Coun. Raymond Louie has threatened legal action in response to a Global news report that suggested the Vision Vancouver councillor was a suspect in the ongoing investigation into who leaked news of the $100-million Olympic Village bailout.
“The story that aired at 6 p.m. last night on Global TV casts aspersions on me that are completely untrue,” Louie told a Thursday afternoon news conference.
“I am considering legal action over the insinuation that I had any involvement with regards to Coun. Ladner’s in-camera document,” Louie added.
Anonymous caller tipped Global
Louie was reacting to a Nov. 12 News Hour report at the top of which anchor Chris Gailus said, “A city hall internal investigation may have singled out one councilor at as suspect.”
Ron Bencze reported on the Vancouver Police Department investigation, and then provided the following timeline of city hall events on the evening of Oct. 16:
“At 5:14 p.m., councilor Lee swipes in. About half an hour later he leaves for dinner.”
“At 5:56 p.m. Councilor Raymond Louie swipes in. For over an hour, he’s all alone, until Councilor Kim Capri swipes in at 7:06 p.m.”
“B.C. Lee returns five minutes later, discovers the documents and informs the deputy mayor.”
Bencze told The Tyee that Global received the key card data from an anonymous caller on Tuesday night.
“It wasn’t until afterwards, on Wednesday, that we got independent verification of that timeline,” he said.
Bencze said he personally inspected a printout of the key card data. When asked who showed him the printout, he said, “A high ranking employee at city hall. I won’t get too specific.”
Lee’s assistant refutes Global report
Coun. Lee’s assistant, Cecelia Smith, refuted the Global version of events in a sworn statement released by Vision Vancouver this afternoon:
“On Thursday, October 16, 2008, sometime between 2 p.m. and 3:46 p.m. when I was in my Councillor’s Assistant cubicle, Coun. Lee motioned me to come to his office.
“I immediately walked to his office and entered it. He told me to close the door behind me, which I did. He then told me that he had found the missing in camera document. I asked him where he found it and he said on his table; he also said it wasn’t there on his table when he looked previously.”
Smith’s statement concluded with a note about why she had come forward:
“I am making this declaration because I was advised by Councillor’s Assistant Marie Kangalee that she had heard on the 6 p.m. news today that the missing in camera document was found after 5 p.m. on October 16, 2008, and I know this not to be true or accurate.”
Louie said he had provided Smith’s statement to the Vancouver Police Department, and welcomed the outcome it its investigation.
“Someone at City Hall is maliciously putting out false information to the media in an attempt to destroy my reputation,” Louie said.
Lee refutes Smith’s sworn statement
The Tyee read a portion of Smith’s statement to NPA Coun. Lee shortly after it was released.
“That’s impossible. Totally impossible,” Lee replied. “No. No.”
Lee said the sequence of events reported on Global was correct.
“I am absolutely certain that I found it shortly before the public hearing,” he said. “The sequence is correct. The exact timing, I do not recall.”
Lee, who is not seeking re-election, said that, until Thursday, “I had no idea that when we swipe our card it was all recorded.”
Louie not 'all alone' after all
Global reporter Bencze said the key card data only shows when an employee enters the councillors’ office area; it does not indicate whether or not they departed.
“We can only assume Raymond Louie didn’t leave,” he said.
And Bencze clarified Louie was not the only person in the area, just the only councilor.
“There were other people who did swipe in, such as cleaners or security staff,” Bencze told The Tyee. He said that was part of why Global excised the line, “For over an hour, he’s all alone,” when it rebroadcast the piece on its 11 p.m. newscast.
“We certainly got an earful from Vision,” Bencze said. “So we edited that one part out.”
Bencze said the Canwest station tried to reach Louie for a response on Wednesday night, but said the councilor did not return their calls.
“I think it was a fair piece,” Bencze said. “We tried to delineate the timeline, and leave it for other people to make their own judgement.”
Yet another city leak?
NPA mayoral candidate Peter Lander has confirmed that his document went missing for about two days.
No one has confirmed whether or not Ladner’s missing document was the source by which The Globe and Mail verified Gary Mason’s Nov 6 column – or even if there was a source.
Vancouver city spokesperson Leslie Bolt refused to confirm the Global timeline, and said the city “would never release security details” such as the key card data.
When asked whether the Global report constituted yet another leak of confidential information, Bolt told The Tyee, “We can’t comment on this matter because there’s an ongoing police investigation.”
