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Bob Mackin

One more witness for the Crown’s breach of trust and fraud case against the former B.C. Legislature clerk. 

But there could be dozens, or even hundreds, more surprises in the B.C. Supreme Court trial of Craig James.

B.C. Legislature beancounter Hillary Woodward (BC Leg)

The Legislative Assembly’s executive financial officer, Hillary Woodward, is scheduled to testify for two days beginning Feb. 17 at the Vancouver Law Courts.

But, near the end of the hearing on Feb. 16, special prosecutor David Butcher dropped a bombshell. He told Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes that Woodward had brought a suitcase full of documents with her from Victoria. 

This comes two months after Woodward led prosecutors to discover 11 boxes of documents in the Parliament Buildings basement containing previously undisclosed records about James’s expense claims. 

Butcher said he met during the evening of Feb. 15 with Woodward for an hour to prepare for her court appearance.

“She also told me that she had brought a suitcase of documents with her that were in her hotel room,” Butcher said.  

He said police came in the morning to review the documents in the suitcase to see which ones were new and which ones weren’t. 

“Our next step in the process is to determine whether the new documents are in fact relevant to this case,” Butcher said. “I certainly got the impression that some of them weren’t. So it may be a small amount of paper. It may not be a small amount of paper.”

Special prosecutor David Butcher (Mackin)

Butcher conceded that the defence lawyers get exasperated and he gets exasperated back with him. 

“That’s not surprising. It’s not a situation that any of us wish. But we are, I think that causes difficulty with Miss Woodward tomorrow,” Butcher said. 

“So, what do you suggest?” Holmes asked. 

He said he wanted to start with Woodward’s direct testimony and give the defence as much time as it needs to respond to any of the new documents, if they are relevant. 

Said James’s lawyer, Gavin Cameron: “So far, the defense has kept the train on the tracks and will keep the train on the tracks. I’ll have problems if documents are pulled out of suitcases in the middle of examinations in chief, but, if [Butcher] thinks he can get some ways, then I think we ought to go.”

Cameron asked for a transcript of the police interview of Woodward. Butcher said she was asked to provide an additional written statement created on her own. 

“I went over there at lunchtime, there were two police officers there in a very small boardroom. I thought they might be trying to bring some more in, to just match the contents of the suitcase with the contents of the 4,000 documents in the disclosure,” Butcher said. “But I think we play it by ear and if [Cameron] says I need some time, I’m not going to object to that.”

Gavin Cameron (Fasken)

Meanwhile, earlier on the day, the court heard from a lawyer who said he advised Speaker Bill Barisoff in 2011 that payments under a retirement scheme to James and three others were legal. James received $258,000 under the grandfathered “long service award” program for legislature table officers, one of the charges to which he has pleaded not guilty. 

Don Farquhar testified that he met with Barisoff and James for 15 minutes and gave an oral legal opinion to end the program and make the final payments. He said he did not offer advice about James’s eligibility. 

“I remember that Mr. Barisoff looked at his watch and said, Craig, how about a bite of lunch?” Farquhar told the court. “And that’s how it ended. You know, that sorta describes the whole atmosphere, so to speak. In other words, okay, let’s let the lawyer have his say and then let’s get out of here.”

James joined the Legislature in 1987 and was appointed the $259,000-a-year clerk in 2011 by the BC Liberal caucus.

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Bob Mackin One more witness for the Crown’s

Business, News

Bob Mackin

The Crown expects to wrap its fraud and breach of trust case against Craig James this week, Special Prosecutor Brock Martland said in B.C. Supreme Court on Feb. 14. 

It is not yet known if James, the Clerk from 2011 to 2018, will testify on his own behalf or if his the defence lawyers will call any witnesses.

Then-Speaker Bill Barisoff (left) and Clerk Craig James during a Feb. 14, 2012 ceremony at the Parliament Buildings in Victoria. That was the same week Barisoff approved a $258,000 payment to James. (BC Gov/Flickr)

Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes heard Feb. 14 from Bill Barisoff. Barisoff, a BC Liberal MLA who was speaker from 2005 to 2013, appeared via video link from a courtroom at the Penticton Provincial courthouse. 

In 2012, James and three others took so-called long-service award payments under a pension scheme that had been discontinued. Kate Ryan-Lloyd, James’s successor, turned hers back in early 2013 before a scathing report by the Office of the Auditor General. James kept his $258,000 package, which is the subject of one of the five charges to which he has pleaded not guilty. 

