I received a single page – actually, two rows in a chart – on Wednesday of this past week (February 5, 2020) that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that both the PEI Government and Legal Counsel in the CMT lawsuit (Stewart McKelvey law firm), have been jointly-involved in a massive cover-up in the e-gaming scandal, and that the heart of that cover-up has been a complete denial of the Pre-MOU business relationship the PEI Government had with Paul Maines and CMT/FMT.
This new document (and other documents cited in this article supporting what is contained in that new FOIPP document) should change everything with the CMT Appeal on a go-forward basis. We’ll see.
Part of that cover-up involved the PEI Government’s outside legal counsel on the CMT lawsuit, Stewart McKelvey, keeping documents and information from the eyes of Judge Gordon Campbell by failing to disclose materially-relevant documents. The documents that were not submitted in the lawsuit had to do primarily with events in the Pre-MOU period. That left Campbell free to rule on just one thing: whether the PEI Government breached the MOU signed with FMT in July 2012.
Although there were a few documents relating to events in the Pre-MOU period (any time before July 2012) that had been entered into the Court Record by CMT’s lawyer, as well as allegations of wrongdoing contained in CMT’s Statement of Claim for various Pre-MOU events, Judge Campbell, nonetheless, completely ignored those claims in CMT’s filing, as well as PEI Government documents obtained through FOIPP requests that CMT also filed in support of those claims.
Most of the documents revealing what truly happened between CMT/FMT and the PEI Government in the Pre-MOU period were never entered into the Court Record by the PEI Government’s legal counsel, Jonathan Coady, and were not, until very recently, even known about until they were obtained through FOIPP requests. These documents, especially the one I just received, change everything.
To distinguish between (a) the government documents entered by CMT’s lawyer that Judge Campbell ignored; and (2) the documents Coady never allowed Judge Campbell to see, because he didn’t disclose them, and only became known through FOIPPs, I’ll either put a [Not Produced] or [Ignored] beside each document listed in this post. In this way, you can get a better sense of what Judge Campbell knew about the business relationship between the PEI Government and CMT/FMT during the pre-MOU period when he made his ruling.
It is important to properly “re-situate” and explain events in the light of the information in this new document that now proves unequivocally that a massive cover-up was architected by the PEI Government and is now exposed, as of today.
Whether this news is identified as the “breaking news” it truly is by the local media is of little consequence now; nothing will change the fact that this new revelation will undoubtedly guarantee a win for CMT at the Appeal Hearing in May 2020 and bring a whole heap of legal hurt on both the Government and its outside legal Counsel on this case, Stewart McKelvey.
Because the information in this document serves as a “key” of sorts, unlocking the true significance of other events – it is now possible to make far more powerful connections with more astounding revelations. For example, this document identifies an FMT – Government Project, with “Contact People” forming the core team, moving the project forward – something you’ll recall Judge Campbell said never existed.
So these two key PEI Government employees who mysteriously had their documents go missing for the entire 2-year e-gaming “pre-MOU” period [Brad Mix], and the other Government employee who had all his records – electronic and paper – destroyed by his Supervisor, the former Liberal Premier of PEI, Robert Ghiz, while serving as his Chief-of-Staff at the time [Chris LeClair]: WERE ALSO THE TWO PEI GOVERNMENT “CONTACTS” ON THE PEI FMT PROJECT!
This is a long article because with this new revelation it is now possible – and important – to make a number of other connections, rewrite the false narrative, and reveal, once and for all, how Campbell’s ruling has missed so much truth, and is riddled with so many errors, that the Chief Justice should step in and save Island taxpayers the cost of an appeal.
The article has the following sections:
Section 1 sheds light on the effort and sheer doggedness it currently takes to obtain documents through the FOIPP process with the King Government. I offer a chronological review of the communications only from January 5, 2020, to February 6, 2020, on this one FOIPP request which finally produced this one key document.
I initially filed for these documents on November 8, 2019, and later received a letter indicating an extension would be taken, but things went silent until the Department failed to meet its final deadline on January 5, 2020. I’ll pick it up from there, so what I cover as far as communications on the file covers just one month. If you really don’t care about how I finally got that single document proving a multi-leveled, multi-year cover-up by multiple Governments, you can skip ahead to section 2.
I’ll pick up at the date (January 5, 2020) when I should have been provided this document. When the King Government failed to respond, it created another “deemed refusal”.
On January 16, 2020, I posted an article titled Update on the 5th Deemed Refusal by King Government concerning this particular FOIP. I included a letter in that post that I had just sent to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Karen Rose, seeking a Consent Order.
January 6, 2020: I wrote to the Information Commissioner requesting a Consent Order after the PEI Government failed to respond by the deadline prescribed in the FOIP Act.
January 10, 2020: I received an email from APSO Coordinator, Mary-Lynn Smith, providing a “response” to the FOIP request, thereby bringing the Department of Economic Growth, Tourism, and Culture out of an illegal “deemed refusal” situation and back in line with the FOIP Act:
January 10, 2020: I emailed the FOIPP Coordinator (and cc’d the Information Commissioner) requesting that I be provided with the pages not needing to be sent to third parties for consultations.
