Inappropriate behaviour in a bar after a golf party has cost Ken Boessenkool the easiest gig he's ever had.
The Alberta import was brought in to Premier Christy Clark's office for one simple reason - to be the rightwing beacon of hope to all the Conservatives in B.C. who were getting antsy about the B.C. Liberal Party.
Clark is a lifelong liberal Liberal and was concerned last year about the potential for losing support from the conservative side of the coalition. So she signed up the high-profile Alberta Conservative with close links to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to be - quite literally - her right-hand man.
His main role was to retain the conservatives on the B.C. Liberal team, and dampen the momentum the B.C. Conservatives were building.
By sheer fluke, his shelf life in that role ended about the same time the Conservatives' chances of making a breakthrough did.
Two days after the Conservatives conclusively demonstrated they're not ready for prime time, Boessenkool found something out: Neither is he.
After a round of golf at Metchosin (see disclosure below) on Sept. 7, Boessenkool was in a crowd of people who went to a downtown bar. No one is willing to stand up publicly and explain what happened there. But anonymous sources say there was an incident involving Boessenkool and a female government staff member who was in the party.
Clark filled in the subsequent developments with a surprise announcement Monday.
"Earlier this month, the premier's office was made aware of an incident of concern," she said.
She said it was reviewed following standard public-service guidelines and after considering the findings, she accepted Boessenkool's resignation.
She and her office were loath to go into details, but took the unusual step of releasing his resignation letter, with his approval, which was dated Sept. 23, Sunday.
He confessed to poor behaviour and letting down his family. He had the good grace to apologize immediately for it.
But it was apparently too big a deal for that to suffice.
"Notwithstanding my genuine apology and sense of regret, and following my meeting with you earlier today [Sunday] I tender my letter of resignation as your chief of staff effective immediately," he wrote.
Clark told reporters Monday: "When I sat down with Ken, I knew that he would have to resign, and he agreed that was the right course to take.
"It's a completely unexpected event, not the kind of thing anybody can anticipate," she said.
Clark said she learned about the incident "a couple of weeks ago," but it took that long to go through the public-service review process. Clark left for an Asian visit the day after the incident and was away for several days.
It's the latest in what has been a weird week on the political scene. Liberals poached former Conservative candidate John Martin on Friday and convinced him to run for them next spring. Conservatives met the next day and announced leader John Cummins had been given a lukewarm endorsement - 71 per cent of the minority of members who bothered to mail in ballots.
That was enough to send their lone MLA - John van Dongen - out the door. He and Cummins stopped getting along, so he announced he was quitting the party and will now be an independent.
The Conservative double-whammy was the best news Clark has had for months. But the very next day, she felt compelled to call her chief of staff in and extract his resignation.
Two steps forward, one step back. Boessenkool lasted only eight months, so he has barely any record on which to be judged. Any accomplishments on his part were internal ones. The biggest public splashes he made were being hired and being effectively fired.
He'll be much happier in Calgary, and Clark will be better off without him.
Replacing him with veteran bureaucrat Dan Doyle is one of the best moves she's made in office.
Just So You Know: Full disclosure: With various other reporters, I paid the entry fee and played in the golf event at Metchosin Golf Club. It's been a fixture on the political calendar for years. Boessenkool was in my group and we played an unremarkable round - which included a few beers - then I went home after dinner.
Boessenkool arrived with many others on a bus that was chartered to avoid concerns about drinking and driving.
lleyne@timescolonist.com
