The B.C. Legislature has known plenty of drama over the years. Yet, even by its high standards for political theatre and intrigue, the image of two of the building’s most senior officials being effectively perp-walked out of the premises will go down as one of the most shocking and unsettling sights ever witnessed there.
Today, we know just a little more than we did on Tuesday, when clerk Craig James and sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz were suddenly put on paid leave pending the outcome of an investigation by the RCMP. We now know the police investigation was initiated by the Speaker’s office. It still remains unclear what, precisely, the Mounties are looking into. Of course, given that nature abhors a vacuum, the paucity of information is being filled with rampant speculation.
It’s difficult imagining the matter being handled worse than it was, unless, that is, the whole point of the exercise was to humiliate and shame two men in the worst way possible – with TV cameras capturing the whole thing for posterity.
You would think the two much-admired officials could have been told not to show up for work on Tuesday. But according to Alan Mullen, an adviser to the Speaker, it couldn’t be handled that way because they are appointed by the House and their suspension had to be commenced by a special motion among sitting MLAs. He said that if it had been done in private, the two men could have said they weren’t going. (Or they might have co-operated fully and left as told). The police, he said, were invited by him in a “peacekeeping role.” (Right. Like these two were going to start a brawl or something).
Nonetheless, here we are.
As mentioned, the B.C. Legislature is no stranger to controversies involving the police, and the RCMP in particular. Together, they offer important perspective when it comes to considering what took place in the building this week.
In 2003, the Mounties conducted a spectacular raid on the offices of a couple of political aides – Dave Basi and Robert Virk. Again, the cameras chronicled police taking out boxes upon boxes of files. At the time, the RCMP said its investigation was linked to money laundering and asserted that the “tentacles of organized crime” had reached the highest levels of government.
In the end, the RCMP found nothing of the sort. Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk pleaded guilty to providing insider information to a party interested in purchasing BC Rail, at the time a Crown operation. The two men admitted to receiving some benefits in return, including a trip to a football game in Denver.
It should also be noted that it took seven years for the case to be resolved.
Before that, a Vancouver television station was tipped off to a 1999 RCMP raid on the home of then-NDP premier Glen Clark. Sure enough, BCTV went live on its supper-time news cast as police executed their search warrant, with the cameras catching a distraught-looking Mr. Clark and his equally distraught-looking wife, Dale, pacing about the kitchen as their home was being searched. Two weeks later, the RCMP conducted a search of the Premier’s office in Victoria. Mr. Clark was eventually charged with breach of trust in connection with a casino-licensing scandal – a charge of which he was eventually found not guilty.
And before him, there was Social Credit premier Bill Vander Zalm, also the object of an RCMP investigation, in this instance into the sale of Fantasy Gardens, the amusement park he owned and that had a faux castle in which he lived. He, too, was charged with criminal breach of trust, and he, too, was found not guilty. (Judges in both cases stated the defendants had demonstrated poor judgment.)
More recently, there was the 2012 firing of eight researchers in the Ministry of Health over allegations they misused public data. While the RCMP were not involved in this debacle, it illustrates the danger of jumping to conclusions. The charges levelled against the group ended up being a complete sham. One of the accused, Roderick MacIsaac, was so distraught about being suspected of stealing confidential information that he killed himself.
All of this is to say, we need to be careful when it comes to casting premature judgment on the two men who were marched out of the legislature this week under a cloud of suspicion. An RCMP investigation doesn’t mean a person is guilty of anything, as history has shown.
It often just means that someone’s reputation is guaranteed to suffer grievous damage – damage that can last a lifetime.