So Premier Horgan was unaware for 10 months that the speaker he’d personally appointed was conducting a secret investigation in the B.C. legislature. If this isn’t plausible deniability, then it’s certainly long past the time when the premier should have been woke.
Because while the premier was otherwise occupied, the speaker hired his friend (or maybe not his friend) to investigate the clerk and sergeant-at-arms, and then orchestrated (or maybe not) their removal, and then maybe (or maybe not) tried to get his investigator friend (or not friend) hired into the now vacant sergeant-at-arms position.
And the MLAs of the legislature, without question or debate and with only innuendo and rumour to guide them, unanimously passed a motion to get the honourable and long serving clerk and sergeant-at-arms perp-walked out of the legislature.
And some stranger walks around the legislature halls for 10 months, looks into records and expense accounts, and likely gets into confidential computer and security systems and nobody questions this guy or what he’s doing? Well, I have a few questions.
Like, what legal or legislative authority gave the speaker and his investigator the right to conduct this secret investigation, and why were the police and the premier not involved from the start? And, given the legislature’s recent propensity for acting on innuendo, why hasn’t the speaker and his investigator been perp-walked out of the legislature too? And, what information, records, and systems did the speaker’s investigator really access, were there any violations of confidentiality or security in his accesses, and do his accesses reveal any interest in any parties other than the clerk and the sergeant-at-arms?
Since the legislature is clearly struggling to keep their house in order, perhaps it’s time for a citizen’s watchdog to be appointed. And how about we get that MLA recall legislation dusted off too.
Bruce Fowler
Victoria
