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'B.C. Lee and I have been set up': Ladner

A sensitive document assigned to NPA Coun. Peter Lander went missing for two days after the Oct. 14 in-camera meeting at which Vancouver City Council approved loaning up to $100 million to the developer of the Olympic Village at Southeast False Creek.

The document, which was later found in NPA Coun. B.C. Lee’s office, is suspected of being the mystery source on which The Globe and Mail based a Nov. 6 report that broke news of the city bail-out.

“B.C. Lee and I have been set up on this,” said Ladner, who is the Non-Partisan Association candidate for mayor.

Ladner’s version of events is as follows:

“We had a closed meeting... The meeting consisted of all the councilors and a number of senior city staff,” Ladner said. He refused to say whether or not Finance Director Estelle Lo was present at the Oct. 14 in-camera meeting.

“Every councilor was given a numbered document,” Ladner said. “We were asked to leave the documents behind” prior leaving council chambers.

“At the end of the meeting, I put my document on the table, and left the meeting, and was seen leaving the meeting with nothing in my hands. As was B.C. Lee,” Ladner said.

“Two days later, the document with my number on it appeared on his desk, after he left his office unlocked,” Ladner said.

He said staff determined that his document was missing that same night.

“It was discovered right away. And there was a lot of people running around trying to find it. And nobody could find it,” Ladner said.

When asked whether the document had been stolen, Ladner chose his words carefully.

“Somebody picked it up, and took it away, and dumped it on B.C. Lee’s desk,” Ladner said.

Ladner also said he was notified promptly after the document was rediscovered two days later

“Right after B.C. Lee found it, he told me,” Ladner said.

That discovery would have been a full week prior to Ladner’s mention of the loan during the Oct. 22 homelessness debate at St. Andrew’s Wesley.

Monte Paulsen reports on Vancouver politics for The Tyee.


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