Wednesday, November 21, 2007

 

Brian Kieran to Erik Bornman: "Get Omnitrax together with the new CEO of Partnerships B.C. ...."

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Hansard blues 21 November 2007:

Afternoon Sitting

KPMG REPORT ON ACTIONS OF PAUL TAYLOR

L. Krog: Over a month ago the government released only a summary reporting letter from KPMG into the activities of Mr. Paul Taylor and the B.C. Automobile Dealers Association.

In this House on May 29, the Premier promised that the full review, the terms of reference, the documentation, the process undertaken, the steps taken and the full report will be made available on completion of the review.

The summary reporting letter does not meet the Premier's promised standard. It is quite simply a whitewash, and so my question is very simple. Will the Minister of Finance live up to the government's promise to this House and direct forthwith the release of the full KPMG report as promised?

Hon. C. Taylor: As has been said in this House, when the proper FOI process has been completed, information will be released.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

L. Krog: It's very clear that that process appears to be more of a delaying tactic than a process.

The opposition has received a further relevant e-mail dated January 27, 2003, from Mr. Kieran to Mr. Bornman, part of which reads: "Just got a call from Paul Taylor's wife. She is his message bearer. He suggests we get Omnitrax together with Larry Blain, the new CEO of Partnerships B.C., the P3 agency that Paul engineered. Larry is on holiday at the moment. Paul says all partnerships with government including BCR will be funded by Partnerships. We'll put this together next week."

This clearly shows that the real issue is the relationship between Mr. Taylor and Pilothouse, which KPMG was not instructed to investigate. This e-mail shows that Mr. Taylor was providing Pilothouse with a range of information dealing with the most sensitive and confidential government matters.

Will the Minister of Finance do the right thing and launch today a full inquiry with real powers to investigate the activities of Mr. Taylor?

Hon. C. Taylor: When the information came forward to the Premier's office, an investigation was launched with KPMG, a reputable firm. They found in their results that, in fact, there was no wrongdoing by Mr. Taylor.

If any new information is available, I would suggest that the opposition make it available to the Premier's office.

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Comments:
who is paul taylor and what does his wife have to do with anything?
 
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You haven't been paying attention, then, have you, cj?

Dang.

For a minute, I was hoping you were the Chief Justice.

Sigh.

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Paul Taylor is the president and CEO of ICBC, a position he took up in October 2004. Before that he was the Deputy Minister of Finance and Secretary to Treasury Board with the BC government.

Taylor has also served on the boards of a number of Crown corporations including Rapid Transit Project 2000, Forestry Innovation Investment, Land and Water BC, the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project, and PavCo (BC Pavilion Corporation). In addition, he played a key role in the establishment of Partnerships British Columbia. He is, or was, a director of the Conference Board of Canada.

Mr. Taylor joined the BC provincial public service from the BC Automobile Dealers Association (BCADA), where he was President and Chief Executive Officer.


Before that Taylor was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at TransAlta, where he was central to the implementation of TransAlta's growth strategy and its transformation from a regulated utility to an unregulated power generation company.

The controversy here involves his communications with lobbyists from Pilothouse who were working for the BCADA while Taylor was Deputy Minister of Finance - and during the time the Erik Bornmann was involved in paying bribes to Basi and Virk in connection with the sale of BCRail to CN....

The rest, as they say, is history.
 
I happened to be watching Question Period today, as Mr. Krog brought forward this little gem in the Leg; as usual, you are on the mark with your up to minute news, Mary.

My ears detected the deafening silence coming from the Campbell Crew as this 'new evidence' contained in a little email, was dropped like stealth bomb vs the usual inane comments hurled at the Opposition on most days.

Seems the cat got their tongues on this one.

Body language spoke volumes: my eyes spied the sullen down turned mouths on Min. Les & Christianson seated directly behind the Finance Minister who was clearly at a loss, on hearing this nugget of truth land in the Leg . . . an omen perhaps of of the tangled web unraveling.

Bring it on Judge Bennett.
 
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