VANCOUVER — B.C. taxpayers have paid a special prosecutor tens of thousands of dollars to oversee an RCMP investigation into allegations resulting from the controversial ethnic outreach strategy that dogged the B.C. Liberals before the 2013 election, financial records show.
Now, almost three years after the probe was launched, some observers are wondering why it’s taking Vancouver lawyer David Butcher so long to complete his final report.
“My concern is the time this has taken and, as a result, the cost,” NDP Leader John Horgan said. “Obviously, the special prosecutor wants to be thorough, but three years?”
According to the province’s public accounts, Butcher received a total of $226,980 from the B.C. government between the fiscal year 2013 and fiscal 2015. That excludes work done in fiscal 2015-2016.
Not all of the $226,980 total, however, was for Butcher’s work as a special prosecutor on the ethnic outreach investigation, making a specific accounting of his work to date on that file difficult.
According to B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch, $201,144 of the $226,980 paid to Butcher between 2013 and 2015 was for his services as a special prosecutor. And some of that was for serving as a special prosecutor on another file, the Criminal Justice Branch said in an email.
Butcher said in an email that he understands there is considerable interest in the progress of the ethnic-outreach case. However, he said, it’s generally inappropriate for prosecutors to comment on files that are still in the charge-approval stage.
“As the Criminal Justice Branch has previously indicated, the results of my review of the investigative material gathered to date, and my decisions in the matter, will be publicly announced through a media statement developed in consultation with the branch, at an appropriate point following completion of the review,” he wrote.
In August 2013, the RCMP launched an investigation into alleged contraventions of the Election Act stemming from the so-called “Quick Wins” scandal that threatened to topple the Christy Clark government before the last election.
It remains unknown what was contained in the NDP complaint that triggered the investigation. But it has been reported that the police probe might have involved an alleged attempt by the B.C. Liberals to silence a former employee with a financial inducement and/or some alleged aspects of Clark’s 2011 leadership campaign.
A spokesman for the premier’s office said Clark has never been contacted or interviewed by Mounties as part of the investigation.
In 2014, charges stemming from the investigation were laid against two B.C. Liberal insiders for alleged Election Act offences connected to a 2012 byelection.
The trial stemming from those charges is scheduled to begin in August. Brian Bonney, a former government communications director, and Mark Robertson, a B.C. Liberal party employee, are both charged with two counts of making/accepting political donations and one count of an offence in relation to elections expenses.
The B.C. Liberal Party has said the charges concern a $2,240 expenditure that was misreported during the 2012 byelection in Port Moody-Coquitlam.
