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Liberal leader Rich Coleman said Plecas double-crossed the party by taking the Speaker’s job after earlier promising not to do it.

“It was a total betrayal,” Coleman fumed.

But Plecas insisted the only reason he earlier said he wouldn’t take the job is because that’s what the Liberal party brass told him to say.

“That wasn’t really from me — that was from the premier’s office,” Plecas said, referring to former premier Christy Clark, who resigned in July after the NDP-Green alliance toppled her government on a non-confidence vote.

The Speaker is the non-voting, non-partisan referee of the legislature and Plecas — a second-term MLA and former criminology professor from Abbotsford — said it’s a job he always wanted.

“The Speaker’s job is an incredibly honourable role,” he said. “If somebody said to me, ‘What is the single best role a person could have as an MLA, especially for somebody from my background?’ That would be it.”

Plecas worked for eight years as a federally appointed prison judge.

“I heard over 5,000 cases, so I have a track record of being impartial in difficult circumstances,” he said.

“So when there was an opportunity to be Speaker, I had to choose. Am I going to do this, which I think is suitable for me and the kind of person that I am? Or am I going to continue having to restrain myself for years?

“I made the right choice.”

Plecas said he was moved by the good wishes he received on Friday when he took the job.

“Almost everyone from the NDP and the Greens came to see me and wished me well. I was flooded with hundreds of emails from people, saying thank you for doing this for the province.”