PREAMBLE
I’m so disgusted with the Special Standing Committee on Records Retention!
This was supposed to be a watershed moment for PEI. For the first time in PEI History we had a Special Committee without Government controlling it with a majority, a means to be able to finally bring any witness before the committee they wanted. The long-hoped for time when the lies told without consequence by those engaged in corruption and coverup would be exposed – and the culprits would be held to account – was supposed to be just on the horizon: unfortunately that’s not going to happen with this committee.
Listen to what Hon. Peter Bevan said in a CBC Compass interview following Brad Mix’s appearance before the Committee:
I’ve spent over two years doing the necessary research and due diligence to not only prove that Brad Mix told a lie or two to the Committee, but to prove that EVERYTHING Brad Mix told the Committee was a LIE! And I’m not exaggerating.
I’ve got better things to do with my time than to restate the findings from my research over and over again until I’m able to grab the attention of at least one member of the Special Committee. They obviously haven’t read any of my research articles on Brad Mix, FOIPPs, the CMT lawsuit, or Egaming – otherwise they’d have understood that everything Mix said about having nothing to do with egaming or CMT (which was then FMT, before becoming TBT, just before the signing of the MOU in 2012) was a MASSIVE AND TOTAL lie. And he sold it! To Peter at least. Unbelievable.
Brad Mix really had one choice (1) either fess-up completely (which would have involved throwing lots of people under the bus) or (2) go with the same false narrative presented to Judge Campbell in court, a false narrative I had already totally exposed in detail. Mix was clearly hoping against all hope that committee members hadn’t done any homework…hadn’t read any of my articles…and you know what? Committee members did not disappoint.
I’ve written extensively on Brad Mix, documenting how during the late 2010-2011 period (1) Paul Jenkins, the sole director of FMT at the time, had numerous meetings with Brad Mix; (2) how Brad Mix set up a “FMT” project in early 2011 with Paul Jenkins, himself and Patrick Mason as contacts on the project team; and (3) how Brad Mix worked with Wes Sheridan to get money to undertake a “feasibility Study” of FMT in February 2011 SPECIFICALLY to do the due diligence so Innovation PEI could then, (4) formally recruit FMT to establish a financial transaction and claims processing platform in PEI.
How could the members of the Committee not be aware of any of this? How could they sit there listening to Mix lie and lie and lie, saying that he had nothing to do with egaming, thinking all the time that if they had read my articles they’d know he was absolutely the KEY person orchestrating the entire affair and he’d be busted?
Consider what “Schedule ‘A'” had to say about the feasibility study:
FMT owned 100% of Claimatrix, which was the “back office claims processing’ component – a key component – of the SWIFT-approved Simplex Global Financial Transaction platform for which CMT/FMT had EXCLUSIVE rights in North America.
I’m getting really tired writing and saying it, but once more for road: THAT’S WHY IT WAS FMT/TBT WHO SIGNED THE MOU a year later and NOT Simplex. GET IT?
So there you have it folks, a feasibility study was undertaken by Patrick Mason in February, 2011 that then led to FMT being formally issued a “recruitment package” from Brad Mix’s office. In fact, it was BRAD MIX who signed that feasibility contract with Patrick Mason:
And it was Brad Mix’s office that sent out the formal Recruitment Package that specifically spoke to the financial services platform and giving FMT “first option” on other companies tapping into the claims and financial services platform:
Mix seemed to sense that the Committee members had done no homework near the end of his presentation. They seemed oblivious to his string of lies. No one even called him out when he referenced a Freedom of Information request that I had submitted on Basalt.
Brad dismissed the 5 FOIP requests that resulted in the Order, that resulted in the Committee, which resulted in Brad appearing before them simply saying records were provided. Read my response to the Information Commissioner [The Brad Mix-up with E-gaming Records: An Update] and you’ll see what a lie that was – a few calendar entries were provided, but NO emails. Listen to what Brad told the Committee about Basalt and they were none the wiser…what a hoot!
So, technically, Brad told the truth when he said: “Basalt- that’s a mineralized rock”.
But what’s that got to do with anything? I wasn’t looking for records on a mineralized rock…Basalt is also the name of a company. But I wasn’t really looking for information on Basalt, I already knew that Basalt was a company FMT was recruiting to PEI and that Brad Mix was involved with that as part of the FMT project he was guiding.
Maines had filed documents with the Court that Brad Mix had been copied on about FMT recruiting Basalt. [Remember that this was waaaay before I discovered Brad Mix had kept a “chart” of projects documenting the “FMT project,” and that he had lied about that in his cross-examination].
