Advanced Education Minister Amrik Virk thought he was free and clear of the nagging questions that developed last summer over his role in a Surrey university’s effort to finesse its way around salary limits and disclosure requirements.
He was on the Kwantlen Polytechnic University board a few years ago when the university was signing contracts with senior staff that were over the limits and had more-or-less secret clauses designed to hide the bottom-line cost. A Finance Ministry review concluded as much, but determined that the board, in one case, wasn’t aware of what was going on.
Virk, who dismissed numerous Opposition questions about the issue as being outlandish, got off with a mild expression of concern from Finance Minister Mike de Jong last summer and thought the fuss was behind him.
Until Monday, when the issue bounced back into the legislature again. And this time around, it’s not about what he did as a board member. It’s about how he handled himself as a cabinet minister while his past role was being examined. That raises the stakes, as does the Monday release of emails leaked to the Opposition. They appear to indicate Virk and the board were in the loop on the salary arrangements, contrary to what the Finance Ministry determined.
The Opposition opened the second act with a flourish, saying there is now reason to believe that Virk withheld material information from the Finance Ministry.
That’s based on several pages of emailed correspondence between KPU people about salaries being offered to new executives that were being recruited at the time. One was from the then-president David Atkinson to various people, including Virk. It was a note outlining the offer to a vice-president candidate, Anne Lavack. It listed the salary, plus assorted add-ons.
The Finance Ministry review, conducted by assistant deputy minister Rob Mingay, already concluded that package was over the limit.
The telling part of the email was where Atkinson suggested sending the Public Sector Employers’ Council a general outline of the contract. “There would be a separate letter outlining the housing allowance, professional allowance. This is what occurred in my own case,” he wrote.
Virk, then a senior RCMP member, wrote his own email the next day — from his RCMP account — referring to the low pay level and the difficulty in drawing candidates. “The research leave is one way to ‘top’ off the pay level,” he wrote. “This is a common practice.”
That seems to negate one of the Finance Ministry review’s conclusions.
“From a review of documentation and through interviews,” wrote Mingay, “it appears that neither KPU’s board of governors nor its administrative staff were aware of the terms of Lavack’s offer letter and agreement or the pre-employment contract.”
On the contrary, they were very much aware. There is an assortment of back-and-forth notes about Lavack’s contract.
Asked in the house to acknowledge that he did not fully account to Mingay, Virk clammed up. “There are ongoing civil matters that I can’t speak about.” (Some former staff are suing the university.)
Later, he told reporters he provided everything to Mingay to the best of his ability, but didn’t have access to the email account (he retired from the RCMP). Reading them had the effect of “refreshing my memory,” he said.
“Having those emails, we’ll certainly be able to forward that and collect this as the NDP have put forth and provide it to Mr. Mingay for his review.”
Except that review was completed last summer. You have to wonder how de Jong feels about the prospect of re-opening the whole exercise, based on new evidence that contradicts the first conclusions, evidence that the star witness forgot about.
Particularly in light of the fact de Jong went to bat for Virk earlier this month, defending him vigorously from a breach-of-privilege motion the NDP filed about the same issue. Rejecting the complaint that Virk misled the legislature, de Jong quoted extensively from Mingay’s conclusions that the board was not aware.
That finding was up in the air Monday.
So is Virk’s career in cabinet.
