BREAKING NEWS: Premier Christy Clark’s Rudderless Administration In Trouble–Enter the Dragon…and Former Bridesmaid

Bill Clancey, who was advisor to five premiers of this province and someone whose raw but astute words I have often shared with you, was a very good friend to me. Among many nuggets of wisdom, before he died, was this one:

“Alec, when a politician is stuck, you’ll know it. First they lie, then they hide when the public’s had enough bullshit and then they go hire some bastard that they want everyone else to think is there to fix things. In reality, the bastard, is there to fix everybody else around the person with the biggest problems.”

How prophetic.

With the announcement of the Athana Mentzelopoulos hiring, one of Ms. Clark’s closest friends and most trusted advisers–and (another) long-time federal Liberal hatchet-bearer, who many former colleagues describe in the most devastatingly unflattering words (that even I can’t find a way of weaving them into this piece), you’d think old Clancey had a crystal ball from which he could predict the ascension of someone as unqualified to be Premier as Ms. Clark.

Recall again if you will how Premier Clark told us, more specifically Global TV, of how she conducted her affairs as a politician “spotlessly” and how her record in government was “impeccable.” Along the way, I’ve provided you ample examples of how, at least on this point, the Premier is a bald-faced liar.

For the entirety of her tenure as Premier, Ms. Clark has demonstrated a breathtaking inability to deliver on anything except major gaffes on the national stage (her incomprehensible drivel about Senate reform being chief among them) and audacious forays into endless photo ops, with quaint quips amounting to little more than sounds bites for her own personal press.

The media–most of the responsible ones at least, incredibly, have grown tired of her. Thus, Ms. Clark did as old Clancey would have us believe: She whittled down appearances to almost nothing and has disappeared into the ether–even missing Vancouver’s pride parade (that not one of her LIBERAL colleagues attended), to the universal scorn of the politically over-correct press and a public quickly having cotton on to the pathetic charade into which her premiership has evolved.

So, what to do?

Well, in Ms. Clark’s case she called the toughest operative she’s ever known in politics: Athana Mentzelopulos, one of her bridemaids at the wedding of the Premier and her now ex-husband, but blithe hanger-on, senior federal Liberal operative Mark Marissen. Having struck an easy friendship (birds of a feather?) from their days as willful debutantes in the Liberal pageant of Jean Chretien (they both worked as political assistants: Ms. Clark for Doug Young and ‘The Divine Ms. M’ for former Cabinet Minister David Dingwall–that paragon of virtue and restraint), the Premier needed the strongest hand she could, since she’s still fool enough to believe a fall election is winnable for the beleaguered BC Liberals.

Ms. Mentzelopoulos, who moved to Victoria to work in the administration of Gordon Campbell, when she served as deputy minister for intergovernmental affairs, also toiled away for David Anderson after Mr. Dingwall’s demise. She’s tough as nails and I’m told has been brought in to, primarily, deal with caucus dissent, which over the last several weeks has grown to the audible clearing of throats since they have discovered that the party chose a prom queen addicted to empty photo ops and vacant rhetoric and not a leader with any hint of vision. Sensing the desperate condition of her young tenure, Ms. Clark did what any politician with little intellect would do: Bring in someone schooled in erecting scapegoats (if you’re one of the dimmer BC Liberal caucus members, yes, that means you) and cloak it all in a change of direction and for some amorphous nonsense called ‘priority files’. Let’s be clear, the only priority for Ms. Clark is stemming the growing tide of discontent in caucus and getting herself re-elected to a job for which she is resolutely and manifestly unfit. She’s burned too many bridges with some key people who helped get her elected Premier, so Ms. M’s hamfistedness will have to serve as lock.

Hence, the separation between Ms. Clark and Ms. Mentzelopoulos is non-existent, since Mr. Anderson was political tutor to Ms. Clark’s ex-husband Mark Marissen, Ms. Clark and her new charge–among others.

It is, therefore, with considerable and perpetual laughter that I greet the Premier’s oft proffered statement about no longer being “a liberal.” Ms. Clark is surrounded by the same old crew that she and her husband put together to, so gracelessly, anoint Paul Martin as Prime Minister–recognized by the more honest party hierarchs, as the beginning of the end of the current Liberal Party of Canada. Hence, their disastrous showing in the last federal election.

Ms. Mentzelopoulos was part of Paul Martin’s BC crew and certainly knew of Mr. Dingwall’s utter disgust for Mr. Chretien.

But who else was the Clark touted great mandarin saviour, Ms. Mentzelopoulos close to?

Let me help.

Ms. Mentzelopoulos, as with every single Clark political super-insider–past and present, was close to Erik Bornmann, now a self-confessed briber of public officials, who, without a hint of shame, sits patiently to hear from the Law Society of Upper Canada if he will soon join the roll of Ontario lawyers. Further, Ms. Mentzelopoulos is married to Stewart Muir, formerly of The Vancouver Sun–the broadsheet that had often been the subject of whispers by members of the press (including some of their own writers) related to the overly favourable treatment shown to OmniTRAX during the sale of BC Rail. Mr. Muir, whose reputation is by most accounts, impeccable, was responsible for the business pages and served as one of the myriad of editors at this city’s largest broadsheet.

Behold, from Erik Bornmann’s own Pilothouse diary, gathered by the RCMP and submitted as evidence at the trial of David Basi and Bob Virk:

Now, this, of course, in and of itself apportions no guilt of anything to the Muirs, but it does very much raise a couple of ethical issues, not at all dissimilar to those the Premier has refused to address, related to her own conduct while Deputy Premier: What was one of BC’s top mandarins, most glorified bureaucrats, doing having lunch with someone, who in that political circle was well-known, in fact celebrated by Ms. Clark and Mr. Marissen, as a very capable (read: shifty) operator (since reformed, I’m assured)? Additionally, was Mr. Muir facilitating Erik Bornmann’s clients favourable coverage in the pages of The Vancouver Sun because Mr. Bornmann was a pal of his wife, Ms. M, and a fellow operative in the Marissen/Clark Martinite gang–one that not only included, but featured the wealth of skills executed, on demand, by David Basi and Bobby Virk?

It’s not like the outings were profligate or extravagant beyond belief…

Eight hundred dollar dinners and four hundred dollar lunches. The billing record is from evidence gathered by the RCMP during ‘Project Everywhichway’, when among other locations, including the legislature, they raided the offices of Brian Kieran and Erik Bornmann.

The revelry apparently went on for months.

While Ms. Mentzelopoulos’ reputation as a tough-as-nails, intelligent bureaucrat is intact, as is her, according to the Premier, unimpeachable integrity, this is yet another remarkable, if not arresting, example of a Christy Clark insider with direct ties to central figures in the BC Rail scandal–particularly to Erik Bornmann, who has, since then admitted to bribing at least David Basi and Bobby Virk.

And while I’m sure the spin from the Premier’s people will be that Ms. Mentzelopoulos has returned to help; make no mistake about it–if any caucus members have any ideas of not adhering to the Premier’s reckless agenda, from which, she insists to her closest colleagues like Health Minister Mike deJong (her real Deputy Premier), a fall election will spring.

Otherwise, you will hear about ‘The Queen of Mean’, and I’m not referring to the Premier (although, in this context one easily could), who will happily allow, as she always has, for someone else’s hatchet to do her work for her.

It’s interesting how, once again, Premier Clark has added to her growing phalanx of federal Liberal operatives, yet another close friend with former ties to the BC Rail scandal and her own personal political bailiwick.

Be Sociable, Share!

•