House speaker Darryl Plecas released a 76-page report to the public detailing some of the allegations against the sergeant at arms and legislature's clerk that led to their suspension.
Legislature clerk Craig James and sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz are being accused of lacking oversight for millions of dollars and being in charge of “unjustified terminations.”
Speaker Darryl Plecas released a report Monday alleging that Lenz and James participated in “flagrant overspending on luxurious trips overseas with questionable business rationales” and “expensing of all manner of personal purchases to the legislative assembly totaling tens of thousands of dollars over a period of less than two years.”
None of the allegations have been proven but they are being taken seriously by the B.C. Legislative Assembly Management Committee.
The committee has ordered a full forensic audit of the sergeant-at-arms’ office, the clerk’s office and the Speaker’s office.
The committee has also agreed to a workplace review of the legislature. Lenz and James have been given until Feb. 1 to respond to the allegations.
“These matters are not simply bare allegations. They are based on my personal observations, interviews with others, and where I have been able to corroborate them with reference to documents and records I could access at the legislative assembly within the time constraints that I have been working under, I have done so,” Plecas wrote in the report.
“Because my inquiry has necessarily been preliminary in nature, before the legislative assembly makes final decisions about how to address these matters, a process will need to be put in place that considers them more fully by way of interviews of additional past employees and current employees (who have not been a focus of the review conducted to date), access to all relevant records from a broader timeframe, and which provides an opportunity for Mr. James and Mr. Lenz to respond.”
In a statement released Monday evening, James and Lenz said they are “shocked” by the actions of the speaker and the committee, and maintained that no one had ever brought any of the allegations to them or given them a chance to respond.
“The Speaker has now compounded the harm to us and our families by preparing a report in secret, without any input from us, and recommended that it be released to the public to further blacken our reputations,” they wrote.
“We are only now able to read the allegations for the first time and we are confident that time will show that they are completely false and untrue.”
The pair said they intend to clear their names, and will provide a detailed response to the allegations after they have had a chance to look at them more closely.
The information is part of what Plecas turned over to police as part of the ongoing investigation into James and Lenz.
The pair are currently on administrative leave and the legislative assembly would have to have a vote in order to change that.
The report also details “inappropriate payouts of cash in lieu of vacation” which appear to total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Plecas also details a “lack of oversight or appropriate protocols in the awarding of employment benefits, and evidence of attempts to obtain highly questionable further benefits.”
In total, Plecas is alleging the pair provided benefits for themselves in the millions of dollars. The report also details “instances where thousands of dollars of alcohol and equipment may have been misappropriated from the legislative assembly.”
Plecas also claims he has heard from former employees who said they were terminated without cause and without any notice of any problems with their work
“Witnesses spoke of other employees who they understood were similarly treated, and of those who were seen to have raised concerns with expenses or financial management and were terminated,” reads the report.
“It appears that this practice of sudden without-cause terminations has fostered a culture insecurity among staff in at least some of the departments at the legislative assembly that if employees spoke up about concerns or fell out of favour they could lose their jobs without warning.”
Read the full report:
So yeah. Its alleged that top staff of the Provincial Legislature stole millions of dollars of public money for personal gain, and covered it up by firing employees who questioned their behaviour.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.
I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
Yeah, that sounds about right. BC's had some rotten people in office since I came of age and even before that. From the now retired Fast Cat Ferries to this our provincial level government has been rotten and it hasn't mattered who's at the helm. That said, we're no better or worse than Alberta, Ontario, etc. This is just how governments work and how they have worked since the first ape established dominance over the other apes in their troupe.
Jub wrote: ↑2019-01-21 11:59pm
Yeah, that sounds about right. BC's had some rotten people in office since I came of age and even before that. From the now retired Fast Cat Ferries to this our provincial level government has been rotten and it hasn't mattered who's at the helm. That said, we're no better or worse than Alberta, Ontario, etc. This is just how governments work and how they have worked since the first ape established dominance over the other apes in their troupe.
Will there always be some bad people in any system? Yeah, probably. Does that mean that we should just take corruption for granted, and say "They're all just as bad"? No. Because that normalization of corruption is the first step on the road to despotism.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.
I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
The Romulan Republic wrote: ↑2019-01-22 12:13amWill there always be some bad people in any system? Yeah, probably. Does that mean that we should just take corruption for granted, and say "They're all just as bad"? No. Because that normalization of corruption is the first step on the road to despotism.
Okay, so what realistically can this message board do about it? Like maybe 3 of our active members even live in BC, I'm broke and too mentally ill to realistically contribute even as a volunteer. What do you hope to gain by posting to an audience of a few dozen? Even if we all agreed with you we have zero concentration in a region to even put the meager numbers we do have to use.
You're shouting into the void here, even more than you would be on Twitter or Facebook, at least there people might pass by and share your message elsewhere. Here we're just getting sick of being moralized at by somebody with no clear goal besides venting.
This is the third thread in one night you've pulled this shit in.
Reported for thread derailment and vendetta.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.
I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
I'm posting on topic here TRR. Asking the point of posting these articles where you don't offer any new insight or solutions is allowed on this forum.
You're literally posting articles without comment. If you posted these articles with actual opinions, suggestions, etc. maybe people would respond in ways that aren't *eyeroll* "Look another TRR concern trolling thread where he whines a bunch and makes no comment or suggestion as to how to fix what he sees as ongoing issues." You don't do this so you get increasingly negative and disengaged comments.
Dalton wrote: ↑2019-01-22 12:56am
Jub. If you have nothing to contribute then don’t reply. If I have to put up with this again I shall be very cross.
Is posting articles with no new info cool now then? I'm literally just asking the obvious question of 'So what?' in response to copy pasted articles that would otherwise generate zero discussion and pass through the board unnoticed or just end up with a bunch of posts lamenting a situation that none of us can change.
The only way my post is off topic is if you feel that there's enough existing interest on this board regarding Canadian provincial political scandals to generate comments without the OP adding some additional thoughts to the article? I have my doubts, but if that is the case I'll let this rest with no further comment.
