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David Walsh made so many stupid idiotic comments I don't know where to start. He is definitely an idiot. Is he also a crook? I think so!
For those who missed today's article (part one was yesterday):
October 13, 1997
Dreams didn't die
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW -- Part 2
By JOE WARMINGTON
Calgary Sun
Despite everything that's happened, David Walsh says he still has dreams of
someday making Bre-X the success story it once was.
And, in his first interview since the original Bre-X dream died in May, Walsh
said his new dream is to find some way of making back some of the money
shareholders lost in the Busang mining scam.
"I think I have a very slim chance but I'd like to have the opportunity to leave
the (10,000 remaining) shareholders with some value," he said of why he's
fighting to keep the company from being declared bankrupt. "If we are put into
bankruptcy, the capital will be used up in trustee fees."
Walsh, whose representatives will be in court Wednesday, has other ideas of what to do with
the estimated $30-million left in the company's coffers.
"If I had a wish list, I'd restructure Bre-X and Bresea and merge them so we would then have a
corporation with no debts and $30 million in cash," he said.
For what? Another mining project?
Not a chance, says Walsh, 52. If he can keep Bre-X running, he'd like to see it become a
player in the more-stable commercial real estate game.
"I'd like to focus on real estate, using the 119 (14 St. N.W.) building as the flagship," he said.
The real estate end of the business has already begun with Walsh advertising his top two floors
for lease. Down to just three employees, Walsh is also considering renting out much of the
leftover space.
In fact, the office building which once had proudly displayed 'Bre-X Minerals' in gold letters
now simply says in similar lettering One Nineteen. "I ordered it down because it's a disgraced
name," said Walsh somberly.
Walsh vows to remain based in Calgary.
"This is the best city in Canada in which to operate a business from."
Besides, it's where people have been so supportive when it wasn't popular to be so.
"I think the people in this village have given us the benefit of the doubt," he said.
"A lot of people say 'are you okay, is your family okay' and they say 'I wouldn't want to be in
your shoes."'
It doesn't mean, however, that Walsh is planning to give up his Bahamas home -- a place where
he's been several times since the Strathcona report in May called the Busang mine one of the
world's biggest mining scams.
"When I am in Nassau, I'm working," insists Walsh. "Do you see a tan?"
Walsh gets questioned about the Bahamas a lot. With the storm around Bre-X, many ask him
why he doesn't simply take off and live in permanent Caribbean seclusion like his former
vice-chair John Felderhof has been doing in the Caymans.
"I'm just not a quitter by nature and I did absolutely nothing wrong," he said of not hiding out.
In fact, he's looking forward to the completion of future investigations so his name can be
cleared -- something the Bre-X-commissioned Forensic Investigative Associates' investigation
did last week.
He admits it won't be easy for him to make a comeback and be treated with the type of respect
he was given when Bre-X was riding high.
"My credibility has been shattered, which is not a nice feeling," he said.
"But life goes in cycles."
The release of the investigation's results, he said, may be the start of an upswing because for the
first time the public was given an indication Michael de Guzman and several accomplices
planned and carried out the salting operation.
So far, there's been no official evidence to suggest otherwise. "We have been criticized for
paying for the investigation but my answer for that is who was going to pay for it, the tooth
fairy?" he said.
The bottom line, he said, is someone had to get in there fast to get the facts.
Like he did by hiring the conservative Graham Farquharson at Strathcona to determine the gold
levels, Walsh said, he did the same with retaining former RCMP detective Rod Stamler and
Toronto lawyer Doug Hunt.
"We are talking about a highly- respected investigative team on an international level," he said. "I
took a pro-active approach because there was something amiss and it was my responsibility to
get to the bottom of it."
Walsh knows he'll be criticized by many in the future. There are two new books on the shelves
which don't paint a flattering picture. However, he hopes people will consider what the
investigation says instead of what they read from writers who've never spoken to him.
"I haven't read them because I don't read fiction and from what people have told me, it sounds
like fiction to me," he said of books by Financial Post Editor Diane Francis and by the Globe
and Mail's Douglas Goold and Andrew Willis.
Walsh will eventually release his own book.
"There's a book in the works to dispel a lot of the myths and inaccuracies that are apparently
contained in two books so far published."
Walsh is also pursuing the possibility of signing a contract to do a movie.
"I am going to give the profits to charity," he said.
Joe can be reached at (403) 250-4323 or by e-mail at
jwarming@sunpub.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to callet@sunpub.com.
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