February 4, 2020: I received an email from Karen Rose with further information about the status of the release of 166 pages. I also learned from the Commissioner that she cannot “compel” the Department to sign a Consent Order.
February 5, 2020:On Wednesday, I received an email from Ms. Smith with attached records:
Scrolling through the documents (all contained in one pdf) the first thing I noticed was that there were actually very few “records” – there were a few large reports that would take absolutely no time to decide could be made public immediately, and a few unrelated emails concerning other Government projects. When I reached the last page, it appeared there was absolutely nothing of value to my investigation in what I had received.
In the February 3, 2020 email from the Privacy Commissioner, I was told there would be 166 pages released immediately, and another 103 pages that had gone to two different 3rd party consultations, for a total of 166 + 103 = 269. I received 269 pages from the FOIPP Coordinator on Wednesday, yet in the email, Ms. Smith said: “We received input from one of the two parties and have included the related records in this package.”
How many pages are still with the “second” third party consultation? I have no clue, but based on what I was told previously, there shouldn’t be any. Then again, in the January 10, 2020 email from Ms. Smith I was told there were just 113 pages.
Receiving conflicting and contradictory information from the public body on FOIPs – that then requires followup correspondence for clarification – is an all-too-common part of the FOIP journey with the PEI Government, at least with the kind of records I’m asking the Government to produce.
After that first read-through, I immediately started thinking about other documents in my possession from either CMT’s court filings, or other FOIPP requests, that may have had some “overlapping” documents with this request. I was sure there should have been many more emails, so I figured I’d see if I could find some such emails in my documents, and then submit them to the Information Commissioner as evidence that I did not receive “responsive” email records that I should have received from the public body with this request. Before moving on to that task, however, I decided to give the PDF one more scan.
Scrolling through the pages a second time, I stopped at a chart I had skipped over on the first pass (because I couldn’t make it out to read) and stared at it trying to focus in on the characters to figure out what the pixelated text said.
Here’s a scan of one of the three pages as it appeared when scrolling through the documents. I hadn’t noticed the Chart title on the first go-through either, and seeing “Brad Mix – My Projects xlsx” certainly piqued my curiosity. Nor had I noticed that the date that APSO had actually processed this record was November 8, 2019:
The first column had a different company with an active project file with Brad Mix’s Recruitment Division at Innovation PEI. The 6th row from the bottom of page 2 of the chart caught my eye: it appeared there were only three letters in the company name, so I magnified the text and saw this:
No question that was “FMT”. Although it was possible to decipher most of the pixelated text in the columns by magnifying the text, I decided to send an email to the APSO Coordinator to see if I could get a legible copy of the document.
I created a three-page PDF of that chart and sent it to Ms. Smith with this request on February 6, 2020, just before heading into the PEI Supreme Court to attend Paul Maines’ Contempt Motion Hearing against the same Department of Economics Growth, Tourism, and Culture:
I received an email from Ms. Smith approximately three hours later:
Here is the same page presented above, only in perfectly legible condition:
I couldn’t help but wonder why I was sent an illegible copy of this document, stuck in the middle of 269 pages of useless information and reports when the Department could have just as easily sent me this version in the first place.
Whether there was a deliberate attempt to increase the odds that I would not detect the significance of those two rows in that three-page pixelated chart is irrelevant: I now have a perfectly legible copy of those two key rows in Brad Mix’s Work Plan from May 2011, and that information truly does expose a massive, on-going, and very corrupt cover-up by the PEI Government.
That cover-up involved:
Although the text in the chart is perfectly legible, it needs to be made bigger to see clearly, so I’ve typed what’s in each row of the chart:
I couldn’t find a date on the document; however, in an email from John Eden, there’s an attachment with the same document name dated May 20, 2011.
From a few documents obtained in other FOIPs that pertain to information in this chart it is clear that it was May 2011:
That 2-page document was mentioned by Campbell as the document Maines used to solicit investments, relying on the false sworn testimony of Steven Dowling. That 2-pager was written by Paul Maines to meet the request from the PEI Government Project Contacts/Team members and forwarded to Team members by Paul Jenkins.
How sadly ironic that Paul Maines wrote that 2-pager at the request of PEI Government staff (Brad Mix) then had the PEI Government (Steve Dowling) turn around and swear an affidavit that Maines used that document to “solicit investments” when the CMT investment plan was initiated and driven by Paul Jenkins: the “soliciting” was undertaken by Jenkins and his broker buddy Shane MacEachern at RBC Financial in Charlottetown, mostly among their family members, friends and insider connections, as is abundantly evident from the list of 36 investors.
Justice Campbell then takes that false sworn testimony and repeatedly claims, stating unequivocally, yet without a shred of evidence other than Dowling’s false testimony in his Affidavit from the PEI Securities Commission investigation, that Maines used that 2-page document to solicit investments DESPITE THE FACT THAT ALL THREE PEOPLE DOWLING CLAIMED TO HAVE TOLD HIM MAINES HAD SOLICITED THE INVESTMENTS THEY MADE each swore an affidavit SWEARING Paul Maines did not solicit their investments.
