Michael Smyth on how the next 10 days could turn B.C. politics upside-down

Hang on to your hats, secure your valuables, buckle your seatbelts and get set for another wild ride on B.C.’s political roller-coaster.

From the mysterious police probe at the legislature to the crucial byelection in Nanaimo, the next 10 days could change everything.

It starts Monday, when the all-party management committee of the B.C. legislature meets for another instalment of the Darryl Plecas Show.

Plecas is the crusading Speaker of the house who called in the cops last year when he became aware of “certain activities that were taking place in the legislative assembly.”

That led to an RCMP investigation, the appointment of two independent special prosecutors to oversee the probe, and then the astonishing events of Nov. 20.

That’s the day Craig James, the long-serving clerk of the house, and Gary Lenz, the sergeant-at-arms, were suspended with pay and perpwalked by police out of the parliament buildings as TV cameras rolled.

What’s it all about? No one is saying precisely, but Plecas made clear it involves suspected financial wrongdoing of a criminal nature.

“I have a duty to taxpayers to make sure, if I ever see something that I think is inappropriate in terms of spending, financial matters, that I pursue that with due diligence,” Plecas told the last committee meeting in December.

“Under my watch, there will never, ever, be anything buried here — ever.”

In that spirit, Plecas said the public deserves to know what’s going on.

“The public has a right to know,” he said. “The public has a need to know. I want them to get an absolutely complete picture. That is going to happen. That will happen.”

And Plecas said he wants it to happen on Monday, when the committee meets again.

Of course, there’s the little matter of that police investigation. You can bet the cops, the special prosecutors and Plecas’s own legal counsel are urging him to zip his lips while police do their work.

But Plecas has already proven himself to be a maverick who is willing to speak his mind, even when the experts tell him to shut up.

“I will give you a long laundry list of my concerns,” he promised, insisting anything he discloses Monday will not compromise the police probe.

After he’s done that, he said he will propose a “full forensic audit” of top offices at the legislature, predicting all MLAs on the committee will eagerly agree after he spills the beans.

“The public deserves full disclosure,” he said. “Boy, are they going to get it.”

Then, in B.C.’s political quote of the year: “If the outcome of those audits did not outrage the public, did not outrage taxpayers, did not make them throw up, I will resign as Speaker.”

Talk about cranking up the hype machine. Monday’s meeting could be wild. His advisers want him to pipe down. But Plecas is the type of guy who clearly prefers to speak up.

Beyond the juicy quality of this political soap opera,