“I am entitled to my entitlements.”

I had just arrived on Parliament Hill in 2005 to work as a correspondent when David Dingwall, by then the former head of the Royal Canadian Mint, uttered those now infamous words.

I’ve been reminded of them several times over the past 10 months as a high-profile spending scandal unfolded at the B.C. legislature involving (now former) Clerk Craig James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz.

The two civil servants making very handsome salaries (James’s in 2018 was listed as $347,090 — $100,000 more than his counterpart in Ottawa — while Gary Lenz made $218,167) stood accused of abusing office expenses and the lack of rules surrounding them to fund the sorts of entitlements they should have had to pay for out of their own pockets.

I was thinking of entitlements again Thursday as the province’s Auditor General, Carol Bellringer, released her audit into expense policies and practices in the offices of James and Lenz, as well as that of Speaker Daryl Plecas.

If you’re not entirely familiar with the scandal, it began last November with the stunning sight of the two senior legislative officers, James and Lenz, being perp-walked out of their offices by police.

Six weeks later, Speaker Plecas released a report outlining allegations that James and Lenz “took lavish trips, made unscrupulous expense claims and received outrageous retirement payments, all on the public dime.”

It was the Plecas report that prompted the Attorney General to launch her audit, with Plecas saying “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.”

Both men deny any wrongdoing.

The auditor general did not conduct a forensic audit, so it doesn’t contain the kind of details that would cause sudden nausea, but what she did find certainly makes for uncomfortable reading if you’re a B.C. taxpayer.

Bellringer’s team looked through 4,700 transactions totalling $2.2 million and found what she called “weaknesses and gaps in the expense policy framework.” She also says that when policies did exist, they were sometimes not followed.

“Travel expenses were made without clear documentation to support the purpose of travel, some expenses were made without appropriate approval, and purchases of items such as clothing and gifts were made in absence of policy to guide those transactions.”

According to the audit, between April 2016 and December 2018:

- $17,222 was spent on clothing, but existing policy “did not clarify the type of clothing appropriate for purchase.”

- $18,783 was spent on gifts or other items both in Canada and overseas, including three jade bear sculptures for $1,428.45 (and that included a 50 per cent discount), “these purchases were made in the absence of a policy for the purchase of gifts, making it difficult to determine whether they were purchased for Legislative Assembly business.”

- The Clerk travelled in-province 62 times at a cost of $34,498, “in 53 of these trips, the Clerk’s expense forms documented who the Clerk was meeting with but the purpose of the meetings were not described including how the meetings supported Legislative Assembly business.”

Bellringer says she found travel policies that resulted in practices not found elsewhere in B.C. public service, and that grey areas provided a great deal of discretion for the travellers and those who approved the trips. She said she was surprised just how often thing were not getting approved.

She later said she couldn’t say there was no fraud, but that her office had found nothing they felt they had to turn over to police for further investigation.

An earlier report into the matter by former Supreme Court of Canada chief justice Beverly McLachlin found James had engaged in misconduct. He has since retired. McLachlin’s report cleared Lenz of wrongdoing and he remains on paid administrative leave while a police investigation is carried out.

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As for the future, the Auditor General makes nine recommendations including governing financial practices and on travel policies.

Some observers say the problems should have been caught much earlier given what appear to be glaring gaps in the rules.

But given the positive responses to the recommendations from the Legislative Assembly, this whole affair appears to have been the catalyst for a much needed change in how taxpayer money is spent by the most senior staff at the B.C. legislature. It may finally be crystal clear exactly what entitlements they are entitled to.

Ben O’Hara-Byrne is a journalist and former foreign correspondent based in Victoria. Twitter: @Ben_oharabyrne

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