Someone you like and respect gets into a jam involving criminal charges and suddenly needs a lot of expensive legal help.
Do you step up with a chequebook and help? Do you shun them? Or do you take a middle course and shy away slightly and see how it shakes out?
A number of B.C. Liberals are mulling over those options in light of one of their own’s novel use of crowdfunding to help her defend herself against criminal charges laid by Ontario police. Laura Miller was the executive director of the B.C. Liberal Party until last month, when she quit because charges were laid against her arising from her previous job as deputy chief of staff to the premier of Ontario.
The moral issue of whether to help a friend is usually a private matter, but in this case it’s much more public. Miller has been working in politics for years, where nearly everything comes under public scrutiny.
The charges are high-profile and relate to a huge Ontario controversy that has been playing out for several years. Her fundraising, although on a public website, was designed as a private appeal. But it got major attention this week when it was revealed in the media.
All of which prompts some interest in the response to her appeal. The crowdfunding website is a kind of open scorecard on how her friends are responding to her plight. They can go the brown-paper-bag-full-of-unmarked-bills route. Or go public with a donation and a message of support.
So far it’s working beautifully, from Miller’s point of view. She pulled in about $15,000 initially. Then when the appeal got some media play, the tally doubled. It was standing at $33,000 on Wednesday, one-third of the way to the goal.
Some donors are from B.C., but her troubles lie in Ontario. She’s charged with mischief and breach of trust over events that occurred as the scandal over a decision to cancel some major energy plants was peaking. Miller and her superior arranged to bring in an outside IT expert — Miller’s spouse — to “clean” some hard drives.
That involved deleting thousands of emails. That angle wasn’t revealed until late 2014, after a year of police investigation, by which time Miller was long gone, recruited to B.C. It took another year for police to lay the charges.
One curiosity in the case is the lack of indemnification in Ontario. If Miller’s problems had arisen in B.C., she wouldn’t have to worry about paying a lawyer — public employees, up until the B.C. Rail scandal, had almost blanket coverage of legal costs for court actions.
It was tightened slightly after the two defendants in that scandal had their $6-million legal bill covered by taxpayers in return for guilty pleas.
But it’s still far more generous than in Ontario, where there is nothing comparable.
Although Miller’s case has nothing to do with B.C. — other than that deleting emails is a hot topic in both provinces — the crowdfunding of her defence turns it into a B.C. issue.
Some of the donors who have made their support public have had their own brushes with scandal. Ken Boessenkool ($1,000) had to quit his job as chief of staff in the premier’s office in 2012 over inappropriate behaviour. And Mark Robertson ($1,000) is facing Election Act charges arising out of a probe into the ethnic outreach quick-wins scandal.
B.C. NDP MLA David Eby said he doesn’t blame Miller for crowdfunding. “Clayton Ruby [her lawyer] bills top dollar and criminal defence is a very expensive enterprise.”
But he questions the “lack of judgment” of some of the B.C. donors. Miller was running the party at the time a special prosecutor was overseeing an investigation into the quick-wins scandal that resulted in the charges against Robertson, who was then on the party staff. Now he has made a public donation to someone who might conceivably testify if his case proceeds.
And the special prosecutor is still on the case.
Eby said there are some situations where people in the political realm have to tell friends in trouble: “No. I can’t help you.”
The issue will likely be probed more deeply next month when the legislature resumes sitting.
