Plant, Reid, Falcon and me on BC Rail scandal, with credit to John Van Dongen

John Van Dongen has accomplished something at least one very useful thing in reviving a discussion of the many unanswered questions in the BC Rail scandal.
Former AG Geoff Plant offers a useful perspective here. (The dissenting comment is mine.)
Finance Minister Kevin Falcon contradicts Plant here, saying every single Liberal MLA was "appalled" by the $6-million deal that ensured guilty pleas from Dave Basi and Bobby Virk.
Ian Reid argues Van Dongen is absolutely right in a blog post here.
And I refer you to two columns I wrote arguing the smell of the scandal lingers and questions remain, here and here.

Update:

I added another comment on Geoff Plant's post, responding to his argument that paying the $6 million in legal fees was not an inducement to get the guilty pleas because they were already in place.

"Sorry, but the hairs are being split too finely. If there were genuine guilty pleas arranged in negotiations with the special prosecutor in place, then there was no need to break the policy on indemnities. The guilty pleas would have been secured, the trial ended and the taxpayers could have recovered at least some of the $6 million.
If they weren't in place, then the $6 million was indeed a prior inducement because it came before the guilty pleas were actually secured."