As you can see, that 2-pager was written by Maines to explain the business model, services the financial transaction platform offers, etc. that document had nothing to do with soliciting investments at all, and again, the PEI Government requested that information for the FMT- PEI Government Project! Here’s the first page of that 2-pager…see for yourself:
This Work Plan chart from Brad Mix confirms that the PEI Government was actively working on two Projects with FMT, one directly with FMT, and another with Virgin Gaming via FMT’s recruitment work, something highlighted by Patrick Mason in his FMT Feasibility study (see below) as an important component in the plan to establish FMT as the deliverer of a successful FMT SWIFT-accredited Global Transaction Platform for North America from PEI. Paul Maines was actively involved with the recruiting work, while Paul Jenkins liaised with Government officials. Virgin Gaming was the first successful recruiting effort by FMT in early 2011.
This “Workplan Chart” document listing active projects with companies is unambiguous documentary evidence of a cover-up and gives formal and official structure and credence to what I have indicated in previous posts: that it was indeed FMT (Paul Maines and Paul Jenkins) that recruited Virgin Gaming to PEI in keeping with the expectations laid out in the Recruitment Package provided to FMT. One of the “contacts” listed for the Virgin Gaming Project was Paul Jenkins, representing FMT – which was 100%-owned by CMT – revealing in an official Government document FMT’s core involvement in the Virgin Gaming Project.
The information in Brad Mix’s Workplan on the FMT project wasn’t discussing a project “possibility,” but rather, an active project that had been underway for months. One would not have learned about that from the obviously “scrubbed” documents that the PEI Government did disclose to Judge Campbell. The documents cited below were obtained in FOIP requests by Paul Maines or me and were either (1) filed with the Court by CMT’s lawyer (but ignored by Campbell), or (2) obtained SINCE Campbell dismissed the case in FOIPP requests, but not disclosed by PEI Government’s Counsel, therefore they were never seen and considered by Judge Campbell.
January 30, 2011: Email from FMT director, Paul Jenkins, to Patrick Mason [IGNORED] informing Mason that he had met with Chief-of-Staff Chris LeClair and LeClair gave approval for Patrick Mason to undertake “an analysis for FMT,” specifically, “…how FMT fits into the payment chain and should be the provinces favored claims adjudication engine for new business.”
January 31, 2011: Email from Patrick Mason to Philip Walsh. [IGNORED] Mason informs Philip Walsh (CEO of Simplex) that the province is interested in exploring having the Simplex Global Transaction Platform established in PEI (through FMT). but adds that “…their [the PEI Government] is still moving business, jobs, and revenue to the Province.” It was for this reason Paul Maines (as CMT’s VP of Business Development) was engaged in recruitment efforts at this time – to bring additional clients to FMT’s platform.
“A payment platform that could provide services to multiple clients would be of interest to the province as their ultimate goal is still moving business, jobs, and revenue to the Province. The fact that you have gaming clients today is good, and I think we would also need to look at our ability to interoperate with Continent 8. I don’t have much on them technically, but I would assume this would be possible. Paul Jenkins is to advise me this week that he has obtained funding to engage my consulting company to proceed with a small investigation into the opportunities and benefits associated with moving a payments business to PEI.”
February 11, 2011: A 9-page Contract [NOT PRODUCED] between Innovation PEI and Patrick Mason, signed by Brad Mix, titled, “Market Intelligence and Claims Processing Feasibility.”
The “establishment of a “back office centre” for the “financial services/gaming sector” here refers to the establishment of a SWIFT-accredited Global Transactions Platform by FMT. Claimatrix is listed in the description as a “company” but is actually one of the main “stacks” on the Platform (100%-owned by CMT). Virgin Gaming was the first major client that would connect to FMT’s platform, recruited by Paul Maines, and Ethocia was a credit-card security company that was going to provide that service for the Financial Services Platform. FMT would also, however, be bringing CMT/SIMPLEX existing clients using the Simplex Global Financial Transactions Platform as well.
There has been a very deliberate decision by the PEI Government to never acknowledge that Paul Maines or CMT or FMT had anything to do with the PEI Government before signing the MOU in July of 2012.
March 4, 2011: Email from Brad Mix to Paul Jenkins and Patrick Mason [IGNORED] concerning a “co-investment fund” that he wanted Patrick Mason to include in his FMT Project analysis.
March 4, 2011: Email from Paul Jenkins to Paul Maines, Philip Walsh [IGNORED] informing CMT and Simplex about the “matching” co-investment fund available to FMT.
March 14, 2011: Recruitment Package [IGNORED]. Along with other significant commitments made to FMT in the requirement package was the following assurance that FMT would have a “first-mover” advantage on PEI as the “provider of choice”:
May 15, 2011: Email from John Eden to Neil Stewart re: FMT (cc’d to Brad Mix) [NOT PRODUCED] It was at this juncture that the FMT project team began informing more people about FMT, introducing the company as “…part of the secret gaming file.…”
May 16, 2011: Email from Shane MacEachern to Paul Jenkins [IGNORED] MacEachern was not only Jenkin’s personal broker but worked closely with Jenkins on more than investments, here sending a “ruff draft” of briefing notes for the meeting that was planned between CMT/FMT/SIMPLEX and Premier Ghiz in conjunction with the Crowbush event.
