TAVIS W. DODDS: GANGSTA GOVERNMENT? ‘Project Everywhichway,’ Jasmohan Singh Bains’ conviction + 2003 police raid on BC Legislature

CCC Reprint from Victoria Street Newz, May 2009, page 2

streetnewz@islandnet.com

 

Nine people were arrested for drug charges just after officers raided the BC Legislature in 2003.  One of those arrested, Jasmohan Singh Bains, was sentenced to nine months for trafficking a dozen kilos of cocaine and conspiring to traffic 50 kilos per week to Toronto.  It was wiretaps of his phone that led investigators to discover severe discrepancies in the privatization of BC Rail.  The Bains sentencing has become legendary amongst citizen jounalist circles as an example of a newsworthy story ignored by Big Media.  The story was broken by an online entity known as BC Mary acting on an anonymous tip.  Five months later Ian Mulgrew mentioned the incident in his Vancouver Sun column.

It’s hard to believe that connections between provincial government and organized crime could be ignored, especially when organized crime has been one of the biggest news stories for several months, but it gets easier to believe what with the recent revelations of media manipulations by the BC Liberals.  Recently disclosed documents reveal that an office exists to monitor and spin media from 7 am to 9 pm, which explains a lot of the comments that show up in the media and online.  Campbell had his aid pose as a caller to throw easy questions at him on a radio talk show.  Only softened reporters like Michael Smythe get interviews, and the answers to these interviews are controlled by outside sources.  When Cabinet Ministers writer Op/Ed pieces for the papers, they’re not really the ones writing them.

There’s a lot more than can be gone into here to do with BC Liberal corruption of the press, and there’s enough of it in this case and in the recently disclosed 8000 pages to create an essay on organized crime in BC media.  Don’t hold your breath looking for such an essay in BC media.  Bill Tieleman, of 24 hrs, has been following this story and has had his office burglarized, his colleagues fired, and his columns killed on advice from legal consultants.

There is a lot of speculation as to the cause of all these recent assassinations in the Greater Vancouver Region.  Some have blamed a proliferation of handguns, others blame the economy for rising crime, and a great bulk of analysis has focused on the drug industry (usually either the demerits of prohibition of the Mexican drug cartels targeted this month by US authorities).  Quoted in the Georgia Straight, Langara College Sociology professor Indira Prahst suggested former West Vancouver Police Chief Kash Heed would be well placed running as MLA in Vancouver’s East Side, as if the gangsters all live at Main and Hastings.

Most of the killings have been in wealthy neighbourhoods, or in Surrey.  It’s like how the Province newspaper can claim in its editorial section that the heroin junkies are to blame for our dead soldiers, when it seems much more likely that the fruits of this industry are being reaped by our elected officials, police officers, senior bureaucrats, and lobbyists.  It’s not so outlandish to think that our whole economy is being propped up by these criminal enterprises feasting on society.

Another speculation fed to us is that these killings are the result of wars between competing gangs.  A more believable explanation would be that this is how the mafia downsizes.  It’s much more like the scene in Goodfellas where all the possible leaks get killed off to protect those at the top.  When rival gangs in Montreal fight, it certainly doesn’t look like this.  It’s more messy.  At least a few of these high-profile murders have taken place in Gordon Campbell’s riding of Point Grey.

This issue is not going away.  We are going to be forced to listen as the issue of crime gets beaten to absurdity in coming weeks and months.  It conveniently justifies massive increases in security, infringements on civil liberties, criminalization of the poor, and the crucifixion of a few young scapegoats like Jasmohan Bains.  The real criminals (probably over the age of 45, earning more than 80k/yr, and never setting foot in East Van) are likely separated by fewer degrees from VANOC, City Hall, Gordon Campbell, and the top cops than they are separated from the guys with an ounce or two of contraband in their possession.

For more information check BC Mary’s blog: bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com

Tavis has been floating back and forth across Canada for 5 years of solidarity with the homeless, as both a homeless person and a homeless activist.

CCC