§03 · Informed, not asked

The clearest picture of the move is a single verb. In 2007, as preparations for the 2010 Olympics got under way, the Vancouver police chief did not ask his board to approve an armoured vehicle. He informed the board that the Vancouver Police Foundation would buy one, a BearCat-type truck, "at no cost to the city."reported The board was not a gate to clear. It was a notification to receive. Over five years the Foundation gave the VPD more than three million dollars, paying among other things for that armoured vehicle, valued at about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a SWAT mobile command truck at about five hundred thousand, a patrol boat, night-vision binoculars, and a drone program; its named partners included a major liquefied-natural-gas project and a national bank.reported

Set the two channels side by side, because the figure is the whole case at a glance.

The public channel a purchase	The donation channel a gift
Enters a budget line.	Enters no budget. Costs the public nothing.
The board or council votes.	The board is informed, or asked to accept. Not asked to approve.
A public meeting; residents can object.	No meeting; nothing to object to.
On the public record.	A charity, exempt from public-records law.
The public can say no.	A gift presents nothing to refuse.
Vancouver is the left column erased to the right: the chief did not ask the board to approve the vehicle, he informed it that the Foundation would buy one, at no cost to the city. The channel works only while it stays in the right column.

Read the two columns and keep them apart. On the left is how a police force is supposed to acquire grave equipment: a budget line, a vote, a public meeting, a record, and a public that can say no. On the right is the same armoured vehicle arriving as a gift. It costs the public nothing, so there is nothing to approve. The board is told, not asked. The charity that bought it is exempt from the records law that would have made the purchase public. And because it is a gift, there is nothing to refuse. Kevin Walby, University of Winnipeg, in The Tyee, 24 August 2020; the Vancouver account, the Georgia Straight, 14 March 2007.