theBreaker.news Podcast: Rockpile roiled, as speaker reveals Victoria's spending secrets

Luxury overseas travel. Expensive custom-tailored suits, shiny watches and major league baseball tickets. A log-splitter. Schemes to collect insurance benefits, retirement allowances and pay-in-lieu of vacation. All on the public tab. Clerk Craig James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz have a lot to answer to, after Speaker Darryl Plecas followed through on his pledge to reveal some of the reasons why he went to the RCMP, which is investigating the Nov. 20-suspended officials. Plecas's outrageous 76-page report, published Jan. 21, contains shocking revelations on almost every page. Plecas said it is the tip of the iceberg. "The impact that all of this has all had on taxpayers, I want us to get to a place where we get our money back," Plecas said at an event in his Abbotsford South riding, two days after the Legislative Assembly Management Committee agreed to publish the report, seek a forensic audit by an out-of-province auditor, review workplace policies and procedures and consider whether James and Lenz should be fired outright. The two officials, suspended with full pay and benefits, have until Feb. 1 to respond to the report. They maintain they did no wrong. On this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast, hear from Plecas, his chief of staff Alan Mullen, Premier John Horgan, BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson and others. Plus, we go into the Legislature's audio vault to find out how it all began in June 2011 when the BC Liberal government made James the clerk without an open competition and without unanimous support. Click below to listen or go to iTunes (aka Apple Podcasts) and subscribe.

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