The Scandal at the British Columbia Legislature: one year on

Nov. 20, 2018, 11:06 a.m.

NDP Government House Leader and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth stood in the Legislature, to ask for support to immediately and indefinitely suspend the Legislature’s clerk, Craig James, and sergeant-at-arms, Gary Lenz, while under investigation.

The motion passed unanimously.

Mike Farnworth announcing the suspension of the B.C. Legislature clerk and sergeant-at-arms on Nov. 20, 2018. (Hansard TV).

Farnworth didn’t say, but he met the previous evening with the two other party house leaders, BC Liberal Mary Polak and Green Sonia Furstenau, and Speaker Darryl Plecas — who had called the RCMP in months earlier to investigate corruption. Two special prosecutors joined in at the start of October.

James and Lenz were escorted from the Parliament Buildings. They held a news conference the following week, to deny wrongdoing and to demand their jobs back.

In May, James was found in misconduct. In a September report, Lenz was found to have broken the Police Act.

They both retired in disgrace.

The police investigation is ongoing. Meanwhile, Plecas and chief of staff Alan Mullen have shaken-up the Legislature and put it on the road to reform.

Catch-up on the scandal at the B.C. Legislature. Click the headline links below.

The story is far from over.

What we know about the B.C. Legislature scandal

Analysis: Excluded from FOI law, B.C.’s Legislature was a scandal waiting to happen

More questions than answers about spending by suspended Legislature officials

Plecas’s “final straw” was Clark’s plan to politicize riding offices

Conniving for cash: Plecas report says suspended officials plotted to pad their paycheques

Fact-checking as the suspended Legislature duo responds to the Plecas Report

Plecas eviscerates suspended Legislature duo in rebuttal report

Disgraced clerk Craig James quits, rather than face firing for misconduct

Inside the misconducts of the McLachlin Report: “It is hard to understand what was going through Mr. James’s mind”

Mystery surrounds Craig James’s legal costs and why he was forgiven for ill-gotten gains