Mystery remains after top officials perp-walked out
One of the more bizarre elements of this week’s intrigue at the legislature is why the top two appointed officials in the place were subjected to a humiliating perp-walk in front of TV cameras.
Craig James, the clerk of the legislature, and Gary Lenz, the sergeant-at-arms, were escorted out of the building Tuesday by police officers as stunned reporters looked on.
Both men looked shocked and ashen-faced as they were led away while the cameras rolled. James insisted he had no clue why he was being marched out and said Lenz had told him he was equally in the dark. The drama unfolded after MLAs in the legislature voted unanimously to suspend James and Lenz with pay, pending an RCMP criminal investigation into their conduct.
On Wednesday, a special adviser to Speaker Darryl Plecas revealed an internal probe into the mysterious affair started in January and police were notified in August. Why were James and Lenz publicly blindsided and escorted out of the building in such dramatic fashion?
“It wasn’t a choice of the Speaker,” said Alan Mullen, the special adviser to Plecas. “You can’t just go to them and say something or give them the heads-up. The members had to vote on it, and then that information would be communicated to those officials.”
He said the Speaker received advice from a constitutional expert on how the matter should be handled.
“It’s an unfortunate place to be at,” Mullen said. Unfortunate, indeed, for two high-ranking public officials now under a cloud of suspicion. And unfortunate as well for members of the public, who still have no idea what the hell this is all about.
Mullen revealed that he and Plecas were friends and had worked together at Kent Institution, a maximum-security prison in Agassiz. Mullen said he was an administrator and prosecutor at the jail and worked with Plecas, a criminology professor brought in as a prison judge.
“I’ve been involved in internal investigations for the Correctional Service of Canada,” Mullen said, revealing Plecas hired him as a $75,000-a-year adviser in January. Among his duties: Investigating James and Lenz, and then eventually passing on information to the police.
“As the months went on, we gathered more information,” Mullen said, while steadfastly refusing to say what the investigation is all about, other than to say it has to do with James’s and Lenz’s “administrative duties.”
“The RCMP investigation is ongoing,” he said.
Earlier, the B.C. Prosecution Service confirmed the appointment of not one, but two, independent special prosecutors to oversee the investigation because of its “potential size and scope.”
Sounds like quite a tangled web. But don’t expect it to be unravelled quickly.
In the meantime, the public is left to wonder at the latest only-in-B.C. political spectacle, one that unfolded in spectacular fashion, but with no explanation of why it’s happening.