Pubdate: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2004 The Province Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: Michael Smyth CHARGES A LET-DOWN AFTER 'MOB MENACE' BUILDUP BY POLICE 'Are you telling me I lost two months' sleep over some two-bit grow-op out of a freakin' Cheech-and-Chong movie?" The speaker was a B.C. Liberal government insider I consult occasionally. When police raided the legislature last Christmas -- and the cops held a grim-faced news conference to warn about the slippery tentacles of organized crime uncoiling in the loftiest reaches of society -- this guy thought he was living in a different movie. "I was waiting for a horse's head in my bed," he said. "Now we find out it's about a grow-op? Good God! It better be about more than that." If it is about more than that, yesterday's charges against fired ministerial aide Dave Basi may simply be a skirmish before we really go to the mattresses. But if that's all the cops have got after nearly nine months of sleuthing, then Ricky Ricardo probably said it best: "Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do." Yesterday, the RCMP announced two charges against Basi, the former senior assistant to Finance Minister Gary Collins: Growing pot and possession of pot for the purpose of trafficking. Basi claims a tenant set up a grow-op in a rental house he owns without his knowledge. He wouldn't be the first landlord victimized in such a fashion. The same thing happened to Energy Minister Richard Neufeld. And a not-so-bright pot-grower, who was probably smoking too much of the profits, even set up a grow-op in a house owned by Ujjal Dosanjh when he was the attorney-general! ("Overgrow the government," indeed.) Yesterday's charges seem underwhelming compared with the disturbing warnings police issued after they busted the legislature Dec. 28. "Organized crime is a cancer eating away at the social and moral fabric of British Columbia," Sgt. John Ward intoned at the time. You would have thought Jimmy Hoffa was buried under the Speaker's chair. Now the Liberals are praying that this Cheech-and-Chong movie will soon sputter out. That may be wishful thinking. Although Basi may only be facing a pair of pot charges now, the search-warrant documents released last week detailed a long list of much more serious allegations against him: Breach of trust, fraud on the government, money laundering and possessing proceeds of crime. Special prosecutor Bill Berardino said he could be recommending further charges before the end of the year. In other words, this is all still a major embarrassment for the Gordon Campbell government. (Don't forget about Marshall Smith, the former chief political aide to then-multiculturalism minister Gulzar Cheema, who was fired Sept. 3 after being convicted the week before for trafficking cocaine in Victoria.) The comical Cheech-and-Chong movie could still turn into a Godfather shocker for the Liberals. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin