Legal versus Public Opinion

EDIT 3:30 pm (post-publish):
And this comment (from another blog):
"Exclusive: Plecas’s “final straw” was Clark’s plan to politicize riding offices.
Look, if anyone was “above board”, this exposure would have happened years prior, but it took an independent Speaker of the Ledge to bring it to light.
I would love an independent audit of at least the last 10 years of the BC Ledge, which includes current BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkenson’s tenure, when James got promoted without a consensus, over more qualified candidates.
You have to at least go back to the John Doyle accounting era, where his report chastised the BC Liberals for non-compliance to the rules. He got the boot with an NDA. I’d love to hear what he saw-the Greedo Scampbell-Coleman-DeJong horror show. Might as well throw Mary Polak in there because they all said not a thing about this for years and the blind excuse does not wash..
The fix was in from the start with Greedo’s inauguration when he LIED at the polls saying he wouldn’t sell BC Rail and then selling it to one of his prominent donators and creating a huge lawsuit and trial that cost taxpayers tens of millions and the trust of gov’t.
“You won’t recognize BC when I am finished” Scampbell said at his victory speech, almost identical to Justin Greedeau’s victory speech."

Now to my original post!

...and never the twain shall meet.
Unfortunately!
 
This week's exposure by B.C. House Speaker Darryl Plecas of the expense account "irregularities" of Messrs. Lenz and James have, as predicted by Plecas, made taxpayers barf.

As this Vancouver Sun article portends, legal opinions are already posturing that these guys will never see a day in court, and certainly not be found guilty of a criminal offence even if they do end up in court.

Seems to me they're separating crime from the white collar description, implying that if the rules are "loosey goosey", then the person can make their own decision about what the rules actually mean.
As in anything goes.

Senator Mike Duffy's expense account, and former Liberal aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk spring to mind, and we all know how those went.  It's called precedent.

The public considers this to be white-collar crimes.
But legal opinions--expressed in the Sun story--by lawyers (obviously jostling to become involved in this chaos if charges are levied!) separate the words "white collar" and "crime", as though nothing a white collar bureaucrat or official could do, or did in this case, is tantamount to crime.


So who are these guys?
James and Lenz.
Lenz and James.

I don't even care who is who...it's Lenz and James.  Or James and Lenz.

While the public considers "white collar crimes" to be criminal, these fraudsters will likely get a slap on the proverbial wrist, if anything at all.

Think back to the sub-prime debacle in about 2008...did any of the Goldman Sachs principals end up in jail for purposely bundling junk bonds within packets of good stuff to sell to the global investment community?
No, of course not!

These guys cheated us!
They defrauded taxpayers of contributions we made that belonged to the Province of British Columbia.

And that's just the start of it.
More will come out as the RCMP investigation--aided by two special prosecutors--will no doubt reveal.

And this isn't the first time, either.
Entitlement by senior bureaucrats isn't rare.
The investigation may indeed even cover elected members of the Legislative Assembly.
Remember that the ~16 year tenure of the Liberal party in B.C. was fraught with considerable chaos, specifically charges of political corruption most notably the BC Rail issue.  Not immune to chaos, British Columbia's NDP party had also faced charges of corruption after their second term.
Does anyone remember that taxpayers during the BC Rail issue ended up paying about $6 million for the legal defense of Basi and Virk?

Maybe government(s) count on our having a very, very short memory.

Decide just how disgusted you are.
Start with the 76-page Report authored by House Speaker Darryl Plecas.
Then have a quick read about bureaucratic entitlement called "The Final Pre-Extinction Clash".

Frankly, lying and "entitlement" isn't what we teach our children.
This isn't how we--the public--live our lives.

"Because we're honest," Kia would've intoned.

Our collars, whether blue or white, are clean.
Just like that of House Speaker Darryl Plecas, who deserves a medal from taxpayers.

Right after we clean up the barf.

Thank you, Darryl Plecas.
The "Honourable" that precedes his name is well-earned.