The interim report of Commissioner William Davies, Commissioner of Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Frank Paul, has been released to the public, more than a month after it was delivered to the Attorney General of British Columbia. The report says that the justice system failed Frank Paul and his family and calls for sweeping reforms, including eliminating the current approach of having police investigating police when they are implicated in a civilian death.

The entire report is available online at www.frankpaulinquiry.ca.

The public comments of Mr. Davies, a well-respected former British Columbia Supreme Court justice, can be found here:

REMARKS OF COMMISSIONER Press Conference March 12 2009

The report is not complete, as the Attorney General has appealed a BC Supreme Court decision upholding Commissioner Davies’ order that the Crown prosecutors involved in the case testify at the inquiry. That aspect of the case, that centers on the Crown’s repeated decisions to lay no charges, has been argued and we are awaiting a decision from the Court of Appeal.

That said, it is hard to avoid the unsettling notion that anyone other than a uniformed police officer who had caused a death like Frank Paul’s would have been charged with criminal negligence causing death in no time.

May 27, 2009 update: WE WIN, AGAINST ALL ODDS! Read the decision of the Honourable Mr. Justice Pitfield here:

Judge Pitfield, re Heyes v. City of Vancouver,05-27.pdf

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April 3, 2009 update: The trial of Susan Heyes’ Inc. dba Hazel & Co.’s claim for damages for nuisance caused by Canada Line construction ended today with the Honourable Mr. Justice Pitfield advising the parties that judgment will be reserved.

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March 31, 2009 update: The parties’ closing submissions have been scheduled to commence Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. before the Honourable Mr. Justice Pitfield in courtroom 33, The Law Courts, 800 Smithe Street, Vancouver. The closing submissions are anticipated to be completed by Friday, April 3, 2009.

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March 18, 2009 update: The Court heard testimony from former BC Finance Minister Carole Taylor and a City of Vancouver engineer, Lon LaClaire. Tomorrow’s witnesses are expected to include former city councillor Anne Roberts and Hazel & Co.’s store manager, Lynn Cromie.

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March 13, 2009 update: We have consented to a request from the Defendants’ lawyers that the trial start Wednesday, March 18, 2009 and that certain preliminary motions be heard on Monday, March 16, 2009. The Defendants are applying for orders that notices compelling Kevin Falcon and Carole Taylor to attend as adverse witnesses be set aside, as well as an order that documents be subject to a confidentiality order.

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The trial of a Cambie Street small business’ claim for damages due to cut and cover construction disruption is scheduled to start in British Columbia Supreme Court on Monday, March 16, 2009.

The action involves Susan Heyes Inc. doing business as Hazel & Co. (Plaintiff) versus the City of Vancouver, the governments of BC and Canada, Translink, Canada Line Rapid Transit Inc. and InTransit BC Limited Partnership (Defendants) and is filed under Action no. S054152 in the Vancouver Registry.

The Plaintiff alleges that the Defendants’ actions, including misrepresentation and private nuisance, caused it business losses and seeks general, special, aggravated exemplary and punitive damages, interest and costs. None of the allegations have been proven in Court.

The trial is expected to last three weeks and hear testimony from a number of key government witnesses.

March 10 Update:

Here is the touching song by Kendel Carson and Chip Taylor called “I Don’t Want to Live on a Street”:

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As the Braidwood Commission of Inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski plods along, one thing should be apparent to the most casual observer; when the RCMP investigates itself, the interests of justice are not well-served.

Strip away the obfuscation created by a couple of dozen lawyers and their well-rehearsed clients, and the basic facts are now pretty clear. Four burly, well-armed male members of Canada’s national police force confronted a confused, weary, disoriented, unarmed immigrant and immediately shot him repeatedly with the “less than lethal” Taser. He expired as the RCMP stood around waiting for medical attention to arrive. Incidentally, these basic facts do not resemble the self-serving description that RCMP media spokesperson Pierre Lemaitre gave the public after the event, and before bystander Paul Pritchard’s video surfaced.

Were it not for the amateur video, the RCMP would have successfully covered up the fatality, like so many others, and there would have been no multimillion dollar public inquiry into the affair. Sure, this inquiry will have a predictable result; the Commissioner will be urged to put himself in the police officers’ shoes – they didn’t know how much of a threat they were facing, Dziekanski was non-compliant and combative, they followed their training, blah, blah, blah -and there may be some recommendations about better airport services, better communication, better police training etc., but hopefully the public will see the single biggest issue.

Our criminal justice system is biased in favour of police officers. They get breaks and benefits that no other civilians receive. When they make serious mistakes resulting in a civilian death, their colleagues close ranks around them and ensure that they will not face the accountability that the law demands of the rest of us.

We need a new system and we need it now, before the next unfortunate person, like Robert Dziekanski, Ian Bush or Kevin St. Arnaud, is killed by the RCMP in this province. We need to have immediate independent investigations performed by a civilian investigative team that reports to an independent prosecutor. This isn’t rocket science, but the powerful police lobby will fight these necessary changes tooth and nail.

