics.

Interestingly, even Marissen's wife, former deputy premier of B.C., Christy Clark, showed the same opportunism last year when she suddenly decided to try for the NPA nomination for Vancouver's mayor's election but lost to Sam Sullivan. All of her hubby's contacts and manipulative ways couldn't help her.



Then I referred to my article of January 3, 2004, in The VOICE entitled, "Raid at the B.C. Legislature: How Basi boys and Paul Martin's white B.C. boys disgraced Indo-Canadian community," in which I wrote:



However, the equally big story that has emerged from this case is about the DISGRACE that the kind of BULLYING AND UNPRINCIPLED politics of the Basi boys has brought upon the Indo-Canadian community.

The most shocking episode was the way in which the highly respected Herb Dhaliwal was stabbed in the back by Shinder Purewal, who was put on the scene by the Basi boys, as the mainstream media itself has been reporting all week.

The VOICE readers know how I had been exposing this filthy politics that was being openly encouraged by Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Martin's WHITE guys used us BROWN guys for their own selfish ambition - only to bring disgrace upon all of us. And we have only ourselves to blame.

Martin's NAKED POWER GRAB to kick out Jean Chretien meant NO PRINCIPLES.



I also wrote the following:



Marissen's UNDEMOCRATIC and DICTORIAL behaviour was also clearly reflected in the way Cheema was parachuted into the Fleetwood-Port Kells riding while bullying Surjit Kooner, a former Surrey school trustee, to quit and sabotaging Jaswinder Toor's nomination.

In that incident, Marissen actually got back to me with his own version (The VOICE of March 27, 2004) in which he claimed that there had been a misunderstanding with Kooner and that Toor was late in filing his nomination.

So I carried both Toor and Marissen's version in this paper - and you could clearly see how Toor's nomination was blatantly sabotaged.



If you want to read all the details, you can go to the Archives section (December 30) at www.voiceonline.com.
 
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