Last year, the New Democrat Official Opposition released a list of 100 questions still outstanding in the B.C. Rail Corruption trial. The list was not definitive.
A former radio host from Vancouver has a list of questions of her own. The radio host’s name: Christy Clark.
Here’s what now-premier Clark had to say on CKNW Oct. 21, 2010.
“But there are outstanding questions that Mike de Jong and the government must answer.
- Why did the Crown offer the plea deal in the first place, and why did they feel that they needed to throw in the $6 million indemnity in order to get the accused to sign it?
- Was the Crown worried that they couldn't get a conviction otherwise; that they could only get a conviction, they could only get these guys to agree that what they'd done was criminal, if they threw $6 million into the pot to sweeten the deal?
- Why did they offer the plea deal now?
- Were they concerned that the remaining list of witnesses would further damage their case?
- Did they think it was already so shaky that the rest of the witnesses getting up on the stand could only have harmed them and made a conviction even less likely?
- Did Mike de Jong sign off on the final agreement or not?
- We do know that it was the special prosecutor who came up with the deal, but we also know, at the end of the day, that $6 million is a big budget decision for the Ministry of the Attorney General. Was that a decision that Mike de Jong had completely empowered his bureaucrats to make on his behalf?
- Did he have any say in the final deal when it came to the $6 million?
- And why didn't they choose to proceed after the assets of those convicted when it is absolutely what would have happened to any of the rest of us if we'd been convicted of a crime and owed the government money?
- There is the house. There is the mortgage deal. There are future earnings. There are a whole number of ways the government could have gotten back some money from the accused. Why did they foreclose their opportunity to do any of that?”