Re: Think Hard about B.C.’s future before voting May 14 (Letters, May 10)
This opinion piece read like a paid advertorial by the Liberal party, rather than the thoughtful perspective of a former respected business leader – Gwyn Morgan. The fact it was delivered by someone who is a fairly recent arrival to B.C. made it even more distasteful. Did B.C. voters really have to suffer through the one-dimensional prophecies of a dyed-in-the-wool Alberta carbon industrialist?
As noted by the editor, Mr. Morgan was once an advisor to Liberal Premier Christy Clark. Left unmentioned is that he also is a member of the elite $100,000 donation club to the B.C. Liberal party, as per Elections B.C., and is listed on the board of directors of the fringe right Fraser Institute.
Morgan was touted as former CEO of Encana Corp., presumably to correlate business expertise and success to his expressed views. Left unmentioned was that he very recently “retired” as board chairman of Canadian engineering company SNC Lavalin.
Under his watch an unprecedented cult of graft appears to have flourished. Investigations are ongoing into hundreds of millions of dollars of bribery payments and illegal political contributions allegedly made by SNC management and staff to secure business contracts. Criminal cases against former SNC personnel are proceeding to court in Quebec and Europe.
Billions of dollars of shareholder value have been lost, as SNC stock has plummeted. Any competent board chairman worth their salt, where substantial company revenues come from Libya, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Algeria – and now, it seems, Montreal –- should have ensured as top priority that an ethics compliance programme was in place and functioning.
Given the foregoing, why did Black Press publish this? You can do better next election.
John Palmer
Oak Bay