Martland asked Barisoff whether he was concerned about the ethics of the payments. 

“Were you concerned at the time about the appearance, the optics of Mr. James having been involved in the process of moving forward the payment of these large payments and then receiving one in short order himself?” 

Barisoff: “If I remember right. My biggest concern at the time was what was happening was [clerk assistant] Robert Vaive…  that he was dying of cancer and was attached to this money as we’re going around in circles.”

Martland asked Barisoff if he sought any advice, including from the conflict of interest commissioner, Paul Fraser. He said he had no recollection of speaking to anyone, including Fraser. 

Martland: “Did you trust and rely on the integrity of the people who dealt with this issue? Why?”

Barisoff: “Because if you didn’t have to trust the people that you work with, it’s pretty difficult to run the operation.”

Martland also asked Barisoff about James’s visits to his house, which were revealed in then-Speaker Darryl Plecas’s 2019 bombshell report that exposed corruption at the Legislature. 

Martland: “With respect to your relationship with Mr. James, I think you said earlier that you had not been to his house, has he been to your house? How many times?” 

Barisoff: “I can’t remember, but I always think of that was on business.”

Martland: “Give us a ballpark sense of whether that’s five times, 10 times, two times, 20 times Five? 

Barisoff: “Five.”

How many were during versus after his tenure as speaker? “Sorry, I just can’t. I can’t remember,” Barisoff said. 

Martland said that there are documents on some of the visits, including June 2013 and April 2017. Martland prompted Barisoff to recall a delivery of items stored in his Legislature office during the former visit. He did not recall how many days James stayed. 

In the Plecas report, there was evidence of a $370 cheque dated June 26, 2013 from Barisoff with a memo “wine purchase” after James had trucked a quantity of alcohol worth as much as $10,000 from the Legislature to Barisoff. The haul also included a desk and chair. James stayed overnight at the Penticton Lakeside Inn, which was billed to taxpayers. 

The trial continues. 

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Bob Mackin The Crown expects to wrap its

Business, News

Bob Mackin 

The B.C. NDP government spent $47.66 million last year on the contract with Telus for the province’s vaccine booking hotline, documents obtained under freedom of information law reveal.

The hotline, plagued by initial problems, was designed to assist the first wave of those eligible for vaccines to easily book appointments at provincial clinics and sites. The documents reveal some of the early growing pains, including some challenges in tracking the hours worked by call agents.

NDP Health Minister Adrian Dix and Telus CEO Darren Entwistle in 2012 (Mackin)

The first invoice, for $20.4 million, was dated May 28, 2021 and reflected the initial setup of the Telus Elements call centre platform and costs for service from Feb. 28 to April 30. The actual number of hours billed was withheld under a clause in the freedom of information law that protects proprietary information, such as unit pricing.

Telus also charged $7.71 million and $8.27 million for May and June, respectively, and $4.4 million for July. The latter invoice, dated Sept. 29, included a $1.03 million correction for May and June agent hours. 

“The September audit was done to ensure good housekeeping,” according to a statement from the provincial branch of Government Communications and Public Engagement (GCPE). “The provincial call centre service was organized quickly, and some errors were detected by Telus and reported to the Ministry of Health in the recording of hours by call agents in the initial months. These were subsequently corrected, resulting in the invoice reduction.”

The system crashed almost as quickly as it launched on March 9, 2021. Only 369 senior citizens in the Vancouver Coastal Health region were able to get through the busy signals and hours-long waits to book appointments. Health Minister Adrian Dix said Telus “let us down.” 

“It wasn’t just technical problems, there was insufficient staff,” Dix said at the time. 

Telus CEO Darren Entwistle issued a public apology. 

“We are sorry for the frustrations that British Columbians have experienced trying to connect to the call centres,” Entwistle said. “The provincial government and health authorities asked us to support them, as we have let them down. We can and will do better, and we will make this right.”

Telus responded by nearly doubling the number of phone agents to 550. 

“No refund of hours worked and billed by call agents was expected or necessary,” said the GCPE statement. 

Government rules call for contracts worth more than $75,000 to undergo an advertised competition, except when there is an unforeseeable emergency or if a competitive process would interfere with a ministry’s ability to protect life or health. The vaccine call centre contract was negotiated by the province’s five health authorities through the government’s telecommunications master service agreement with Telus.