Paul Maines and Paul Jenkins had already successfully recruited one major company to PEI – Virgin Gaming – and Basalt was another contact of CMT’s that FMT was recruiting, as Paul Jenkins testified in his Cross-examination, but it appears none of the Committee member read that public document either:
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Notice there is no mention of mineralized rocks in the following April 4, 2011 email to Brad Mix from Paul Jenkins, Subject: Basalt:
Any of you Committee members starting to get the picture yet?
Maybe this will help.
Remember my article, NEW FOIPP DOCUMENTS REVEAL BRAD MIX COMMITTED PERJURY? I publicly accused Brad Mix of committing perjury and I have yet to be charged with uttering a falsehood, or slander. or libel or anything. Why did members of the Committee not ask Brad Mix about his FMT project? If they really wanted to get to the bottom of things they would have…but it appears that is no longer in the cards for some reason:
Imagine, having an active FMT Project on the go involving countless communications and meetings with the sole director of FMT at the time, Paul Jenkins, and he says: “No. No. What does FMT stand for?” Unbelievable.
That’s why that one page chart I obtained in a much later FOIPP request is so significant, and gave me the confidence to make the public statement that Brad Mix had perjured himself by lying under oath about not knowing FMT in his sworn cross-examination testimony:
Notice that Paul Jenkins was also on the Virgin Gaming Project team as a contact? Why would that be? Because Paul Maines and Paul Jenkins had recruited Virgin Gaming.
And notice as well that BRAD MIX was the CONTACT for the FMT Project within his Division, and that Patrick Mason (the person who undertook the feasibility study of FMT in preparation for Brad Mix’s Division then preparing and providing FMT with a recruitment package).
Any of this sinking in yet Special Committee on Records Retention members? Anything?
Back to my Basalt FOIPP request that wasn’t really about getting Basalt records…it was a strategic step leading to the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s Order that the Special Committee on Records Retention is investigating. I still can’t believe I was never approach or asked for the correspondence I accumulated over the year and a half-long investigation by the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Karen Rose. They would have understood the real significance of the Basalt FOIPP request.
I knew – or strongly suspected – that Brad Mix’s records had all been deleted for the two-year period when he did all of what he did with FMT and lied about in the CMT law suit. Everything was denied, and Brad Mix had maintained that denial before the Special Committee, notwithstanding the fact that I’ve already proven those claims are lies – proven mostly with Brad Mix’s own records that I obtained in other PEI government employee inboxes with whom Brad Mix was communicating, or from the CMT filed documents.
Paul Maines had filed documents on Basalt in court which he had because he was copied on them, or had perhaps been given by Paul Jenkins. I wanted to see if those same documents still existed in Brad Mix’s email archives and would be produced. They weren’t. I then submitted copies of them to Ms. Rose asking why I hadn’t received them from the public body. She in turn asked the Public Body (Deputy Minister Erin McGrath-Gaudet) and the Public Body didn’t even bother to answer Ms. Rose:
And that was the beginning of the end for Brad Mix’s and Erin McGrath-Gaudet’s coverup about the deleted records as Ms. Rose persisted in asking about why my Basalt records were missing!
That is also – Committee members – why there was an Order, why you, Peter Bevan-Baker, put forward Motion 86 – whether you realized it or not at the time – and why your Committee called Brad Mix before your committee.
But hey, if you want to believe Basalt is just a mineralized rock because you’re willing to take Mr. Mix at his word there really isn’t much more I can do about it. Disgusting!
Final Note to Committee Members: You might be able to fool the majority of Islanders that you’re serious about exposing corruption with regards to the pandemic of record destruction we’re dealing with in Government, but it is now obvious to me that the committee is just playing games.
Why didn’t someone ask Brad why – if he was being so transparent – he and David Keedwell, and then he and Erin McGrath-Gaudet – strung me along for months and months with the lie that they were searching for records when they knew no records existed to search?
The “transparency” Mix spoke about several times would be called a well-planned alibi in some quarters. He apparently became that his records went missing only after he heard about the CMT lawsuit. There is no way the PEI government would win a law suit with all the documented evidence in Mix’s records – some, but far from all, I’ve noted in this article.
Those records had disappear or else CMT would go be able to go to trial, expose everything, and most likely win the lawsuit. They disappeared. They were “deliberately deleted” according to the Information Commissioner, and Ed Malone with ITSS said the only person with Access was Brad Mix and they could not have been deleted accidentally, but were deleted with “intent.” Brad Mix told the committee that the only other person who had access to his emails was his assistant, Pam Gorveatt (although he didn’t mention her name), and said she was completely trustworthy and would never have deleted the emails. Who does that leave? Do the math.