Louie decried the continued lack of response from the city.
“The culture of secrecy and cloak-and-dagger politics is unnecessary and is absolutely an embarrassment to our citizens,” Louie said. “There needs to be a clean break from NPA politics.”
Monte Paulsen is investigative editor of The Tyee.
Selective leaks, selective reporting...
Talk about Keystone reporting! Doesn't Global have editors checking these things for substance before they run?
They made some HUGE assumptions to stitch together their story pointing the finger at Louie, including:
Assumption #1: That Ladner & Lee, the two involved in the disappearance and reappearance of the document, were in fact not the sources of the leak.
Assumption #2: That Ladner's file was indeed the source of the Globe's original expose.
Assumption #3: That it wasn't some city hall staffer or someone from the Mayors' office, who had control of all the other numbered documents and background files the whole time, who leaked the information therein to the Globe's Gary Mason.
Assumption #4: That the time period covered by the key card information leaked to Global in fact had any relevance to an effort to cover up the source of the original leak to Mason.
Assumption #5: That even if all the above assumptions were correct, that it wasn't someone else in the offices at that time who returned the missing document.
Assumption #6: That the missing document hadn't been on BC Lee's desk the whole time - perhaps due to an entirely innocent mistake that he was afraid to admit once this thing blew up.
I agree with 'Name', and....
I find the reporter's comeback about 'fairness' apalling.
Here's one for Mr. Bencze....
I am right now, this very minute, sitting in the YVR food court....
I am the only person wearing a white shirt with a laptop.
A plane just landed five minutes ago.
Never mind that there are many other people sitting around me, and that I can't fly.
Because I am different than them.
Therefore, I must have landed the plane.
Or some such ridiculous thing based entirely on nothing.
Heckfire, at this point, I am even prepared to go one further than 'Name' above and, based on the evidence so far, suggest that the real problem may not have been that was no editor/producer to stop that codswallop from being broadcast, but instead that there were more likely editors and/or producers demanding that it be.
Broadcast I mean.
OK?
.
WTF???
Now we find that BC Lee says he was in an environment meeting during the time his shared secretary Cecilia Smith, swears on an affadavit that she talked to him---sometime "between 2 and 3:45 pm" on October 16). That seems like a rather wide margin of error---especially since Lee was in a videotaped meeting at that time---one that ended at 4:45pm.
This keeps on getting weirder and weirder...
Meeting, yes. Uninterrupted attendance, no.
The video of the meeting that day offers limited camera angles, but it does clearly show that some of the councillors come and go - Mayor Sullivan seems to disappear the most - but Councillor Anton also leaves for a time and Councillor BC Lee is seen returning to his seat around the 35/36 minute mark.
That would be around 2:35 pm
...
This from the Province today:
"A tense exchange broke out between Louie and Global reporter Ted Chernecki, who demanded to know why Louie simply didn't make his case to the station before the broadcast.
Chernecki noted that Global had staked out Louie's home "all day."
Louie snapped back that it was precisely that -- an "appalling" blurring of the line between his job and his family life -- that angered him, and that Global had given him no "factual material" to refute."
link: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/story.html?id=ffe2d16a-0267-4017-8454-d6a44b77e756
What's Chernecki saying here? Louie won't talk us so he must be guilty? Class act that Canwest, but then I'm not surprised – character assassination is how Canwest roles.
What Global didn't say during their broadcast was that several staff members had also swiped in during that time. I wonder why that was never mentioned during the broadcast...
This is all getting so tedious....
...what's lost in the back-and-forth is:
-- Ladner looks like a Maxime Bernier-style fool for losing his copy of a confidential document.
-- Robertson appears to have a Harperesque case of self-righteousness, revelling in being above the fray while shamelessly exploiting it for his own political purposes.
-- Both slates are racing to the bottom in their conduct, rendering the entire election an exercise in choosing the least foolish set of candidates
There's certainly nothing to inspire in this election :-(
Aw, Poor Vision
There's no reason to pity the poor Vision people, after all, who has benefited from this leak scandal the most? Everyone says Vision did.
But of course, that doesn't matter to those who have so completely sold themselves out to Vision 100% that they can't see the corruption inside their own party, and instead just point to the NPA and start complaining loudly about every minute thing.
Because of this leak, Vision will mostly likely win tomorrow. I guess this is the kind of change Visions wants to bring to City Hall. The next 3 years are going to be a very bumpy ride.