PREAMBLE

In the previous episode, I mentioned that when JR’s lawyer, Christopher Ian Robinson, was in the process of concluding the Settlement Agreement between Maines and JR, he informed Paul Maines’ counsel (“Otto Philipps”) that JR would need more time to produce the documents. Robinson assured Philips that he had the documents requested in his possession, but then shortly thereafter claimed he “misspoke” and suddenly changed his tune, saying there were no documents that were in any way “materially-relevant” to Maines legal action.

In the first section of the Motion Record , the reasons for the Motion and the grounds are spelled out, and paragraphs 11-15 reference JR’s claim that the Gamesys Proposal [e-gaming 2.0] emails that he had informed Maines about had come from Eddie Francis, but that they had since been deleted:

When I read that, my first thought was that JR was not telling the truth, nor had he done his research (or perhaps his lawyer Robinson is responsible…who knows what really happened behind closed doors on this one, but whatever transpired, it resulted in the decisions and statements we’re now trying to make sense out of that don’t make much sense at all on the surface, or for that matter, the originating source, i.e.,“Robinson and possibly other players yet unknown,” or “JR”?).

I knew exactly who Eddie Francis is, having published several articles on the 2012 Loyalty Card Program, which Eddie Francis worked on with Maines, even making trips to England in conjunction with the project.

THE LOYALTY CARD PROGRAM AND EDDIE FRANCIS

Paragraph 127 in CMT’s original Statement of Claim read as follows:

127.  In October of 2011, the Loyalty/VIP Program was given approval by the Department of Tourism and Culture and representatives of CMT created a survey to determine what local business operators would be looking for in such a program.

Jonathan Coady responded to that claim  in paragraph 32 of his “Statement of Defence,” claiming that Government had “no knowledge of the allegations” made by CMT in paragraph 127. 

The PEI Government denied the existence of the Loyalty Card Program completely in both the first Statement of Defence filed April 09, 2015 and the second Statement of Defence filed June 14, 2018 . 

Judge Gordon Campbell made statements about the Loyalty Card Program that I don’t believe are supported by the facts, or perhaps to state that more accurately, he failed to take into consideration all the materially-relevant facts.

In my article “Government Amnesia and the Loyalty Card Program,” (in the series deconstructing Judge Campbell’s enormously flawed ruling dismissing the action, the core of which was overturned by the Appeals Court who were willing to consider those facts), I wrote the following:

“So what did Campbell say about the Loyalty Card Program? Not much. Other than that CMT, FMT/764 and Maines had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it and nothing was lost financially because it never went forward. In Paragraph 361 he states: “Neither CMT, 764, or Maines were mentioned as being involved in those contracts,” but then he obviously feels compelled to deal with those 207 pages of documents that mention “Eddie Francis” on almost every page, and says in paragraph 373:

Paragraph 373: While Maines may have been an instigator in getting Simplex and the Department of Tourism and Culture into discussions about a loyalty program, the contract with respect to that project was strictly between Simplex and the Department.  Similarly, there were references to an individual named Eddie Francis in the additional materials filed by the plaintiffs at the commencement of the hearing. The documents show that he was actively involved in email discussions with Tara Jackson of Tourism PEI in refining details of the proposed program. That does not change the fact that the plaintiff corporations CMT and 764 were not parties to the contract under which that work was undertaken.

The evidence clearly shows that CMT and 764 (FMT) were indeed “parties” to the Loyalty Card Program – Judge Campbell either doesn’t  understand the nature of the corporate affiliation between these two companies or is deliberately choosing to ignore it….either way, it completely skews everything he says about Maines and CMT/FMT because he’s interpreting the facts through a broken lens.” [Government Amnesia and the Loyalty Card Program, October 20, 2018].

Those 207 pages on the Loyalty Card Program were documents that I had obtained through FOIPP, and had turned them over to Maines, knowing that the Defendants had disclosed ZERO documents on the program, denying that such a program ever existed.

This quite unbelievable development prompted Maines’ counsel to seek further clarification in an email sent . Both the email and Robinson’s response are as follows [Robinson probably should have dispensed with the final  “…., respectfully,” given the unsubstantiated claims he was attempting to defend, and the overall tone of the response, which was anything but respectful.

Back to JR’s Claim about Francis…

There’s really no reason to belabour this story – JR [via Christopher Ian Robinson, his legal counsel] made a very serious allegation that he had substantial numbers of e-gaming 2.0 documents in his possession at one time [which he does not deny], but that they had all came from Eddie Francis, but were since deleted.

That has been completely and categorically denied by Francis, who not only wrote to JR directly demanding a retraction, once he learned of the claim from Maines, but also filed his own Affidavit.

That’s all that’s needed to round out this story within the bigger story, so have at it!  But first, a few more paragraphs from Maines’ Affidavit that set up the material from Francis really nicely:

LETTER TO JR FROM EDDIE FRANCIS

After Maines reached out to Francis to inform him of the claims being made by JR / Robinson, Francis wrote the following letter to JR on    :

On December 15, 2021 I was advised by Paul Maines that you, through your legal counsel, alleged that between May and July of 2021 I sent you screenshots of a number of emails between
you, Dennis King, Chris LeClair, Allan Campbell, Frank Zhou, and possibly others. It appears that you are alleging to Mr. Maines that I have either concocted, or participated in disseminating, fabricated emails. As you are well aware, I never did any such thing and I have kept and reviewed all of my text message records between you and I can and can easily prove this fact.

Please understand that this is a very serious matter for me with significant professional implications if any of these false allegations are in any way made public. Consider this letter to
be notice to you that if you don’t immediately withdraw these false allegations and correct your lawyers comments or if you continue to make these allegations, I will be left with no alternative
but to aggressively pursue my legal remedies against you.

I am demanding that you cease this conduct immediately and have your legal counsel correct the previous correspondence to Mr. Maines and to provide me with proof that you have done so.”

Nothing unclear or ambiguous about that position!  No change to JR’s position were forthcoming…hence, this humungous Motion seeking the Court’s intervention.

AFFIDAVIT OF  EDDIE FRANCIS

Here’s Francis’ Affidavit:

Summary

None necessary.  I’ll end by saying I’m chomping at the bit to get some answers to the growing list of questions. Also, wouldn’t be proper to end without again reminding everyone how morally-bankrupt our government is, but ESPECIALLY our Opposition who have completely abdicated their most important role – to be critical of government.

Peter Bevan-Baker has an agenda that’s as so important that he’s happy to be complicit with the corruption he and his colleagues are turning a blind eye to to get their agenda advanced, which King is also happy to offer in the dealing that undermines our parliamentary democracy and makes a complete mockery of the words “accountability” and “transparency” these politicians use daily.

Nor are the media concerned enough to even mention this historically-significant Motion has even been filed.

How sad is that?