MEDIA RELEASE
April 20, 2009
Williams Lake — NDP MLA Charlie Wyse says it’s long past time for the RCMP to investigate the BC Rail deal and Liberal insider Patrick Kinsella’s involvement in the giveaway of a key provincial asset.
“Gordon Campbell broke his election promise not to sell BC Rail, and people in the Cariboo-Chilcotin have been dealing with the fallout of that bad privatization deal ever since” said Wyse. “As MLA, I received numerous complaints about CN ignoring the concerns of the communities in our area, especially cattlemen trying to make a living along the right of way, and local industry set back by the lack of supply of railcars to move their products.”
NDP MLA Leonard Krog has sent a letter today to the RCMP requesting an investigation, and Wyse says recent media reports that Kinsella was being paid by both BC Rail and CN while the privatization deal was being made are deeply disturbing.
“The BC Rail sale stinks of scandal,” Wyse said. “The public deserves to know what happened, why the Liberal Party’s campaign director appears to have benefited so richly from the deal, what he was being paid to do, and why Gordon Campbell didn’t put a stop to it. We’ve been trying to get answers to these questions in the Legislature for months, but all we’ve got is stonewalling. Maybe the RCMP can force the Liberals to answer.”
(What do legal experts think of "It's before the courts"? Check out Ducking Questions in The Tyee. )
