MIKE SMYTH: Wilson did file LNG reports. NDP critics set to apologize
Minister Ralston is apologizing for work slur, advising the premier to do same
When the NDP government fired ex-Liberal leader Gordon Wilson last week, they didn’t spare the slime as they booted his butt out the door.
Premier John Horgan lambasted Wilson for wasting taxpayers’ money as the province’s “LNG Advocate,” saying there was little evidence Wilson actually did any work for his $150,000-a-year salary.
“No briefings, no reports, no memoranda,” is how Horgan summed up Wilson’s 3 1/2 years on the job.
Jobs Minister Bruce Ralston said the government did a “review” of Wilson’s work and concluded he did little “other than to cash his cheques.”
But a quick search of the government’s own Open Information website turned up a long paper trail documenting Wilson’s time in the position. A file containing Wilson’s reports to the former Liberal government during his first 15 months on the job runs 180-pages long.
It contains a work plan, meeting summaries, a 50-page report entitled, “Research Findings and Recommendations,” and 28 “Project Updates” submitted by Wilson to Shirley Bond, then-Liberal jobs minister.
Now Ralston is retracting his comments and apologizing to Wilson.
“I should have had these documents in front of me before I made my comments,” Ralston told me Monday after I alerted his staff to the material on his government’s website.
Ralston said he will also advise Horgan to retract his comments and apologize to Wilson.
The documents — which you can read for yourself at theprovince.com — include a summary of separate reports filed to the previous government. They include a report on competing LNG jurisdictions around the world (labelled “completed and submitted” on Jan. 31, 2014), a report on a proposed LNG “web portal and online registry” (submitted the same day) and a report on “consultations with B.C. business, industry representatives and communities” submitted on March 4, 2014.
A memo from Wilson to Bond listed “multiple visits” to business locations in Prince Rupert, Terrace, Smithers, Kitimat, Prince George, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Chetwynd, Dawson Creek, Hudson’s Hope, Kamloops, Kelowna and Squamish, with a report marked “completed” on May 9, 2014.
Another note to Bond detailed an LNG conference and trade show held May 21-23, 2014, where Wilson met with industry representatives and demonstrated an online LNG development tool.
A July 25, 2014, memo from Wilson to government communications director Katy Merrifield listed meetings he held with LNG companies Shell, Kitimat LNG, Pacific NorthWest LNG, Prince Rupert LNG Exports, Douglas Channel Energy and Woodfibre LNG, and meetings with pipeline companies Spectra, TransCanada and Fortis B.C.
A July 9, 2014, “information note” from Wilson to Deputy Jobs Minister Dave Byng described an “action plan” for connecting government to business.
The 50-page report from Wilson to Bond is labelled “executive summary,” is dated Jan. 31, 2014, and includes a long list of contact persons in industry, municipalities and First Nations.
The 28 “Project Update” reports from Wilson to Bond are dated from December 2013 through December 2014.
The updates include notes from a long list of meetings between Wilson and industry stakeholders over the course of the year, a report from an “LNG supplier boot camp” in Kitimat, notes on meetings with the B.C. Construction Association, the B.C. Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists, and many other detailed work reports.
“There were multiple reports and documents created during the entire tenure of the program,” said Wilson, who earlier threatened to sue Horgan and Ralston for defamation.
“The things they said about me are absolutely outrageous and untrue,” Wilson said in an interview. “How could they do a ‘review’ of my work and not consider these documents? They never interviewed me or asked me a single question about the program before they fired me. What kind of ‘review’ is that?”
The 15-month document package was publicly posted on the government’s Open Information website as a result of a 2015 freedom-of-information request. Ralston confirmed it was the NDP that filed the request.
He couldn’t explain why he and Horgan publicly slimed Wilson for not filing reports about his work when the NDP already had the documents in hand.
He also couldn’t explain how the “review” of Wilson’s work hadn’t turned up the documents.
“I acted on the basis of information that was provided to me,” Ralston said. “I’m taking the responsibility. So I do want to apologize for the statements I made.”
It’s extremely disturbing that this new NDP government would so carelessly try to destroy the public reputation of someone without a basic fact check.
Wilson said the experience has been a nasty one.
“I have been trying to avoid Twitter because the attacks have been so vicious,” Wilson said. “There’s a campaign now to force me to pay back my salary because the premier said I didn’t do the work. It’s been terrible.”
Let’s hope Wilson doesn’t go through with his threatened lawsuit against Horgan and Ralston now, though I wouldn’t blame him if he did. Any award for damages would be paid by B.C. taxpayers, though the retraction and apology should mitigate the amount.
All-in-all, it’s a disgusting example of sleazy, gutter politics from the very top of an NDP government that promised to do things differently.