SPEAKER REMAINS MUM
Liberals and NDP confirm Plecas tried to get pal Mullen hired on as new sergeant-at-arms
Day 3 of the furor at the legislature began with the B.C. Liberals disclosing an extraordinary act of bad judgment by Speaker Darryl Plecas.
Opposition house leader Mary Polak recounted how earlier in the week Plecas proposed to elevate his friend and political operative Alan Mullen to the $150,000-a-year posting of sergeant-at-arms. This happened at the same Monday evening meeting where Plecas advised that current sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz and legislature clerk Craig James were under criminal investigation and would therefore have to be placed on administrative leave.
“Mr. Plecas in the meeting indicated that once Mr. Lenz had been removed from this position, it was his desire to see Mr. Mullen placed in that position,” Polak said Thursday.
Mullen’s debatable credentials for overseeing the $6-milliona-year security services at the legislature included a stint as an administrator at a maximumsecurity prison and self-styled work as an “investigator.”
But he was a friend of Plecas. Moreover, he’d been retained by the Speaker to oversee an internal investigation of the clerk and sergeant-at-arms, a seven-monthslong process that eventually led to the files being turned over to the RCMP.
Plecas neglected to disclose Mullen’s preliminary role in the investigation when he met Monday with Polak and house leaders Mike Farnworth of the NDP and Sonia Furstenau of the Greens.
That only came out Wednesday when Mullen himself went public with some of the details. Speaking on behalf of the Speaker, he disclosed how he’d been brought into the fold back in January to oversee the investigation of the two legislative officers and had delivered the findings to the RCMP in August.
B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson: “A seven-month investigation was conducted by someone with no legal training or police experience and this was being effectively hidden from the accountable assembly of the legislature.”
But even without that information, Polak had sufficient reservations about the Plecas proposal (“not appropriate”) to nix the Mullen appointment with a firm and flat “no.”
Just in case the other participants in the meeting were to remember things differently, the Liberal house leader took the unusual step of swearing out an affidavit with her account of the Speaker’s dubious proposal.
However, when Farnworth met with reporters later in the morning, he confirmed Polak’s account of the Speaker’s proposal to install his friend as sergeant-at-arms.
“That suggestion was made and it was a very firm ‘no’ and then we moved on,” said Farnworth. Why did he say no? “Because I don’t believe it was the right approach to take.”
The NDP house leader stopped short of agreeing with Polak that the Speaker had acted inappropriately. He also ducked questions about the seven-month prelude to the RCMP investigation that was conducted by Mullen under Plecas’ supervision.
“There is an investigation that is underway and I’m not going to comment based on the advice I’ve received,” said Farnworth. “I have confidence in the Speaker.
“This is a challenging time for the Speaker’s office. There are additional resources being looked at for the Speaker’s office. That’s the only comment I’ll make.”
But the Plecas office is already the most heavily staffed in modern memory, including the presence of a senior political adviser, namely Mullen.
Listening to Farnworth provide cover, I was reminded how he personally persuaded Plecas to break with the B.C. Liberals and serve as Speaker, thereby firming up the NDP’s hold on power.
Notwithstanding Plecas’ dubious judgment in this affair, the New Democrats weren’t about to cut him loose.
Later, Furstenau confirmed the Plecas offer as well, though she did not condemn it. The Greens seldom pass up the opportunity to assert the moral superiority of their approach to politics, but as partners in power sharing with the NDP, they have a stake in propping up Plecas as well.
With all three parties confirming how the Speaker tried to parachute his friend into the job of sergeant-at-arms, the onus was on Plecas to explain himself.
Initially it sounded as if he would. Meeting with reporters at the entrance to his office in late morning, he said he would meet with them in his office at 2 p.m.
“You’ll find it interesting,” he predicted, adding, “I’m not sure you have the correct story.”
Pretty much everything reported to date has been provided by his own adviser, Mullen, who claimed to be speaking on “behalf of ” and with “full authority of ” the Speaker.
It would have been instructive to hear the Plecas side of the story, undiluted by Mullen. But it didn’t happen.
Shortly before the promised meeting in the Speaker’s office, Mullen emerged to say his friend would not be meeting with reporters to set the record straight.
Rather, there would be a statement which he, Mullen, would read. After a lengthy wait, he emerged a second time to announce Plecas had retained a second special adviser, this time on legal matters.
The second special adviser is Wally Oppal, former judge and attorney general in the B.C. Liberal government. By an amazing coincidence, he’d been on CTV the previous day, urging the public to have “patience” in this affair and insisting there was no cause for concern.
That left Plecas acting like a man with something to hide, at a time when the beleaguered institution of the legislature greatly needs a credible figure as Speaker.
A seven-month investigation was conducted by someone with no legal training or police experience.