Yesterday, Global News reported that the RCMP warned the BC Liberals in detail about organized crime’s involvement in BC gaming sector, including money laundering, murders, children being kidnapped, and a businessman connected to organized crime buying into a BC casino.

Instead of giving the RCMP’s illegal gaming unit (IIEGT) the resources it was asking for to fight these threats, the BC Liberals disbanded it.

BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson has been refusing to waive cabinet privilege on money laundering documents since 2018, even when faced with more and more questions about what the BC Liberals knew and why they chose to shut down IIEGT.

With former Solicitor-General Rich Coleman refusing to answer questions about the latest revelations, former Crown Prosecutor Sandy Garossino issued a direct call to Wilkinson to release the documents:

“Please stop looking after your own political hide and the political hides of members of your party who may or may not have had dealings with this file,” Garossino said on CKNW. “It is time now to come clean to the public. This is not about getting political payback one way or another. The public needs the leader of the opposition to step up here, and to release the information – this is no longer about politics, this is public safety.”

“The point that I make about these circumstances is not that the government turned a blind eye. They did more than that. Then-minister Coleman did more than ignore an unpleasant reality and unpleasant report. He actively inserted himself and intervened to stop it and that is an active role that he took. He stopped a police investigation,” she said.

“As long as the Liberal Party, as long as the Leader of the Opposition is presenting an obstacle to more disclosure, all I can say is that law enforcement needs to get involved.”

Lynda Steele’s full interview with Garossino is available here.