May 18, 2011: The PEI Government hosted CMT and Simplex at Crowbush [IGNORED] It’s surprising that Judge Campbell made no mention of this event in his Ruling, given the very public exposure this event received – explicitly tying FMT/CMT/Simplex to what appeared to be business dealings with the PEI Government. Then-PC Opposition member Steven Myers tabled documents obtained through a FOIP request about the event. This is from the December 8, 2016 Hansard:
May 15, 2011: Email from Paul Jenkins to Shane MacEachern [RBC Broker acting as CMT’s “Broker of Record” – fraudulently, however – since his supervisor had declined his request to act in that capacity – with the heading “FMT visit,” revealing that it was primarily Shane MacEachern, Paul Jenkins and Paul Maines who were involved in planning the Crowbush event.
There was an ongoing working relationship between FMT and the PEI Government right up until the Fall of 2012, and I could easily extend this chronology of “significant dates” in the FMT – PEI Government project; however, this article is already very long, and the substantial evidence from the earliest period establishing a dynamic and ongoing business relationship and plan to establish a financial services centre should suffice to show how what really happened was kept hidden and systematically covered up on a comprehensive – but so massive scale – that it’s almost incomprehensible it has been successfully in play for so many years.
The Plaintiff in the lawsuit dismissed by Campbell was FMT (sometimes also referred to as 764, or Trinity Bay Technologies). Campbell concluded that FMT/764 had nothing to do with the e-gaming project file nor PEI Government. Consider the following:
Paragraph 20: …. Financial Markets Technologies and FMT were unregistered “trade names” used interchangeably at times by both the plaintiffs, CMT and 764. At all material
times, CMT owned 100% of the shares of 764. The use of Financial Markets Technologies and FMT was eventually dropped in favour of the name Trinity Bay Technologies, or TBT, which was used as a trade name for 764.
Paragraph 17: Neither CMT nor 764 were ever involved in any way with the so-called e-gaming project. However, some of the statements in the amended statement of claim referred to events during that time period.
Paragraph 128: Neither of the plaintiffs, CMT or 764, were identified as having any
contractual arrangement in relation to the e-gaming project, and based on the Auditor General’s examination she “could not substantiate that there was an ownership interest between CMT and Simplex before the end of December 2012”, which was long after the e-gaming project had been terminated, and after the MOU had fully expired on October 10, 2012.”
Talk about showing your bias! Why would Judge Campbell rely on the AG (when he elsewhere says many times that CMT can’t rely on the AG) when all he’s citing is what she admits she didn’t fully investigate. She didn’t say CMT didn’t have an ownership interest, and, in fact, CMT held significant ownership and “veto” voting rights on the Simplex Board at the time.
Paragraph 256:… As I set out earlier in this decision, CMT and 764 [FMT] were not involved in the e-gaming project.
Paragraph 361: Further, paragraph 21 of that same affidavit confirms that Simplex was the company involved in the development of a loyalty program for the Department of Tourism and Culture. Neither CMT, 764, or Maines were mentioned as being involved in those contracts.
The response to my complaint against Billy Dow from the PEI Law Society deliberately refused to acknowledge that my complaint was situated in the “Pre-MOU” period, and that was also clearly a part of this cover-up. My complaint was not tied to the MOU at all, but rather, to Billy Dow’s work on the E-gaming and Financial Transaction Platform project files beginning in 2010. This Chart gives credence to that substantial activity in an official “on the books” FMT – PEI Government project.
The big “attraction” making the recruitment of major financial services and online gaming companies possible in PEI (and a part of the overall plan with FMT) was FMT’s ability to establish a near-shore North American SWIFT-accredited financial transaction platform center in PEI. CMT had exclusive rights to provide the SIMPLEX Global Platform (SWIFT Accredited) and CLAIMATRIX claims services cloud-based software in North America. That’s what the FMT – PEI Government project was all about!
Judge Campbell never acknowledges any of this in this ruling. He denies any pre-MOU business relationship ever existed between FMT and the PEI Government. Those two rows in the chart now provide the official Government “matrix” situating all the other communications and points of “connection” between FMT and the PEI Government in the proper context, giving them new significance and power.
Now that we have a clearer understanding of exactly who the key contacts on the FMT – PEI Government project to establish a financial transaction platform in PEI were [Brad Mix; Patrick Mason; Chris LeClair; and Paul Jenkins], a direct correlation between the two key Government individuals on this FMT Project team and deleted and missing e-gaming records becomes obvious, further raising the issue of possible motivation and intent behind those missing and deleted e-gaming records.
The deleted and missing PEI Government records were from the same government employees who were the contacts for the Virgin Gaming and FMT projects: Chris LeClair and Brad Mix.
