Oh, Darryl Plecas, you got some splainin’ to do.
In this convoluted scandal, which is growing larger by the day, although all the key information is being withheld, Speaker of the Legislature Darryl Plecas is now occupying the One With Most to Lose seat. And right behind him are the NDP, because if Plecas does have to step down — and he might well have to — the NDP are going to have to nominate one of the their own to the Speaker’s chair, and suddenly their razor thin majority is even thinner.
The bare facts are that two officials in the Legislature, the Sergeant At Arms and the Legislature Clerk, were abruptly suspended from their duties in the House last week, per a vague “investigation”. Even the suspended two say they have no idea what supposed wrongs they were suspended for. Then the Speaker, our Mr. Plecas, tries to get his buddy, one Alan Mullen, who apparently headed up the investigation leading to the suspensions, the suddenly vacant job.
Having some sense of political optics, both the NDP’s Mike Farnsworth and the Liberals Mary Polak immediately nixed that suggestion. They didn’t even know at the time that the buddy was the one leading the investigation, they just knew giving the job to the Speaker’s buddy wouldn’t look good. So kudos to them for having either ethics or sheer political survival skills.
And it turns out that MLAs didn’t have a whole lot of information before they voted, unanimously mind you, to suspend the two men. At least they didn’t know about the buddy. They just knew that there was an investigation ongoing regarding the two men, and special prosecutors appointed.
Now the BC Liberals are experiencing some voter remorse, with Mike de Jong saying that the vast majority of MLAs were unaware what was going on when they voted — which, well I’ll just let you chew on that for a bit. Every MLA in the house voted unanimously, with not a great deal of information, to eject two employees. Not sure I’d be advertising the fact that I voted without any thought, but whatever, go on Mr. de Jong. de Jong is calling for Speaker Plecas to recuse himself.
BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson said it appears that Plecas has ‘gone rogue’.
In my humble opinion, it’s a little late to be clutching your pearls in horror at the unfairness of it all AFTER YOU VOTED FOR IT! But that’s just me.
Of course, BC Liberals have every reason to wish for the downfall of Darryl Plecas as he took the Speaker’s chair last year as a BC Liberal, after promising his colleagues that he wouldn’t. Resentment over that betrayal still brews.
But this may turn out to be one of the those rare instances where partisan politics don’t play. BECAUSE THEY ALL VOTED FOR IT!
The interesting thing about this is that no information is leaking out. None. MLAs are in the dark about it. The Premier appears to be in the dark about it, so does the Attorney General. Even the two suspended men still don’t know why they are being investigated.
And nothing is leaking.
That’s just unheard of for a political scandal. Usually it is in someone’s best interest to leak information. Or if not in their best interest, in the interest of sticking it to a rival.
No secret stays secret forever. But this one sure has some staying power. It appears that the only person who knows the details is the Speaker and he is very much not available for questions.
The Speaker has some ‘splainin to do. But it’s anyone’s guess when he will take the opportunity to enlighten us.
It’s also anyone’s guess whether he survives this with his job.
carolyn.grant@kimberleybulletin.com
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