A Scandal, to make Sir John A proud!

What is it with the railroads and chicanery in Canada! Once again BC is in the centre of scandal involving a railroad, last time it was the good ole CPR (or as the farmers on the Prairies call it, that GD CPR)in the eye of the storm. Then Prime Minister Sir John A McDonald, involved in some early day money laundering for his own benefit.

Now, it's the billion dollar sale of BC Rail to the CNR, that has the scandal meter rising fast. Back in December when the Mounties raided the legislature, in a swirl of secrecy, boxfile after boxfile after boxfile were taken out of offices and loaded into a waiting van. The sealed warrants (and sealed lips) leaving British Columbians (and maybe a few interested, though not surprised Canadians as well) wondering what the hell was going on in Victoria these days.

The Warrants were unsealed yesterday, giving us a small peek at what was up on that Boxing Week afternoon. And it seems that a lot of the interest was in the BC Rail file, and whether insiders in the government were involved in some self rewarding behavior. At the time, one government official was fired and another suspended in the fallout over the raids.

In the months and days leading up to the BC Rail sale, there were complaints from two of the potential buyers that the bidding process was not fair. In fact Canadian Pacific said as much, in a letter to the Premier. That bit of information and the release of the warrants yesterday has the Opposition NDP up in arms and demanding the resignation of Finance Minister Gary Collins. It was Collin's department where the government officials under investigation were involved. While the warrants specify no publicly elected official as being suspect, it seems that the underlings are causing their political masters more than a few restless nights.

For his part Premier Gordon Campbell is sticking to his guns, claiming that Collins has no reason to resign. He also added that the integrity of the arrangement with CNR will prove itself correct, as the deal continues on it's path to consumation. It's interesting to note that after 130 years of BC History, once again the railroad is at the centre of scandal. One wonders if history can indeed repeat itself, we wait to see if the Premeir will suffer the same fate of Sir John A at the time!