OPINION: The Speaker’s reluctance to answer questions is increasingly characteristic of his performance in an office where he answers to no one. ... The New Democrats and Greens show no inclination (to rein in his excesses), being content to let him spend so long as his presence in the chair underpins their hold on power

VICTORIA — Speaker Darryl Plecas breezed by reporters with a terse “no comment” Wednesday when asked to explain why travel spending had tripled during his first full year in the office.

Auditor general Carol Bellringer had reported the raw numbers in yet another report on lax controls and unexplained spending at the legislature.

Distroscale

Office of the Speaker travel expenses in 2017-18, the year Plecas took office: $19,188. In 2018-19: $60,947.

How did it happen that in the very year when Plecas earned public accolades for blowing the whistle on overspending at the legislature, he’d allowed the travel budget in his own office to escalate?

The Speaker said reporters should wait for the statement that would be forthcoming from his office within a matter of minutes.

But the statement, when it arrived, supplied not one word of explanation or justification for how travel spending had gone from just under $20,000 to just over $60,000.

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Rather he offered perfunctory thanks to Bellringer for the report before underscoring the limitations of her report.

“While I was hoping that a forensic audit would be completed, I accept and respect that the auditor general proceeds according to her own mandate and authority,” grumbled the Speaker.

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Bellringer addressed that supposed limitation in her report and in talking to reporters afterward.

She hired two outside contractors from Alberta and Manitoba, both trained as forensic auditors, to help conduct the investigation.

But she cautioned that “this audit would not be considered a forensic audit — forensic audits are generally performed by specialists in support of civil or criminal proceedings.”

Her office was not involved in the continuing RCMP investigation into possible criminal matters at the legislature. But she did confirm she found no “unusual or potentially fraudulent transactions that needed to be referred to police.”

Thus the Plecas complaint about Bellringer echoes his frustration with the earlier report from Beverley McLachlin, the retired chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She, too, failed to confirm many of the Speakers’ allegations and insinuations.

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Plecas also interpreted the Bellringer report as having exposed “a failure of leadership and trust by senior non-elected leadership of the legislative assembly.”

But a less self-serving reading of the contents would have disclosed that the auditor general did not exclude his office from the critical findings.

Bellringer told reporters there were “quite a few people who dropped the ball” in all three presiding offices at the legislature — clerk, sergeant-at-arms and Speaker.

In the case of travel expenses, she wrote that those for the Speaker’s office were expected to follow the rules.

Protected behind his cone of silence, Plecas made no attempt to say how the $60,000 was spent or whether any or all of it fell within the standards identified by the auditor general.

Instead he closed his statement with another boast about the high standards he has brought to the office.

“As Speaker,” vowed Plecas, “I will do my utmost to support increased and much-needed accountability and transparency at the legislative assembly.”

Later — after emerging from a legislature committee meeting that had convened to discuss the auditor general’s report — Plecas provided a demonstration of what the words “accountability” and “transparency” really mean to him.

Again the questions about travel spending in his office. Again and again, the same answer: “No comment, no comment” — five of them in all. Only at the end did he hint answers might be forthcoming Friday.

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Adding to the unanswered questions regarding the Speaker’s office is the road trip taken this summer by his chief of staff Alan Mullen.

Mullen visited the capitals of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario as well as seven U.S. states — Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington — to do research on security at their legislature buildings.

The estimated cost was $13,000 — a $3,000 overrun according to a report last month by Richard Zussman of Global TV.

Zussman had difficulty getting details of the trip. But what he did find after interviewing officials at some of the stops on the itinerary scarcely suggested it was a substantive affair.

For instance, Mullen met with Chief Sergeant Bob Meyerson of the Minnesota State of Representatives for what Myerson describe as a “nice” if brief meeting.

“He wanted to know how we administer the sergeant-at-arms office here,” Meyerson told Zussman. “We met for an hour and then he toured the capitol building.”

While interviewing officials in Oregon, the reporter turned up evidence that an associate of Mullen was travelling with him. The Speaker’s office maintains the travelling associate did not incur any additional costs to B.C. taxpayers.

Plecas has yet to provide any accounting or justification for the amount spent on Mullen’s excellent and publicly-funded adventure.

It would be in addition to the $60,000 flagged by the auditor general, for that amount was for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019.

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I gather the Opposition Liberals will try to get a full accounting at the next meeting of the legislative assembly management committee, set for Oct. 8.

The Speaker’s reluctance to answer questions is increasingly characteristic of his performance in an office where he answers to no one.

The three parties on the legislative assembly management committee, acting in concert, could rein in his excesses.

But the New Democrats and Greens show no inclination to do so, being content to let him spend so long as his presence in the chair underpins their hold on power.

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