A former environmental activist with the Friends of Clayoquot Sound has won an appeal of a lower court decision awarding Creative Salmon Company Ltd. damages for defamation. The west coast salmon farming company had sued Don Staniford for damages as a result of two press releases he authored about the company. At the end of a twelve day trial, the judge found that the releases had defamed Creative Salmon and ordered that Staniford pay damages of $15,000. The Court of Appeal has found that the trial judge erred in applying the law and has set aside the decision and ordered a new trial.

The result means that Staniford will be relieved from any obligation to pay Creative Salmon at least $100,000 which includes the judgment, court costs of $75,000 for trial and estimated appeal costs of $10,000. He should recover some of his costs as well.

We had only a peripheral role in the case, representing the interests of Friends of Clayoquot Sound, but we welcome this major victory and congratulate Mr. Staniford and his lawyers for standing up to the bullying tactics of the plaintiff.

Read the decision here: 2009 BCCA 61 Creative Salmon Company Ltd v. Staniford

‘Pro-business’ provincial government refuses to provide just compensation
Geoff Olson, Vancouver Courier
Published: Friday, February 06, 2009

For many Vancouver retailers, the Canada Line might as well have been a neutron bomb. Stores were left standing during construction, but customers vapourized. As I wrote last week, Mark Kenna and Alex Barker experienced the fallout firsthand from the transit project, losing control of their retail gift business Obsessions. The company is now filing for bankruptcy.

“We’ve struggled with debt and interest we normally wouldn’t have had in the course of this business because of the Canada Line, that’s stayed with us there all these years, and its been in the there behind us, dragging us down and down and down,” Alex Barker said in an interview. Obsessions’ three remaining stores have closed as a result of the mounting costs associated with their Yaletown location, and the couple are struggling to keep their apartment on English Bay.

The refusal of the B.C. government to compensate merchants along the Canada Line is something of a provincial mystery. Not so much a whodunit as a why-won’t-they. The mystery is compounded by the B.C. government’s recent offer to Tsawwassen homeowners to buy up their homes in the wake of the town’s power line debacle. Go figure: the reported health risks from high-tension wires rest on hotly debated statistics, yet the Canada Line’s ongoing damage to Vancouver retail outlets have been in plain sight for years.

As new immigrants to Canada 12 years ago, we had nothing,” Barker elaborated in an email. “No past business record, no credit history and no credibility. We earned all of that in spades over the following eight years. Then Canada Line stripped us of all of it.” At its height, the prize-winning Obsessions had 34 employees. “For eight years we built this wonderful business, and we had wonderful people.”

For Barker, the price has been higher than a trashed credit rating. One day last fall, a perfect storm of bad breaks and worse news pushed him over the edge. He and his partner had been to Royal Bank trying to negotiate a rescue package to refinance their business and pay off existing debts. Their loan was turned down, and the same day the couple learned the sale of their Denman street location had been turned down. Barker came home ” devastated and worried sick.” He drank a mickey of vodka, and took some of his partners’ sleeping and anti-anxiety pills. Kenna called for an ambulance, and doctors revived Barker at St. Paul’s hospital. “It was a wakeup call for me to stop the madness,” the businessman says in retrospect. “I wouldn’t say my home and business isn’t worth it, of course it is, but to let the government have taken me to that point…”

Barker says they have received virtually no help from Canada Line representatives or local politicians. “The government suddenly takes it away from you and you have that feeling you are totally powerless to do anything about it. I petitioned Lorne Mayencourt, petitioned Hedy Fry, Tim Stevenson, I had meetings with them all–dead end, dead end, dead end. It was absolutely crushing.”

Today Barker appears healthy and centred. Kenna is the one struggling for the right words to describe how he’s dealing with the epic dimensions of their years-long struggle. “I suspect again that this whole experience will offer me wisdom, strength for the next phase of my life. I am a very positive person and love the excitement of starting something or inspiring someone else through my own life lessons. I try each day to make sure I put a little time aside for myself to relax and reflect and focus on what I need to do the next day to keep me moving forward.”

He struggles with what’s been “taken away from us” by the Canada Line and the B.C. government. “I do believe that justice will be served. I do not care so much about the money, but I do care that they should be held responsible and accountable for what they did… it’s not right, it was cruel, total disregard and disrespect for our rights and principle and basically morally unjust. I still have a hard time thinking that this travesty happened here, in Vancouver, in British Columbia…. for God’s sake, this is Canada.”

Theirs is only one story of transit line hardship, Kenna adds. “Sixty or 70 stores have now closed… there are other people facing even more hardship than us.”

The pair are now looking for employment of any kind in Vancouver. It’s apparent to me these are two responsible, hard-working entrepreneurs, who had the misfortune to have a business in the way of a transit megaproject. Two assets to the local retail community, Barker and Kenna got shafted by the provincial government, which still has the unmitigated gall to present itself as the champions of small business in B.C.

Compensation is long, long overdue for merchants along the Canada Line.

www.geoffolson.com