Adrian Dix said last week in announcing his plan to resign the New Democratic Party leadership that quitting was his default position right from election night.
So he was likely quite decided on his future in August when he sat down to write a remarkable letter. It was a complaint to the RCMP about B.C. Liberal Party dirty tricks in relation to the quick-wins ethnic-outreach scandal that occupied attention earlier in the year.
It also alleged Election Act irregularities.
It led to an amazing revelation late Thursday afternoon by the criminal justice branch.
The branch confirmed that it had named a special prosecutor back on Aug. 29 to assist police in an investigation into the complaints. They suppressed news of the appointment at the request of the RCMP, which wanted to “safeguard the integrity of the investigation in its early stages.”
The mind reels at the implications of Dix’s move. By August he was a widely discounted Opposition leader who was being blamed for blowing what looked to be a sure thing.
In the midst of that turmoil, he sat down and wrote to the police to complain about the winners.
It’s the biggest political gamble in years. If nothing comes of his formal complaint, Dix will go down in history not only as a loser, but as the ultimate sore loser, who called the cops when the result didn’t go his way.
Even with him out of the leadership picture, it’s a label the NDP would wear for years.
But if the RCMP investigation produces convictions relating to election fraud or wrongdoing in some fashion, it could conceivably rewrite significant parts of the 2013 political story, to the immense benefit of the NDP.
Dix downplayed the political implications in an interview with the Times Colonist.
“I was sufficiently concerned about the information that came to our attention that I forwarded it to the RCMP,” he said. “The information came to our attention after the election.”
The exact nature of Dix’s complaint wasn’t stipulated in his brief statement Thursday. He just confirmed that he was the one who made it.
But it’s clear what the general grounds are. It goes back to the leaked documents the NDP released. They showed Premier Christy Clark’s office staff had embarked on a dubious ethnic-outreach scheme — conceived but not executed — that co-opted government resources.
Clark apologized profusely, some staff departed and three deputy ministers were ordered to dig into the story. Their report found violations of public-service regulations.
And in July, after the election, they released thousands of pages of documents uncovered in the course of their investigation. It’s likely that pile of email correspondence that heightened the NDP’s concerns.
One of them was highlighted during the summer legislative sitting. There was a reference to getting former cabinet minister Harry Bloy to offer a job to an unhappy former staff member and explain “how doing anything would damage the premier and the party.”
Dix at the time said it amounted to offering inducements for silence.
B.C. Liberal cabinet ministers Teresa Wat and Andrew Wilkinson dismissed Opposition questions about that email over a period of several days. They said there was no evidence the idea was acted upon and the deputy ministers’ review confirmed that.
They said deputy minister to the premier John Dyble’s report was “fulsome, comprehensive and exhaustive.”
Dix on Thursday said Dyble’s report was tightly confined to the public service. The information and privacy commissioner also reviewed the case, but Dix said those terms of reference were restricted as well. The RCMP can go wherever they want.
He made one other reference to the source of his complaint in Thursday’s interview. “There’s other information as well.”
Whatever the implications, it could be a long wait to see them play out.
Past police probes into B.C. politics have taken years to resolve, with B.C. Rail as the classic example.
This one obviously needs to be thorough. But it needs to be a lot quicker than usual, as well.
