Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran was sworn in for a second term by Judge Lisa Wyatt Monday, Nov. 6, 2018.

(ROB MUNRO / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

Reaction from Kelowna upon learning their mayor was investigated for sexual assault while in office and arrested and charged shortly after he lost an election a few weeks ago was rather curious.

No one was shocked.

No one who witnessed the hubris of Colin Basran during his reign as mayor was even surprised he would embarrass the city somehow, if not the specifics.

I am not writing about the charges before the court. I have no inside information about that, other than rumours I heard during the election that a woman had gone to police. Colin Basran is innocent until proven guilty. 

But I have written eight columns about Basran since 2018, none of them flattering. If I’m honest, a lot of it was nitpicking, from his hollow complaints about a “death threat” on this website to his need to front every aspect of the City of Kelowna communications.

Marshall Jones, managing editor

The motivation for every one of them was what I have been told about Basran. Stories of servers made uncomfortable at wild and woolly city management parties. Old hockey buddies, old colleagues who saw something not obviously wrong but not quite right. Stories about him on trips doing city business. Rumours of photos I could never verify. And perhaps a few other things that have yet to come out.

I can’t be specific because if I could have verified, I would have reported them but these stories came from direct eyewitnesses describing very concerning behaviour from Basran both before he was a politician and after. I tried to chase them down further but was often stymied.

“There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” is the famous Liberal line I was quoted several times in various ways, as if I were simply trying to report on his sex life.

No one wanted to talk about it.

That’s what I gleaned from my distance as a reporter about his increasingly erratic behaviour. The media has only presented pieces of it. Swearing at Ron Cannan at his campaign launch. Living in the waterfront home of a B.C. developer. His petulance in nearly every dealing with rival Tom Dyas through two campaigns. Anyone following Basran's Instagram could have pieced together that something wasn’t right.

But his supporters kept on defending him, despite what was going on in front of their willfully blind eyes — and attacking with vigour me or anyone else who dared point out the mayor wears no robe.

His supporters so wanted what Colin represented — diversity, inclusion, compassion, etc — in the mayor’s office, they were willing to overlook all they saw and knew to keep it. No more banning gay pride days in Kelowna while Colin’s in drag and opening not one but four rainbow crosswalks. He would help find answers to the homeless problem (no matter how long it takes) instead of cracking down on street crime.

Just shut your eyes and quote Pierre Trudeau.

That's the kind of mayor they wanted, shrouded him with protection of his secrets.

Were they shocked or surprised at the news? I doubt it and if I am correct, there’s a few people who need to look themselves in the mirror. Their pandering did nothing but enable and inflate his ego to unredeemable proportions.

— Marshall Jones is the Managing Editor of iNFOnews.ca

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