Telus, Bell, Rogers and Shaw were involved in a two-year bidding process for nine separate contracts. But the BC Liberal cabinet suddenly halted tendering in June 2011 and bundled all the work into a $1 billion, 10-year package with options to extend and gave it to Telus amid protests from the other bidders. The agreement is up for renewal in 2023. 

Public accounts for the year-ended March 31, 2021 show six divisions of Telus billed the province $82.4 million during the fiscal year.

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Bob Mackin  The B.C. NDP government spent $47.66

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Bob Mackin

Documents obtained under the freedom of information law show that Penny Ballem, the head of the province’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, charged taxpayers $405,000 last January through September for her services.

VCH chair Penny Ballem (BC Gov)

Ballem was originally given the $250-an-hour, no-bid contract in January 2021 for 10 months at a maximum $220,000 through her numbered company that does business as Pendru Consulting. However, the program went into overtime when a children’s vaccine received approval and the Omicron variant led to a booster shot campaign for adults. 

When asked for the cost of the more recent payments to Ballem, as well as the overall budget for the ImmunizeBC mass-vaccination program, Art Aronson of the government’s Communications and Public Engagement branch refused to answer. Instead, he said it would be necessary to submit a $10 freedom-of-information request, a move that could take weeks and perhaps months to be answered.

Ballem is a former deputy health minister under the BC Liberals from 2001 to 2006 who spent seven years as Vancouver’s city manager under Mayor Gregor Robertson. She did not respond for comment. 

In December, Health Minister Adrian Dix rewarded her with three more years as chair of Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. For the year-ended last March 31, she was paid $55,309, which includes a stipend, meeting fees and expense reimbursement. 

Dr. Bonnie Henry (BC Gov)

Meanwhile, the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) is refusing to explain how Dr. Bonnie Henry was allowed to co-author a book about her work as the Provincial Health Officer during the pandemic’s first wave. The title, “Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe: Four Weeks That Shaped a Pandemic,” was published in March 2021. 

A copy of Henry’s Provincial Health Officer (PHO) contract, obtained under the freedom of information law, includes clauses about confidentiality, conflict of interest and intellectual property belonging to the province. The contract sets the terms of her secondment to the Ministry of Health, where she became PHO by NDP cabinet order in early 2018. 

PHSA communications officer Andrea Visscher referred questions to the Ministry of Health communications office, which did not respond by deadline. 

Last November, the NDP government imposed a $10 application fee for public records after ramming through controversial amendments to the openness law that the party created 29 years ago. 

Publisher Allen Lane, a Penguin Random House Canada subsidiary, said in late 2020 that Henry would donate her advance payment to First Book Canada, a charity that distributes books to underprivileged children. The dollar amount was not disclosed and Henry refused to release her contract after an FOI request. 

She claimed to have written the book as a private citizen, but she promoted the book with national media interviews during office time and with the help of a public relations contractor paid via the Ministry of Health. 

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Bob Mackin Documents obtained under the freedom of

Business, News, Opinion

For the week of Feb. 13, 2022:

The circus is back in town. On the heels of Kevin Falcon’s controversial election as BC Liberal Party leader, the spring session of the Legislative Assembly opened in Victoria.

The two Green Party MLAs were busy. They questioned the NDP government why it doesn’t accept airborne spread of the coronavirus and whether a cabinet minister deliberately misled lawmakers about taxing freedom of information requests. 

Meanwhile, a polarizing, coast-to-coast protest by truckers has caught politicians off-guard and B.C.’s biggest commercial border crossing was blocked on Feb. 12.

Hear the sounds of the week that was in B.C. and federal politics.

Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and commentary.

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For the week of Feb. 13, 2022: The

Business, News

Bob Mackin

A former Comptroller General and Auditor General of B.C. said nobody ever raised a concern about ex-Clerk Craig James’s spending to him.

Arn van Iersel, who later worked as an advisor to the Legislative Assembly, said “that never came up.”

Veteran auditor Arn van Iersel (BC Gov)

“I wasn’t even aware of it, except for the special retirement allowance,” he testified Feb. 8 in B.C. Supreme Court under cross-examination by James’s lawyer, Gavin Cameron. 

That’s because it appeared in the auditor general’s 2013 management letter that questioned why the amounts paid to four officials were not shown in public accounts, he said.

James is charged with fraud and breach of trust stemming from expense misconduct found by Darryl Plecas, who was the speaker from 2017 to 2020. One of the charges is about taking a nearly $258,000 “long service award” payment under a program that had been discontinued. James has pleaded not guilty to all five counts. 