Patrick Mason was an independent contractor, so any communications he had would have been with one of the other contacts listed on Mix’s Workplan. Keep in mind as well:
Not a single document from Paul Jenkins, Chris LeClair or Brad Mix from the 2010-2012 e-gaming period, when this FMT-PEI Government Project was active, were produced by Counsel for the PEI Government, Jonathan Coady, in the dismissed CMT lawsuit. All of the Government Records cited above that were put before Campbell by CMT and came through FOIP requests.
Let’s look at what’s been said by those behind the destruction of these records who have been called upon to explain either how the records came to be missing (Brad Mix) or deleted (Chris LeClair).
Chris LeClair’s Deleted Records:
Premier Ghiz signed a one-page “Employee Removal Form,” for Chris LeClair’s records 8 days after LeClair left government in October 2011. He then sent that form to Information Technology and Shared Services (ITSS) for processing. The two options on that form are to either (1) “save the records,” and give proxy access to the accounts to someone else, or (2) delete the accounts and records.
If the box on the form saying “delete” is ticked, the law says that those records MUST first be backed up and stored for archiving with the Public Archives and Records Office (PARO) as per the Archives and Records Act.
Ghiz swore in his Defence filed with Judge Campbell that he didn’t understand what he authorized ITSS to do when he signed the form with the “Delete all the records and emails” box checked off, claiming that he “…had no knowledge of the procedures followed by ITSS after a Form was received.”
This is what Ghiz swore under oath when Cross-examined by CMT’s lawyer about the deleted emails:
Premier Ghiz Should have known that what he was instructing ITSS to do with his Chief-of-staff’s files was illegal. After all, it was his Government that brought in new Departmental procedures in 2007 on managing electronic emails and files [See:
Record Information Management: Managing Electronic Mail]. Yet Robert Ghiz claimed – swore in fact – that he didn’t know ITSS would destroy those records if the “destroy those records” box was ticked on the one-page form he signed.
ITSS would never have destroyed those government documents if Ghiz had told them up-front that he hadn’t actually copied the files for safe storage in the archives, as he was legally required to do. Or at least that’s what the head of ITSS, Scott Cudmore, told members of the Public Accounts Committee on February 1, 2017:
“….the assumption on the part of IT Shared Services at the time was that records [ordered destroyed by Ghiz] had been retained according to records management policy” [p 106].
In a baffling interpretation of these facts and events, Campbell ignores the fact that the law was clearly broken with Ghiz’s authorization of the deletion of all of Chris LeClair’s emails and documents saying:
Paragraph 118: The matter of records management was also addressed. The Auditor General found that not all government records were being managed and safeguarded as required by legislation and policy. She noted that the Archives and Records Act, R.S.P.E.I. 1988, c. A-19.1, requires every public body having custody or control over government records to “prepare a schedule for the retention and disposition of those records”. However, she also found that “When an employee leaves government, normal practice is to have the e-mail account removed. We were advised by ITSS that after a period of one year, an account that has been removed cannot be recovered.”
Paragraph 622: I note that the Auditor General concluded in her report that, “When an employee leaves government, normal practice is to have the email account removed.”
Campbell totally ignores what the Auditor General said about the legal requirement to COPY RECORDS before authorizing their deletion by ITSS, and deliberately cites only the later part of what she said about this in his paragraph 118 (which he repeats in Paragraph 622). The Blue part of the AG quotation is what Campbell quotes, the red part about following the law, by ensuring the records are copied before they are deleted, is what he ignored:
Section 7.10: “A significant volume of records were provided to us from employees’ email accounts. Certain e-mail messages can be considered government records. These must be printed and/or stored accordingly by the government employee to help ensure government records are properly managed and to prevent the records from being deleted when an employee leaves the government. When an employee leaves government, normal practice is to have the e-mail account remove. We were advised by ITSS that after a period of one year, an account that has been removed cannot be recovered. Consequently, if the employee does not manage his/her e-mail records in accordance with policy, government records can easily be destroyed.”
That’s “cherry-picking” at its finest. There’s absolutely no confusion on this point in the law, Treasury Board Policy, or Departmental record management policy with the PEI Government.
At the top of ITSS’s LAN Removal Form for Employees leaving Government, the following explicit instruction is given to the Supervisor [Robert Ghiz in Chris LeClair’s case] authorizing the deletion of an employees accounts and electronic files and emails on the Government server:
“Note: It is the responsibility of the Supervisor to Forwarding, Print, or Archive GroupWise email before an account is deleted”
Ghiz had a duty to know what he was instructing and authorizing ITSS to do with his Chief-of-staff’s files since it was illegal. ITSS technicians would never have destroyed LeClair’s government elecronic documents if Ghiz had told them up-front that he hadn’t actually copied the files for storage in the archives, as he was legally required to do. Or at least that’s what the head of ITSS, Scott Cudmore, told members of the Public Accounts Committee on February 1, 2017:
“….the assumption on the part of IT Shared Services at the time was that records [ordered destroyed by Ghiz] had been retained according to records management policy” [p 106].
Jonathan Coady filed no Brad Mix documents. When asked at Cross-examination if he had produced all his records, Coady jumped in before Mix could speak and answered for him saying “I believe so.”
