So Craig James, former clerk of the B.C. legislature, has been sentenced to three months house arrest for breach of trust. While on a business trip to Britain, James used public funds in the amount of $1,886.72 to buy a suit, some shirts and a tie.
He claimed the clothes were necessary for his job — legislature clerks wear formal attire. The judge disagreed and found him guilty on this one count. He was acquitted on three other more serious charges.
There is no question that as a career civil servant, James used appalling judgment.
Yet there are issues here that should concern us.
In response to James’s conviction on a minor count, the prosecution demanded that he spend a year in prison. Really?
Our streets are alive with serial convicts who’ve served less time.
However, there is a more pertinent matter. While it’s no defence at law to claim that others did it, too, you have to consider the workplace that James inherited.
During most of his time there, the legislature was a pigsty of entitlement, rat-gagging abuse of taxpayers’ money, and serial defacement of public office.
In 2012, Robin Austin, then MLA for Skeena, billed taxpayers $19,000 for a trip to Sri Lanka to attend the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference, a well-known boondoggle offering free holidays in exotic, warm locations.
The Speaker of the House at that time, Bill Barisoff, justified this nonsense because Austin’s family hailed from Sri Lanka.
So that’s the deal? MLAs get free holidays in their homeland courtesy of taxpayers, few of whom could afford such a luxury.
In 2014, Speaker Linda Reid attended one of these Commonwealth jaunts in Johannesburg. Her defence? “It is important work on behalf of democracy.” Right.
In addition, the Liberal MLA flew business class and carted her husband along with her, the latter at a cost to taxpayers of $5,528.
Reid subsequently refunded her husband’s portion, though noting there is a long-standing practice of spouses accompanying MLAs on such trips. I’m sure there is.
NDP MLA Raj Chouhan and his wife were also invited, and you and I footed that bill, too. Snagging support from across the aisle to avoid getting ratted out is apparently a necessity in this line of business.
Then we had the self-same Reid spending $48,000 on a customized computer terminal with ornate wood panelling for the Speaker’s office, $13,965 on curtains for the legislative library, and $6,377 for new drapes and chair reupholstering in her personal office. She considered the latter “historic assets.”
Lastly, former Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA Ida Chong billed more than $6,000 for free meals at the legislature, even though she lived within walking distance. That lèse-majesté earned her the sobriquet Ida Chow-Down.
That these elected representatives set the tone for what was right and wrong in the legislative precinct cannot be disputed.
There is only one difference between James and the MLAs he served.
They were in charge and wrote the rules. James made the mistake of assuming that what was acceptable for them also applied to him.
So now he retires with a criminal record, while they’re living high and wide on fat pensions paid, as ever, by you know who.
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