Speaker Darryl Plecas hinted at financial mismanagement in the offices of the clerk and the sergeant-at-arms during a much-anticipated meeting of the all-party committee that oversees financial management of B.C.’s legislature.
Plecas called for a full forensic audit on his own office and the offices of the clerk and sergeant-at-arms. He said his office will come out clean but as for other two offices: “If the outcome of those audits did not outrage the public ... did not make them throw up, I will resign as Speaker.”
“I am completely confident that those audits will show that we have a lot of work to do,” he said. Plecas suggested the audits be discussed at the next committee meeting.
Plecas said “very serious concerns” were brought to him early in his tenure about behaviour by sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz and clerk of the house Craig James that he “believed to be criminal.” He said when he learned of this information, he felt “a great duty to safeguard the integrity of this institution.”
The job of all committee members is “to make sure that public dollars are spent appropriately,” he said
James and Lenz were marched out of the building under police escort on Nov. 20 following a unanimous vote by MLAs to place them on administrative leave pending an ongoing criminal investigation.
Neither the RCMP nor the B.C. Criminal Justice Branch have given any information on the allegations, and Lenz and James say they have no idea why they are being investigated.
Early in Thursday’s meeting, Liberal house leader Mary Polak asked Plecas whether the allegations relate to fraud, adding that information is required before the committee approves the legislative assembly’s financial statements for the year ending March 31, 2018.
Plecas would not answer that question directly, but he raised his voice when Polak questioned his authority to conduct an investigation into Lenz and James. Information from the investigation was passed to the RCMP in August.
The Speaker took issue with the word “investigation,” saying the issues were so glaring they didn’t require much digging.
“I didn’t have to investigate anything to see wrongdoing,” he said, adding: “I have a duty to taxpayers to make sure if I ever see something that I think is inappropriate in terms of spending, financial matters, that I pursue that with due diligence.
“There’s not a taxpayer in this province who wouldn’t want me to do that,” Plecas continued. “They’d also want me to pay attention to the workplace environment, and to make sure people are treated fairly.
“Under my watch, there will never, ever be anything buried here.”
Plecas said the notion that his special adviser Allen Mullen was hired to conduct the investigation is ridiculous.
“We’ve heard this reference numerous times to Mr. Mullen being hired as an investigator. Nothing, nothing, nothing can be further from the truth,” he said. “At the end of the day … I’m sure the police will jump forward and special prosecutors will jump forward and tell you that he wasn’t investigating and they’ll also tell you that everything he did and I did leading up to giving police information was done not well, but perfectly.”
Plecas criticized the media’s coverage of the suspensions, saying it’s become a “circus” and he’s been reduced to a “cartoon character.”
Before the meeting Polak said it would not be possible for the committee to consider and approve the legislative assembly’s roughly $80-million budget for 2019-20 until there’s a “clean” audit for previous fiscal years.
Carol Bellringer, the B.C. auditor general, said this week that she can’t sign off on the legislative assembly’s financial statements for the year ending March 31, 2018, until she knows more about the allegations facing Lenz and James.
Bellringer has already completed an audit of the legislative assembly’s finances, and her audit findings report, delivered to the finance and audit committee on Nov. 22, stated there were “no instances of fraud or suspected fraud.”
Plecas chairs the eight-member legislative assembly management committee, which also includes acting clerk Kate Ryan-Lloyd and acting sergeant-at-arms Randall Ennis, NDP house leader Mike Farnworth, Green house leader Sonia Furstenau and Liberal house leader Mary Polak.
Polak, Farnworth and Furstenau met with Plecas the night before the legislature voted to suspend Lenz and James.
In a letter last month, Plecas reminded house leaders that there was unqualified unanimity at the Nov. 19 meeting that it would not be appropriate for Lenz and James to continue in the face of an “active criminal investigation.”
However, the Liberals have said when members voted for the motion, the majority were not aware that the investigation was initiated by Plecas and conducted without any involvement of the legislative accounts management committee.
Lenz, the former head of Sidney/North Saanich RCMP, is in charge of security at the B.C. legislature. Last year, Lenz was paid a salary of $218,167 and claimed $23,606 in expenses.
James is the chief administrative officer for the legislature. He has been clerk since 2011 and has a lifetime appointment to the position.
He is responsible for its $70-million annual budget and procedural matters. Last year, he was paid a salary of $347,090 and claimed $51,649 in expenses.