In July 2019, with the new Government keen to “do things differently,” Matthew MacKay, Minister of Economic Growth, Tourism and Culture, and his Deputy Erin McGrath-Gaudet, were somehow able to squeeze a confession out of Brad Mix about those 2-years of missing records, which I acknowledged at the time in a blog article titled “Kudos to Deputy Minister Erin-McGrath Gaudet!” Read the response Ms. McGrath-Gaudet provided to question six from the Commissioner:
Commissioner’s Question #6. Did you interview Brad Mix relating to these missing records? If so, did he provide an explanation for the missing emails? E.g Did these time periods correspond with a change of position for Mr. Mix or a period of absence from work?
Erin McGrath-Gaudet Answer: “Mr. Mix reports that in 2015 he was looking through his archive for emails. It was at this time he discovered that emails in his archive for periods of time appeared to be missing. Mr. Mix states that he did not understand what had happened as he could not locate emails for many files and contacts throughout 2011 and 2012. Although Mr. Mix advises that he does delete some transitory emails that he won’t use again (as he is permitted), he unequivocally states that he has not and does not intentionally delete other emails. He states that he was distressed by the discovery of missing emails.”
CMT’s lawyer was able to have Brad Mix’s ITSS incident report about those missing records entered into the record after the Motion Hearing to Dismiss in April 2019; that’s why Campbell dealt with Brad Mix’s missing records in his ruling:
Paragraph 648: The ITSS report of March 2015 confirms that emails sent by Mix between June 12, 2010, and April 11, 2012, were not contained in the archived records of his emails. Other emails remained intact. It appears from the report that efforts to recover the sent emails or to explain why they were not archived, were unsuccessful. According to the report, the ITSS technician assigned to respond to the request attempted to locate another archive that might contain the files but found none. He attempted to re-create the archive and allow it to be opened in GroupWise (GW), but the emails were not re-created. The report concluded with the statement that, “He [Mix] got a new BB [BlackBerry] in August 2012 so it’s possible emails got deleted accidentally at that time”. The report offered no further conclusion to explain the absence of the emails, other than the suggestion they may have been accidentally deleted during a technology upgrade.
Campbell makes an excellent point by saying that “The report offered no further conclusion….” because that investigation and review by the Information Commissioner is still ongoing. I was provided a copy of that July 10, 2019 letter Ms. McGrath-Gaudet sent to Ms. Rose – because it was in response to a letter I had filed with the Commissioner that she had provided to Ms. McGrath-Gaudet, and most of the Commissioner’s questions to the Deputy Minister came from my prior submissions. Four of Paul Maines FOIPP reviews on Brad Mix-related requests with the Information and Privacy Commissioner have since been “joined” to my Brad Mix review, and all these FOIP reviews will be dealt with in one Order.
Campbell’s obvious awareness that as of yet “no conclusion” about those 2-years of missing records [Judge Campbell is, by the way, unaware that since his Ruling I have learned that Brad Mix actually had TWO separate archives for that same 2-year period mysteriously go missing – what’s the probability of that happening from a blackberry upgrade?].
As well, accidentally deleted emails on the Government’s Groupwise email system can be restored from backups for exactly 1-year. No one is going to convince me that Brad Mix lost two years of his emails – sent and received – and he didn’t notice it for more than a year.
And the suggested possibility of a “blackberry” upgrade as the reason for the missing records would have made record restoration possible if, in fact, that had been the cause of the records going missing. Mix noted that the upgrade happened just several months before he noticed missing records and filed an incident report with ITSS, well within the year allowing for backup restoration.
Campbell apparently had no interest in waiting for the outcome of the Information Commissioner’s Review to see what she says in her Order – which I have recently been informed will be issued in April or May.
Knowing that Brad Mix was the main contact on the FMT – PEI Government Financial Transaction Project that was being kept secret; that Coady produced NO emails or records whatsoever from Brad Mix for this 2-year period; and that several months AFTER the Motion Hearing to Dismiss CMT’s lawsuit had already happened [none of this was known to CMT’s lawyer or Paul Maines at the time of the Hearing to Dismiss] well, this new revelation about the FMT – PEI Government Project referenced in Brad Mix’s Work Plan, makes all those Brad Mix records “materially-relevant,” and a trial should now be a certainty.
One can only speculate what would have happened at the Motion Hearing to Dismiss last April if information about those 2-years of missing Brad Mix records had not been deliberately kept from me. I filed my FOIPP request for Brad Mix’s records in October 2018, and was led to believe there were records to search, but that the search for the particular records I was asking for from that e-gaming time period didn’t reveal any responsive records to my particular request. That was complete deception.
Judge Campbell didn’t only fail to appreciate the significance of LeClair’s deleted files and emails; he got it completely wrong and said it was normal.
Other than Patrick Mason – the person contracted to undertake the FMT feasibility study – the other “contact” on the FMT project was not a Government employee. He was representing FMT. Why bother getting rid of the evidence if there were copies of it all in Paul Jenkin’s Gmail account that could be accessed by Paul Maines?