So, as Brad indicated, he went looking for an email at that time because the CMT law suit had begun, and he had been made aware that his records were going to be searched and scrutinized for “relevant material”. He knew that, and his boss at the time, Neil Stewart, another defendant, knew that as well. Lots of Defendants knew that the case would be won or lost on whether Brad Mix’s records were entered or deleted and that chapter in the PEI government CMT/FMT business relationship history erased. They were deleted.
But that might become known at some point, especially since Paul Maines had knowledge that records should exist. Brad was well aware that Paul Maines, and many others, would KNOW that he really did have a dynamic business relationship with CMT/FMT/TBT long before the MOU period. If questions were ever asked about those deleted records down the road, Brad knew he’d need an alibi, and reporting the missing records to ITSS (but still keeping it covered up and internal to government) was really the only alibi available.
Brad calls that his commitment to transparency for which he shouldn’t have his reputation sullied; what does he call lying to me for a year and a half?
I give up. You might as well take Brad’s advice and ask Government to do more to protect the innocents, as Brad so eloquently stated in his closing remarks.
Summary
There’s one more meeting of the Special Committee on Record Retention scheduled before the next sitting of the House begins:
These are three KEY witnesses. If committee members lob easy questions asking them to teach them what they should have learned in preparation, then they’ll do exactly for them what they did for Brad Mix. The right questions need to be asked, and that takes a lot of work. Because I’ve already done that work, I’d be happy to give the right questions for free if they’d ask, but that would involve wanting to get to the bottom of things for starters, and I’m no longer convinced that’s the objective.
Brad Mix continues to receive a full salary with our tax dollars and is the very most senior person recruiting businesses notwithstanding the fact that I’ve laid out publicly more than sufficient evidence to lay criminal charges. Sometimes I’m embarrassed at what this sick political and judicial culture allows to persist when the rare chance to finally declare: “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! IT ENDS NOW!” is being pissed away on account of incompetence, a lack of moral fibre, or possibly a combination of both.
What about Brad Mix? He may have fooled the committee, but there’s still that nasty business of having to testify at the upcoming CMT trial.
What further protections might you, as witness, be asking for here? You have all the protections of law allowed as well as the same protection as any other civil servant. As ecurity breach of missing emails has occured without probable cause. How dare you object to the same scrutiny any of them would have been subject to to in the same situation. I’m a bit surprised Michelle Beaton has not been tougher on witnesses, as she has really been the only Member acting in an Opposition role on a regular basis. In wonder if her wings have been clipped like her Leaders???
It is a shame to lose trust in humanity but mine is going fast. Maybe it is because I am old. I have learned to not trust the very people I helped to elect in so many cases. I understand why people from the working class do not care if they vote or not. I understand now how the rich get rich and much of it is through power in politics. I am so disappointed in the people I have trusted and now they are down the tubes too. I wish we had a law that each of them had to suffer through being on pensions, welfare, EI or Workmen’s Comp. Only when their power is taken away will make change. I feel like I am always in a rage….. to know they lie and benefit from the lies. Hope God is watching..
I just lost all faith and the little bit I had, for any politician. Peter Beavan Bacon you just blew my vote out the window and you pulled the same coverup stunt that Sonny Gallant did PNP. And that goes for any other politician that darkens my door. Sorry to see such corruption happening on PEI as it has in the past 15 years. Thank you Kevin Arsenault .
https://kevinjarsenault.com/2018/12/28/2-balanced-representation-on-standing-committees-of-the-legislative-assembly/
Yes our 4MP’s cover up Trudeau and WE unethical behaviour.
Special Committee on Government Records Retention
Michele Beaton
Hon. Peter Bevan-Baker
Cory Deagle
Sidney MacEwen
Gordon McNeilly
Hal Perry
I am not disappointed in the two Liberal MLA’s as that is the way they act hide ,hide,hide.
But the rest are not earning their money.
If the truth hasn’t come out, even partially, by now I can’t imagine when it ever will. As this also seems to be happening with the WE scandal, on a Federal basis, it seems justice is a long forgotten necessity for society.
Thank you Kevin for your relentless work for integrity in government. Could you tell me who is on this committee ?
The leader of the Green Party is not infallible indeed but he pulls of boners such as this when the pressure is on. He explained that rehashing this issue is a waste time and it is time to move on to new issues. Beg to differ sir, this issue was being pursued to assure voters justice and accountability are a major plank in our political system. Not a trivial issue to be dismissed Iightly. Very disappointing.
I completely agree. I have seen many a politician in my day but I have never seen one switch horses as quickly as has PBB, a man of many talents – some of them apparently well hidden from the public. A MAJOR disappointment!