WHIFF OF CRIME IN CORRIDORS OF POWER

When Police Investigations Lead to Seat of Government We Should Worry

The authorities have been warning for years about the pervasive nature
of organized crime in this province. If the official suspicions that
lie behind the eye-blinking police raids on the B.C. legislature turn
out to be well-founded, then maybe they are right.

Maybe this province is going rotten. Maybe the drug trade has
corrupted us from the bottom almost to the top. Authorities were still
being circumspect Monday after 20 officers marched in and scooped
documents and hard drives from the offices of two cabinet ministers'
aides. The raid apparently stems from a drug investigation that
started here about 20 months ago, grew into an organized crime
investigation that reaches at least as far as Toronto, and then
somehow morphed into a commercial crime probe.

Along the way it indirectly snared a Victoria policeman in some
corruption charges. Now it has ended the career of David (Udhe) Basi,
fired Monday as Finance Minister Gary Collins' ministerial assistant,
and imperilled the job of Bob Virk, the now-suspended MA to
Transportation Minister Judith Reid. (All indications are that this
thing is rapidly headed toward the federal Liberal Party -- see Jody
Paterson's column elsewhere in this paper.)

The details will take months to become clear and years to resolve. The
individuals named above aren't even charged at this point, and are
innocent unless proven guilty. All that's known is that officials
compiled enough evidence to convince a B.C. Supreme Court justice that
they should be entitled to their own look through the offices of
various politically connected people. We all have to suspend judgment
until more is in. But B.C. Liberals will be counting every minute
until this is behind them. All they're clinging to now is the police
assurance that no elected officials are involved.

The striking thing so far in the guarded official comments to date is
the "we told you so" tone when it comes to the broad brush outline of
the drugs-organized crime-commercial crime trail they're following.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. John Ward issued a perfunctory statement giving
just a rough outline of the case. But he took the opportunity to
remind B.C. once again about the extent of organized crime's
involvement in everyday B.C. life.

He said it's reached "epidemic proportions in B.C., touching every
region and every major street corner."

He said; "The RCMP have grave concerns about the dominance of
organized crime and drug-related activity throughout B.C.

"I can say that, in general, the spread of organized crime just in the
past two years has been like a cancer on the social and economic
well-being of all British Columbians. Today the value of the illegal
marijuana trade alone is estimated to be worth in excess of $6
billion. We are seeing major increases in organized crime-related
murders, beatings, extortion, money-laundering and other activity
which touches many innocent lives."

RCMP have made organized crime one of the force's top five priorities
and Ward made a curious point of crediting Solicitor General Rich
Coleman for developing a "comprehensive attack on organized crime."

Coleman is no doubt as stunned as everyone else to find that his
comprehensive attack's latest target is about 50 metres away from his
own legislature desk. But he, too, wasted no time in reminding people
that the authorities have been worried about this for a long time.

"I've been telling you guys for a long time that the marijuana grow
business into the cocaine trade, the money-laundering is a significant
problem with organized crime, both with Asian gangs and the Hells
Angels in this province."

Some might worry his comprehensive attack is compromised, at worst,
and profoundly embarrassed, at best, now that it appears to have
prompted a police raid on the legislature. A raid on the offices of
aides, moreover, that Coleman has routinely been doing government
business with for the past two years.

But he put the best spin he could on the situation, pointing out that
the execution of a search warrant, right in the symbolic heart of the
provincial government, tells people they won't allow any area of the
province to be compromised by organized crime. Or, at least, any more
than it already has been.

I asked Premier Gordon Campbell if this shows that B.C. is rotten to
the core and he curtly said no.

But you have to wonder how this looks from outside. Give a snap word
association quiz to 100 people around the world and the first word out
of their mouths after "B.C." is "Bud."

The province is inextricably linked to marijuana; grow-ops are
everywhere and in the last few years before it becomes a legal
commodity, the black market for the stuff is enormous. (The official
$6 billion estimate is almost one-quarter of the entire provincial
budget.)

So when the world at B.C.'s doorstep hears that an investigation that
originated in the dope trade has reached right to the level of cabinet
ministers' aides, maybe they'll just shrug and accept it as a British
Columbia commonplace, like street riots.

But from here, sitting perhaps naively in the seat of government, it
is profoundly disturbing and a little frightening.