It has been a tradition in the parliamentary system that when an official faces charges or has a cloud hanging over his or her performance, that person resigns, or at least steps aside until the matter is resolved.
That tradition seems to conflict with a basic tenet of our justice system, which is that a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, yet it allows the business of government to proceed untainted by suspicion and doubt.
Laura Miller, recently appointed campaign director for the B.C. Liberals, is neither an elected official nor a public servant, yet her influence in B.C. politics is considerable. She played a major role in the Liberals’ 2013 election victory, after which she was named party executive director.
She stepped aside from that position in December when criminal charges were laid against her in Ontario, where she had been on the staff of former premier Dalton McGuinty. The allegations against her and another former McGuinty staffer concern the destruction of documents related to Ontario’s gas-plant scandal. Her trial is scheduled for September 2017.
Miller vigorously denied any wrongdoing and mounted a crowdfunding campaign to help with her legal fees.
In March, she was reinstated as executive director of the B.C. Liberals and is now the party’s campaign director for the 2017 provincial election.
Premier Christy Clark has high praise for Miller.
“She hasn’t been convicted of anything, and she’s doing a great job at making sure that our party is in the shape that we need it to be to win the next election,” the premier said recently. “What I would say about her is I know her to be a very, very ethical person.”
Miller is not on the public payroll. She is accountable only to the B.C. Liberal party structure, and the party has broken no laws by hiring her. It goes against political tradition, but then, the practice of falling on one’s sword for the sake of honour is not much in fashion these days. Winning counts for more, and Miller has shown she is effective in that regard.
What happens in Ontario stays in Ontario, deputy premier Rich Coleman seems to imply as he notes that it’s a “pretty old case” (dating from three years ago) and that it’s not a B.C. issue.
“It’s the fair and right approach — one that respects our court process, including the fundamental principle that every person is innocent unless proven otherwise,” Clark said when Miller was reinstated. She said Miller had the right to employment, just like anyone else in that situation.
The premier is right, of course. It is unfair for a person’s life to be disrupted — or worse — when facing unproven charges.
The premier’s sense of fairness was not so evident in 2012 when eight Health Ministry researchers were fired amid ominous mutterings about serious data breaches and an RCMP investigation (which never materialized). Careers were damaged or ended; one person even took his own life. Yet those researchers were not able to face their accusers or even know specifically what they were alleged to have done wrong.
The government eventually admitted its error — vaguely. Apologies were made, compensation awarded. But the scandal has never been fully explained.
Would that Clark had leaped to the defence of the researchers with the same alacrity she showed in Miller’s case.