Well, as it turns out, all of Paul Jenkin’s emails for that same 2-year period when he was representing FMT as the sole director with the PEI FMT Project were also destroyed under mysterious circumstances.
After Steven Dowling began his Securities Investigation against Paul Maines and CMT in September 2012, Jenkins quickly “jumped ship” with FMT, and tendered his resignation as the sole director, boldfaced lied to the public, claiming that he didn’t know anything about anything, and even accused CMT and Maines of “using him” for his contacts (See: Business partner in e-gaming firm claims he was ‘left out of the loop’ after being used for his P.E.I. contacts, Guardian, December 7, 2018). Well, you can see from the documents cited above that Paul Jenkins was by no means “left out of the loop” but was driving the bus he later threw Maines under.
This claim that someone “hacked” his Gmail account and destroyed all his emails for the 2-year e-gaming period is so far beyond being “coincidental” or “reasonable,” and from my investigation, even “possible” to be given a second thought as having any credibility. All Paul Jenkin’s emails were from his Downtown Pharmacy Gmail account. I’m told emails deleted from a local server or computer are not deleted on Google’s servers; e.g, a ‘hacker’ doesn’t get through Google’s firewall to destroy Paul Jenkin’s emails no matter what Paul Jenkins says.
It appears to me that Paul Jenkin’s decision to betray Maines and CMT/FMT wasn’t maliciously motivated; it was entirely a business decision. Not a very “ethical” business decision mind you. And if lying to a lawyer conducting an investigation for the PEI Securities Commission is illegal in PEI, or if lying to a lawyer representing a group of elderly Catholic nuns selling their Convent is illegal, well then, Paul Jenkins could be in some legal trouble.
Jenkins wanted to buy the Mount and had made an offer. In a communication from Pam Williams, a lawyer who was representing the Sisters of St. Martha at the time (now Premier King’s Chief of Staff) to Paul Jenkin’s lawyer, Ms. Williams raised concerns about Paul Jenkin’s possible involvement in CMT/FMT (which Ms. Williams obviously knew little or nothing about, given her consistent use of CTM instead of CMT, other than that it was under investigation by the PEI Securities Commission).
By implication, if Jenkins hadn’t disavowed any premeditated or conscious involvement with CMT/FMT or Paul Maines, it appears his offer to purchase the Mount would not have been acceptable to the Sisters of St. Martha. So he lied to Dowling, and he lied to the Sisters.
Somewhat surprisingly, after completing his Mount deal, he was then willing, to tell the truth about his extensive involvement in CMT in a sworn Voluntary Statement, and settle with Maines and CMT.
In this marked-up version of a letter that Pam Williams sent to Jenkin’s Lawyer, James Travers, a request was made for a statutory declaration or affidavit response to a series of questions about his relationship with CMT and Paul Maines. This letter provides very convincing grounds explaining why Jenkins abandoned Paul Maines, CMT and completely forgot the truth in favour of saying and writing and swearing what he had to say to ratify that real estate deal with the nuns.
The other reason why I say I don’t think there was any real malice or ill-intent on Paul Jenkin’s part in his betrayal of Maines and CMT, I doubt he thought through all the implications of that at all, being so focussed at the time on pulling off the Mount property deal, is because once he got the Mount, he settled with Maines and CMT (he is no longer a defendant) and offered a “new” Voluntary sworn statement telling the truth.
You can read the entire Voluntary Statement yourself if you’re not already tired reading, but it basically tells the truth, which also amounts to a confession that he lied to the PEI Securities Commission and the Catholic Sisters, but he must have had some assurance there wouldn’t be any consequences if he did, because he did tell the truth, and there haven’t been any consequences..yet:
“So from there, we invested in, the first of September and, you know, we continued on to work, with Big Paul and their group, Philip Walsh and, and Simplex, to introduce the Island opportunity. And that, that resulted in a whole bunch of different things. One was, you know, did, you know, is there, was there an opportunity to recruit businesses to P.EI. using the P.E.I., kind of, advantages on, you know, innovation and such like that; labour force; et cetera. Another arm of it really was the CMT, the transaction piece, in creating a transaction hub. So I would introduce Big Paul [Maines] and the group to, you know, various people that I knew inside the community and try to move that business forward.”
This is the same guy who earlier wrote the following letter to Steve Dowling so he could provide a falsified Declaration or Affidavit to Pam Williams and the Sisters of St. Marthas to buy the Mount:
How could he write: “As I have advised you previously. I have not had any involvement in this company since its incorporation in September 2010?” and still look himself in the mirror is beyond me.
So when Paul Jenkins tells you his Gmail account was “hacked,” and that all of his emails for a 2-year e-gaming period in which he had no involvement whatsoever are “gone,” well, what do they say about a “grain of salt”?
At any rate, notwithstanding the fact that Paul Jenkins was the “contact” on the FMT/PEI Government Project with Innovation PEI representing FMT from the outset until he frantically attempted to “resign” when the Securities Investigation commenced in September 2012, Judge Campbell never once mentioned Paul Jenkins in his 172-page ruling, nor did Legal Counsel for the PEI Government, Jonathan Coady, provide any documents from Paul Jenkins, despite his formal participation in a Government project. Count how many times Paul Jenkins either sent, received or was copied on an email in this article to realize how off-side Campbell’s complete ignorance of Paul Jenkin’s central role in the FMT project really was.
