Former B.C. Lottery Corp. chairman and ex-cabinet minister Bud Smith was (expletive deleted) mad about the money-laundering debate and Attorney General David Eby’s response.
He fumed that the Crown corporation’s staff had been vilified, one viciously verbally assaulted on the street, a director berated at Thanksgiving dinner, the rest “having the bejesus kicked out of them” because of a lie — that BCLC was wilfully blind to dirty money in casinos.
“I’m going to be measured in what I say because, frankly, it’s one of the assertions that I and others have had to live with. And to not overstate it — it pisses me off in the extreme,” Smith told the inquiry into money laundering this week.
“It is an obnoxiously untrue statement. … It was really, really unsettling.”
He remained troubled.
“There was a narrative developed … it’s now received wisdom in B.C. by the overwhelming majority of the population that this took place. It’s not correct. No one, zero, as in nada, asked or directed or suggested or gave a wink or a nod or a nudge with their elbow or anything else that we should stand by or stand down from our responsibilities and increase revenue to government. Ever.”
