Lawyer demands legislature bring back B.C. officials, who deny wrongdoing

VICTORIA — A lawyer representing the two suspended top officials at the British Columbia legislature is demanding they be reinstated as soon as possible while an RCMP investigation continues.

The letter from Mark Andrews to the NDP, Liberal and Green house leaders calls for the legislature to rescind a motion that placed sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz and clerk of the house Craig James on administrative leave.

Andrews says Lenz and James deny any wrongdoing and they do not know why they have been placed on leave.

“They are the most senior and long-serving and loyal servants of the legislative assembly whose reputations are in the process of being destroyed by these events,” says the letter dated Friday, which was released by the Liberals.

“As a matter of basic fairness, they deserved to be told what it is alleged that they have done and to be given an opportunity to respond to those allegations.”

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The three-page letter is addressed to the NDP’s Mike Farnworth, Liberal Mary Polak and the Green’s Sonia Furstenau.

“Time is of the essence if some of the damage to our clients and to the public respect for the workings of the legislative assembly is to be undone,” says the letter. “To be clear: our clients are not asking for the investigation to be stopped. They will co-operate with the investigation and any reasonable terms connected therewith, and wish it to proceed with dispatch.”

Opposition Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson said the letter raises concerns about the government’s preparations for potential legal issues prior to a meeting on Monday with legislature Speaker Darryl Plecas and the three house leaders.

He said the Liberals followed the plan to place Lenz and James on leave without asking questions because they believed the government had provided solid legal grounds to make the moves. But the Liberals have questions now, Wilkinson said.

“We want to know what the government’s position is on the legal issues raised in the letter because we have to take legal advice from the Ministry of the Attorney General,” he said. “If they did not do the due diligence before marching these people out the door then there’s a serious question about how the NDP handled this.”

NDP house leader Mike Farnworth said in a statement the motion was approved unanimously by the legislature on Tuesday and the decision to introduce the motion was made by the house leaders for all three parties.

“The RCMP are conducting an active investigation with the assistance of two special prosecutors appointed by the independent B.C. Prosecution Service,” the statement said. “This is a serious matter and the appropriate course of action for all is to refrain from speculation and allow the police to do their job. I have no further comment at this time.”

Farnworth, Polak and Furstenau said Thursday that when they met with Plecas on Monday evening to discuss the motion they also rejected a plan by Plecas to appoint Alan Mullen, his special adviser and friend, as acting sergeant-at-arms.

Mullen, who could not be reached for comment on Friday was hired by Plecas in January to look at some matters of concern to him, which included an investigation of senior legislature staff. He has said he turned over information he gathered to the RCMP in August. 

On Friday, Polak requested an emergency meeting of the all-party committee that oversees the management functions of the legislature. Plecas is the chairman of the committee.

Polak and Wilkinson also released a letter they sent to Farnworth and Furstenau with 11 questions after receiving the letter from Andrews. Most of the questions deal with the legal advice Plecas and Farnworth received before Monday’s meeting on the motion that was presented to the legislature.

The letter from Andrews says neither Lenz nor James received any advanced notice of the motion and were “ejected from the legislature in what appears to have been a deliberately public and humiliating manner, on the basis of secret allegations.”

Former B.C. attorney general Wally Oppal, who was appointed as a second adviser to Plecas on Thursday, described the investigation as an alleged “complex criminal matter,” but he wouldn’t elaborate.

“I can understand the public being concerned about this, but time will tell and it will take some time before all this comes out,” Oppal said Friday after meeting with Plecas and Mullen. “Those things take time. There’s a very complex criminal matter going on.”

Neither the RCMP nor the B.C. Prosecution Service have commented on the nature of the investigation and have not described it as a criminal matter.

Oppal said details of investigations are kept private to ensure fair trials if charges are ever laid.

“Investigations go on all the time and sometimes they result in charges and sometimes they don’t,” Oppal said.

Oppal said attention has focused on the Speaker’s actions in bringing the investigation forward and the hiring of Mullen, but those are secondary details to the investigation.

“The Speaker is a well-spoken, intelligent person with a great academic background and he didn’t do anything in a capricious way,” he added.

Oppal said the Speaker’s actions throughout the unfolding situation at the legislature were based on advice he received, but he wouldn’t say who advised the Speaker.

Dirk Meissner, The Canadian Press