There have been numerous “mini-bombs” in this investigation that have repeatedly flipped the prevailing narrative about Paul Maines and CMT’s lawsuit on its head. It’s amazing how far things have moved in such a short time as more revelations reveal more light that makes new connections, offers new insights, and fits more pieces into the puzzle, which is actually getting closer and closer to being completed!
Maines’ public reputation was harmed by the PEI Government back in 2013 when the PEI Securities Commission issued a News Release telling Islanders that if they are approached by Paul Maines, and he mentions investments, they are to call the PEI Securities Commission immediately. That happened despite the fact that Maines did NO soliciting of investments at any time, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he did, despite Judge Campbell repeatedly making that claim (as if there was evidence to prove it) throughout his decision.
Meanwhile, Paul Jenkins can file a completely fraudulent letter swearing off any involvement with CMT/FMT/PAUL Maines to Steven Dowling – which Dowling must surely have realized was completely fabricated and false, and that Jenkins had the most central and busy role in FMT from the time he flew to Ottawa with Maines to incorporate FMT; the liaising with Chris LeClair and Brad Mix to get Patrick Mason to do the feasibility study on FMT; getting the funding from Chris LeClair for that study approved; planning the Crowbush event; helping to draft the Financial Services Platform Briefing Notes for Premier Ghiz…etc., Paul Jenkins was at all times the FMT connection with the PEI Government at every single significant event in the business relationship between FMT and the PEI Government, starting in the summer of 2010. He was not mentioned once by Campbell.
The other evening on CBC Compass Maines was standing up for all Islanders demanding that a corrupt Access to Information system is fixed, and that the PEI Government be held accountable for breaking its own law. It is so rewarding for me to finally see a measure of vindication. There is nothing more devious than attempts to falsely besmirch a person’s good name.
I once heard a story about a catholic man who had lied about someone in the community and went to confession to “clean his soul” and the priest heard his private confession, then said nothing. The man asked: “Aren’t you going to give me absolution for my sin?” and the priest responded, “Of course…once you do one thing.” The man listened eagerly. The priest handed the man a pillowcase full of feathers and told him to go to the belltower, dump the bag of feathers out the window, then go collect them and bring them back to him, then he will give him absolution.”
A false claim of alleged fraudulent activity (fueled by a rumour that an old lady with cancer was bilked of her life’s savings by Maines) – when issued by a trusted authority like the PEI Securities Commission – is no less difficult to “undo” than spilling feathers into the wind from a belltower.
Thankfully, we’re now on the cusp of that happening for Maines, who absolutely didn’t deserve what has been heaped on him since the PEI Government’s betrayal and denial of a 2-year business relationship with him and CMT/FMT. Totally scandalous!
I know Minister MacKay very well. I have the highest regard for him and consider him a friend. I don’t know Ms. McGrath-Gaudet personally (we introduced ourselves to each other for the first time at the Courthouse the other day) but I’m certain Minister MacKay (and I trust Ms. McGrath-Gaudet) are honourable, and have nothing but the best of intentions.
I attribute no malfeasance, immoralities, illegalities or even incompetence to either of them. I honestly don’t know what’s going on in the Department, or how much information either the Deputy Minister and Minister are receiving, or who they can trust. They’re both in a tough spot right now I’d say, because, on the one hand, they have to rely on their staff and trust what they are doing and saying, on the other hand, they both see things unraveling more and more from day-to-day.
This new revelation should change everything. It really should be front-page news. The leader of the Official Opposition should be shouting from the rooftop that this now exposed, multi-year cover-up must come to an end now. People need to be held accountable in the courts; however, people need to be held accountable within the government as well. Will that happen?
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Bravo ! Brilliant Work . Now we need Justice and accountability.
Basic common sense dictates that any Departmental form worth it's salt would essentially provide a tick-box or signature line legally declaring that any essential records of a former employee would be duplicated or otherwise properly archived. Each Department has paid Records Management Employees that are tasked to preserve important business records which makes it highly unlikely, if not impossible that records would go missing. Verbal notice to ITSS would be both organizationally unsatisfactory and legally untenable. Having worked for the Province on two separate occations I can also conform that upon termination, accounts are SUSPENDED, not deleted in order to provide a grace period for Dcepartment Management to ensure proper archiving of their data, prior to deletion. Technical upgrades rarely produce missing records at the client level since that information is stored on a separate backed up server. Both Brad MIx and his lawyer would be well aware of this.
What a brilliant synthesis of all the threads and a visual of the tightening of the noose. The whistleblowers have also been maligned by the same players as indicated in this missive. Many of us are waiting for the tables to not only be turned on the backroom forces running the province but the table to be set so that the word servant in Public service is re- established.
Well researched and documented. The PEI hierarchy (perceived) is not above reproach.
I am so glad that the truth is coming out fin a
Finally. The Sisters need to whole mr Jenkins to account. He has some explaining to do.