B.C.'s political theatre takes a new twist
Credit to Author: Rob Shaw| Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 00:27:38 +0000
VICTORIA — Premier John Horgan fended off calls for the resignation of his top political adviser Wednesday as B.C.’s long-running legislature spending scandal took on new and more complicated political dimensions.
Opposition Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson demanded Horgan fire his chief of staff, Geoff Meggs, after a new report revealed Meggs shredded an early copy of a bombshell report into legislature misspending that Speaker Darryl Plecas had given him in July 2018, before the matter was referred to police.
“We don’t know what Mr. Meggs shredded,” said Wilkinson. “When someone who is a senior political staffer to the premier of British Columbia receives a report alleging criminal wrongdoing his obligation is to inform the police and inform the premier. Instead Mr. Meggs did nothing and shredded the report.”
Meggs denied wrongdoing, saying in a statement he was given “a copy of a summary of internal investigations conducted by the Speaker’s office” on July 30, 2018 and urged the Speaker to provide his information to police.” Meggs said he only disposed of his copy after hearing from deputy speaker (and NDP MLA) Raj Chouhan that Plecas had delivered his material to the RCMP.
The new report revealed that the premier’s office — Meggs at least — knew key details of the legislature spending scandal during the confusing first months between the suspension of clerk Craig James and sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz on Nov. 20, 2018, and the public release of Plecas’s report on Jan. 21, 2019 — a time in which Horgan said publicly he was in the dark about the police probe.
“The good news is I don’t know anything,” Horgan told reporters on Nov. 22. “And that is good news, because if there’s going to be an impartial investigation, it has to be conducted with the same rigour that is at any other place.”
The premier mounted a heated defence of Meggs to reporters on Wednesday, accusing critics of making “a mountain out of this molehill.”
“The response from my office was this should be in the hands of the police,” said Horgan. “Geoff didn’t create the document, he didn’t know its accuracy, he didn’t know its origins, it wasn’t his responsibility.”
The involvement of Horgan’s office added a sensitive political layer to a spending scandal that has played out for almost a year. The NDP responded by pointing out former Liberal speaker Linda Reid refused to be interviewed by the investigator of the recent report, and would only correspond through her lawyer, a fact Wilkinson admitted was not in the full spirit of co-operation.
James resigned as legislature clerk in May, after he was found to have committed workplace misconduct for awarding himself pay and retirement benefits during an investigation by the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin.
Lenz, the building’s top security official, was cleared by McLachlin. He asked for his job back. But Plecas instead launched a probe by former Metro Vancouver Transit Police chief Doug LePard into whether Lenz breached his duty as a special constable and lied to investigators.
It was LePard’s report, which was released Tuesday, that made mention of Meggs and Horgan in several paragraphs buried within the 112-page document.
LePard concluded Lenz had lied to McLachlin over what he knew about $8,000 in missing liquor that James had loaded into his own pickup truck at the legislature in 2013. Lenz told McLachlin he thought James was taking the liquor to be returned to a liquor store, but told Plecas and other legislature witnesses he thought James had stolen it.
Lenz also failed in his duty as a special constable to investigate what he must have known was theft, concluded LePard.
Lenz retired Oct. 1, allegedly after seeing an advanced copy of the report. He had been suspended with pay for almost a year during an RCMP investigation.
NDP government house leader, Mike Farnworth, said there’s no way to recover any salary, retirement, vacation or other benefits given to Gary Lenz when he was sergeant-at-arms.
“There’s employment law in the province, both provincial and national employment law, and what he’s entitled to are those benefits that are there under employment law and that’s it,” said Farnworth.
There’s also no ability for the legislature to discipline Lenz for the infractions.
Municipal police officers who are found to have committed misconduct under the Police Act cannot escape discipline by retiring or resigning, and their service records are adjusted accordingly. But Lenz was a special constable, and B.C. law does not allow them to be punished after resignation or retirement.
The original misspending allegations by Plecas, raised in January, outlined lavish international trips, inappropriate clothing purchases, a woodsplitter parked at James’ house for personal use, missing alcohol and extra pay, retirement and vacation benefits. Plecas declared he’d undiscovered criminal activity that would send people to jail.
Many of the allegations were subsequently not substantiated as misconduct by McLaughlin because of the legislature’s lack of clear policies on gifts, clothing, alcohol, travel and expenses.
Neither James nor Lenz have been charged with any crime. An RCMP investigation overseen by two special prosecutors continues, though the full scope of allegations they are investigating remains unknown.