Van Iersel concluded in a 2007 report that the Legislative Assembly’s financial framework was “sound,” but still needed strong controls. Even though it was small compared to Crown corporations, it was still a $50 million operation. 

Van Iersel was the predecessor to John Doyle, who issued a scathing report in 2012 about the lack of financial reporting in the Legislative Assembly, the year after James was appointed Clerk by the BC Liberal caucus. 

Van Iersel agreed with Special Prosecutor Brock Martland that public confidence matters, because “once you lose confidence in a major part of an organization, you start to question the ability of the organization to do its job and what the problem is.”

He said Plecas’s 2019 report raised significant issues and questioned the creditability of the office of the clerk.  

Martland asked whether the pace of change and reform changed after the Plecas report. 

“Over my time there as a consultant, it did change,” van Iersel said. “Because of the early auditor general observations, there is a plan, there is an incentive, a desire to meet all those requirements to involve them.”

Van Iersel said the 2012 auditor general report also had an impact, causing the Legislative Assembly Management Committee to “make sure that their credibility was restored.” 

With the release of the Plecas report, “it picked up again, making sure that the issues were being addressed.”

Van Iersel said the involvement of the all-party LAMC was not as strong as it should have been, in terms of a governance role. 

“LAMC needs to act more like a management board, which, as I already said, the auditors said start with a set of financial statements. That’s not the end of it. They need to be more involved,” he said. “And that’s why we created the finance and audit Committee. My understanding now is that additional committees, subcommittees are being created under LAMC, to deal with not only financial issues, but personnel and so on and so forth.”

The trial continues before Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes. 

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Bob Mackin A former Comptroller General and Auditor

Business, News, Sports

Bob Mackin 

A former head coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps women’s team and assistant coach with Canada’s Olympic team has pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault and one count of touching a young person for sexual purpose.

Bob Birarda in 2005 (CSA)

Robert Steven (Bob) Birarda appeared in North Vancouver Provincial Court on Feb. 8 via web conference. He answered “guilty” to each of the four charges as they were read, while sitting motionless to the left of his lawyer, Bill Smart, in a downtown Vancouver boardroom. Smart had waived reading of the charges, but the judge agreed with the Crown prosecutor that they should be read.

Birarda was formally charged Dec. 9, 2020 with nine offences and released on bail. A tenth charge was added, but six will be dropped under a plea bargain. This was the first time Birarda appeared since being charged. The court dates were repeatedly postponed over the last year due to the pandemic, lawyers’ scheduling conflicts and due to their negotiations.

Specifically, Birarda pleaded guilty to the following:

  • Between Dec. 12, 1988 and Feb. 25, 1990, touching a young person for a sexual purpose in North Vancouver; 
  • Between Jan. 1, 1990 and Aug. 31, 1990, sexual assault in Burnaby; 
  • Between Jan. 1, 1995 and July 1, 1995, sexual assault in North Vancouver; 
  • Between June 1, 2006 and March 25, 2008, sexual assault in West Vancouver and Burnaby. 

Names of the victims and evidence remain under a publication ban. The judge heard that Crown and defence have reached an agreed statement of facts, which will eventually be read in court. The case was adjourned to Feb. 15 for a scheduling hearing. The judge ordered ordered pre-sentencing and psychiatric assessment reports, which are both expected in early April. A one-day sentencing hearing will be set after that. The maximum sentence for sexual assault is 10 years imprisonment.

Both the Whitecaps and Canadian Soccer Association announced in October 2008 that they mutually split with Birarda “in the best interest of both parties.” Neither the Whitecaps nor CSA mentioned any alleged misconduct in that announcement.

CSA and Whitecaps

In February 2019, former Whitecap and national team player Ciara McCormack blew the whistle on Birarda’s return to youth coaching with Coastal FC in South Surrey. McCormack is not among the four alleged victims.

McCormack’s blog post went viral. A dozen players from the 2008 Whitecaps and national team issued a public statement, alleging “incidents of abuse, manipulation, or inappropriate behaviour” by Birarda in 2007 and 2008.

In the late 1980s, Birarda worked for late-Whitecaps and Canadian World Cup team coach Tony Waiters at his coaching education company in West Vancouver. Birarda coached in the 1990s with Capilano College in North Vancouver.

