Martyn Brown, chief of staff to Premier Gordon Campbell and the most powerful unelected official in British Columbia, was forced to defend his boss’s record of broken election promises in court Wednesday.
As the first witness in a political corruption trial involving allegations of fraud and breach of trust against three former government officials, Mr. Brown was hit by a barrage of questions about how the Liberals promised not to sell BC Rail during the 2001 election campaign – only to put it up for sale the next year.
“Gordon Campbell’s modus operandi is to make promises and then break them,” Kevin McCullough, defence lawyer for Bobby Virk, said in the Supreme Court of B.C. as he cross-examined Mr. Brown.
“I disagree,” said Mr. Brown, who gave careful, precise answers, mostly looking across the courtroom at the jury, not at his questioner.
“What about the HST?” fired back Mr. McCullough, referring to a controversial and unpopular post-election decision by the Liberals to accept a harmonized sales tax with the federal government after having rejected the notion during the campaign.
“I think the government has paid a heavy political price [for that],” Mr. Brown said. “[But] I think that is very different than BC Rail.”
He said the government decided to put BC Rail up for bids after a review of core government assets showed the railway was deeply in debt and had been losing money.
And Mr. Brown disputed that the railway had in fact been sold – it went to CN Rail for $1-billion in 2003 – saying the rolling stock had been leased, the rail bed right-of-way retained and the government has the option to buy it back, at fair market price, when the contract expires.
“The entire media described it as the sale of BC Rail, not this spin you’ve described to the jury .... because it is a sale ... 990 years is what that lease is,” said Mr. McCullough, referring to the total potential length of the deal, which initially goes for 90 years, with 15 renewal options of 60 years each.
Mr. McCullough also said BC Rail made a profit in 2001 and accused the government of adopting a “failure strategy” for the railway, which was designed to make it unprofitable, in order to soften the public to the idea of a sale.
“No. I think that’s absurd,” replied Mr. Brown. “It would make no sense … the government does not get elected to cost the taxpayers money.”
He said anyone selling a business would want to make it profitable, to get the best price.
“Unless you were trying to drive the business into the ground,” to erode public resistance to a sale, said Mr. McCullough.
But Mr. Brown said any government that played that game would be “running the risk of getting unelected.”
Called to testify by the Crown, Mr. Brown had spent most the morning explaining the importance of government confidentiality.
He said public servants have to swear a number of oaths to protect privileged information they encounter in the course of their jobs.
“It’s vitally important … that the public have full confidence and trust in the people serving in public office on their behalf,” he said. “You have to be beyond reproach. It’s the integrity of the government that’s at issue.”
Mr. Virk, who was an assistant to then transportation minister Judith Reid, Dave Basi, who was an assistant to then finance minister Gary Collins, and Aneal Basi, who was a low-level government communications officer, are charged with trading in confidential government information surrounding the sale of BC Rail.
The Crown is alleging that Mr. Virk and Dave Basi traded inside information to Pilothouse Public Affairs, a Victoria lobbying firm representing OmniTrax Inc., a U.S. firm that made an unsuccessful bid for BC Rail.
The trial is expected to continue for six weeks.
