Vancouver Police caught lying about “no riot predicted”

A Freedom of Information request by Bob Mackin unearthed a June 12th conference call that Deputy Solicitor General Lori Wanamaker and Deputy Vancouver Police Chief Doug Le Pard participated where Liquor Control and Licensing Branch general manager Karen Ayers reported:

“We are expecting record crowds (for Game 6 on June 13) as this may be the deciding game, and given the escalating problems, intoxication, violence and pre-riotous behaviour, I have made a decision under the Liquor Licensing and Control Act to close all liquor stores in the downtown Vancouver core at 4 p.m. tomorrow evening. ”

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu has been on the record saying that “No one had information that there was going to be a riot”. 

No one believed Chu was being honest about the predictability of this riot but now we have proof that he is far more than just plainly incompetent. (see here)

Update:  CKNW radio hasn’t been able to get a response from the VPD but shows what Chief Chu said about no intelligence suggesting a riot would break out:

Here’s what Chief Jim Chu told CKNW’s Janet Brown on September 7th:

BROWN: “Did you have intel reports game day or prior to that saying there could be a riot, that it was pointing towards a riot?” 

CHU: “For game seven, we had no phone calls to 9-1-1, no pre-game intelligence.”

BROWN: “So, there were no intel reports pointing to a possible riot?” 

CHU: “Prior to game seven, there was no intelligence, there was no phone calls, there were no reports received by us.” (see here)

National Post’s Jonathan Kay ignores requests to correct false statement

I’m posting this little spat I’m having with the NP’s Jonathan Kay to highlight how the media react when their news agency is caught doing something that they would condemn others for.

This all started when I noticed the National Post (along with all the Postmedia’s newspapers) running an ad dressed-up as a phony news article promoting David Suzuki’s CBC show (here) and Al Gore’s latest scam (here).

Then, the same day, their resident eco-nut Mike DeSouza does an article on the oil industry financing the Friends of Science group.

Whatever right? Not the first time nor will it be last of DeSouza’s obviously biased writing on the subject but then I see Kay pimping DeSouza’s piece in which DeSouza replies with a Twitter “thank you”.

This leads to a bit of a Twitter battle between Kay, DeSouza and myself as I repeatedly challenge them to tell us how much Postmedia made from the Suzuki/CBC and Gore promotions:

@jonkay How much did Postmedia receive from Al Gore’s campaign to run the “24 Hours of Reality” ads hidden as stories?

@jonkay How much did Postmedia receive for running the CBC Suzuki ads hidden as stories?

@jonkay @mikedesouza How much did Postmedia make off the CBC Suzuki & Al Gore ads dressed up as news?

I won’t reproduce all the back-and-forth that ended up with Kay contemptibly and dismissively calling me a conspiracist to which I replied and Ezra Levant re-Tweeted:

Ouch! RT @bcbluecon: Would an anti-conspiracist who sees conspiracists everywhere then be considered a conspiracist himself? @jonkay

This of course sets Kay off:

@ezralevant @bcbluecon bcbluecon said my views were dictated by npost ads placed by CBC years ago. Not conspiracy. Just batcrap

Whoa now…I’m thinking that I was very clear which ads I was referring and to make sure I send this:

@jonkay @ezralevant Umm…no I didn’t. Those CBC Suzuki ads dressed up as news were from last week

And after no response:

@jonkay Are you going to retract that false statement?

Since then, I’ve asked Kay to correct himself 3 times with no reply and honestly, it’s not something I lose sleep over but what does really bother me is thinking that if an editor of a newspaper is willing to twist the truth on something like this, what else would they be willing to do?

Too-drunk-to-fly Liberal MP giving PM Harper travelling advice

I’m thinking the last person who should be giving anyone advice on politicians flying is Liberal MP John McCallum.

Seriously, for the Liberals have someone who has been caught too drunk to fly (see here) as their spokesperson on government and security airline protocol kinda weakens their argument a tad.