Birarda coached the Whitecaps women’s team to the 2006 W-League championship, missed the 2007 playoffs and advanced to the conference finals in 2008. He headed the under-20 national women’s team and assisted on Canada’s team that lost on penalty kicks to the U.S. in the quarter-finals of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.

Early in the 2019 season, Whitecaps supporters grew unhappy with the team’s response and organized match boycotts and first half walkouts at Major League Soccer games in B.C. Place. Owners Greg Kerfoot and Jeff Mallett eventually apologized to the players and admitted that Birarda’s contract was cancelled in 2008 due to sexually inappropriate text messages with a player.

Ciara McCormack (Twitter)

They ordered an internal review by a Toronto law firm and forwarded the players’ complaints to the Vancouver Police Department. VPD, in turn, forwarded the file to the North Vancouver RCMP. In August 2019, Bob Lenarduzzi was demoted from president to club liaison.

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Bob Mackin  A former head coach of the

Business, News, Opinion, Sports

For the week of Feb. 6, 2022: 

Canada is part of an international diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Politicians are skipping the event that human rights activists have called the Genocide Games, because of the mass-internment of Uyghur Muslims in China. 

Despite that, the mayor of Richmond, B.C. and a city councillor have expressed their support for Beijing 2022 at events with Xi Jinping’s top diplomat in Western Canada. They told a pro-Beijing TV channel that the Olympics should be free from politics. 

theBreaker.news Podcast guest Ivy Li of Canadian Friends of Hong Kong says Mayor Malcolm Brodie and Coun. Alexa Loo both used the Olympics to boost their careers in public office. 

“Then they turn around to say that no one should use the Olympics to raise human rights issues,” Li said. “It’s very disingenuous.” 

Also on this edition: 

ResearchCo pollster Mario Canseco on surveys showing a declining confidence in Canadian governments to handle the pandemic and a declining interest in the Olympics because of host Beijing’s human rights record.

Highlights of former Canadian Ambassador to China David Mulroney’s testimony to the House of Commons national defence committee on the biggest threat to national security. Mulroney told MPs that Canada has what it takes to overcome the Chinese Communist Party’s meddling and bullying. 

“The best antidote to this is a healthy sense of confidence in who we are and what we have accomplished,” Mulroney said. 

Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and commentary.

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For the week of Feb. 6, 2022:  Canada

Business, News, Opinion

Bob Mackin 

Kevin Falcon is finally the BC Liberal leader. 

The former Deputy Premier, Finance Minister, Health Minister and Transport Minister added another title to his political resume Feb. 5 at the Wall Centre Hotel in downtown Vancouver, after an online, ranked ballot election went five rounds.

Kevin Falcon and BC Liberal leadership candidates except Val Litwin (BC Liberals/Facebook)

But can he unite and rebuild the coalition of Liberals and Conservatives that struggled through the final month of the campaign under the weight of allegations of voter fraud by Falcon’s campaign staff? Who will step aside so that he can run in a by-election to get a seat in the Legislature before the next election? 

Falcon won the fifth ballot with 52.19% (4,541.35 points) to runner-up Ellis Ross’s 33.65% (2,928.33). Michael Lee, who was trying again after a third-place finish in 2018, was third with 14.14% (1,230.31). Falcon was just shy of victory on the fourth ballot, with 49.63%. 

Fourth-place finisher Val Litwin was eliminated with 7.21% in the penultimate round. Litwin had said a few days earlier that he would leave the party if Falcon won. The only contestant not onstage after the results were released had either stayed true to his word or didn’t want to join the maskless celebration that flouted pandemic public health orders.

“While we sometimes disagreed, we have largely done so without being disagreeable,” Falcon said about his opponents. 

Falcon spent 11 years as an MLA, winning election three times in Surrey Cloverdale. He was runner-up of the 2011 leadership election to Christy Clark, as successor to his mentor Gordon Campbell. 

Seven years later, a court heard that Falcon was cheated out of the job, because Clark’s campaign workers hatched a PIN number procurement scheme that appeared to lift Clark to victory.

In 2012, Falcon bowed out of politics. He embarked on a new career as a senior executive with the Anthem Realty development firm and had two daughters with his wife. 

“We are at an unprecedented time in the world today, trust in politics and politicians has never been lower,” Falcon said. “Politicians make all kinds of promises, but so often nothing gets done and some people are polarized, some people are apathetic, so many more are just disillusioned with the entire political process. There is a desire like I’ve never seen before for candour, for competence and for leadership.”

Kevin Falcon enters the Wall Centre ballroom on Feb. 5 (BC Liberals/Facebook)

Earlier in the day, a B.C. Supreme Court judge dismissed a petition by a BC Liberal Party member aimed at delaying the release of the results by 15 days in order to deal with alleged voter fraud. Campaign managers had complained about a process that was ripe for corruption. 

Vikram Bajwa had alleged the process was tainted, but Justice Heather MacNaughton took a cautious stance.

“The evidence of irregularities offered by Mr. Bajwa is weak and much of it is not Mr. Baja’s first-hand knowledge,” said Justice Heather MacNaughton in her oral judgement. “Whether there are irregularities that could be material to the outcome of the leadership election can only be known after the leadership vote.”

MacNaughton said no election is ever perfect and Bajwa was free to challenge the results in court after the election. She said that a court would only overturn an election if the magic number test was met — “in other words, that rejected votes must equal to or outnumber the winner’s plurality.”

She also said that although a general election is not imminent, it is still important for the opposition party to have a new leader in time for the throne speech and budget.

Falcon is the full-time replacement for Andrew Wilkinson, who led the party in 2020 to its worst result in 30 years. He quit after the snap election and Shirley Bond took over on an interim basis .

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Bob Mackin  Kevin Falcon is finally the BC

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Bob Mackin

The B.C. Supreme Court trial of former B.C. Legislature clerk Craig James is taking a day off.

Special prosecutor David Butcher (Mackin)

Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes agreed to allow lawyers for both sides to spend Feb. 4 negotiating a reduction in witnesses for the fraud and breach of trust trial that opened Jan. 24. 

Special Prosecutor David Butcher said some witnesses were being more repetitive than corroborative. With fewer witnesses, he said, the Crown will be able to finish its case in two weeks, leaving the defence two weeks for its case. 

Sixty-seven witnesses were on the original list, but that was reduced to 27 through the use of admissions statements. 

It won’t, however, be a political-free Friday at the Law Courts. A petition filed by BC Liberal member Vikram Bajwa of Surrey will be heard on short notice. Bajwa wants a judge to delay the scheduled Feb. 5 crowning of a new BC Liberal leader due to allegations of widespread voter fraud related to frontrunner Kevin Falcon. 

James’s trial heard Feb. 3 from former acting sergeant-at-arms Randy Ennis. In the January 2019 bombshell report by Speaker Darryl Plecas, Ennis was credited with informing Plecas about the wood splitter that is now the subject of one of James’s charges. 

Ennis was a senior officer in the Legislative Assembly Protective Services when he took over from the suspended sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz in November 2018. Ennis retired from the Legislative Assembly in May 2019 and now works as a Commissionaire at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt. 

Gavin Cameron (Fasken)

Under cross-examination, James’s lawyer Gavin Cameron asked Ennis about an investigation into spending by Plecas’s predecessor, Linda Reid. A whistleblower, Connor Gibson, had been fired at the end of May 2018 after reporting irregularities in Reid’s expense claims. The investigation was halted, but Ennis denied that anyone told him not to investigate and or to shut it down. 

Butcher objected to the line of questioning, saying the trial is “the fruit of an RCMP investigation,” not about what Plecas did. 

Plecas’s first report to the Legislative Assembly Management Committee said James told him that he ordered his then-deputy, Kate Ryan-Lloyd, to “rein” Lenz in and stop the investigation. 

Ennis testified that he had a heated meeting with Plecas and his chief of staff, Alan Mullen, where he was yelled at and told “you’re either with us or against us.” Ennis said he was pressured to give Plecas one of his keys to James’s office, and wished the RCMP had quarantined it instead. 

Ennis testified that did not remember the date of that meeting, except that it was “shortly after Mr. James and Mr. Lenz were taken off the precinct.” 

Butcher tried to jog Ennis’s memory on when Plecas retired. 

Ennis: “I think he didn’t run in the next election. So he wouldn’t have been an MLA.”

Asked when that election was, Ennis said: “I’d left the Legislative Assembly at that time. And the last thing I was thinking about.”

Meanwhile, facilities manager Surj Dhanota said there had been three locations proposed for the wood splitter and trailer bought for $13,000 in October 2017, but work was never approved. James kept it at his Cordova Bay house for a year. Because James’s house was 13 km away, it was “utterly useless” as a purported firewood tool should a disaster occur in Victoria. 

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Bob Mackin The B.C. Supreme Court trial of

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