NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan returned to work at the Legislature on April 9, nearly three weeks after going on leave amid the PHS Community Services Society scandal.
Her ex-husband, Dan Small, was one of four senior managers who resigned after B.C. Housing and Vancouver Coastal Health audits found widespread misspending by the Downtown Eastside charity.
Kwan repaid $34,992.57 for the cost of trips to the United Kingdom, Austria and Disneyland on March 21, a day after the audits were published. She claimed Small misled her about who was paying for the trips.
“It is a lot of money, I have two lines of credit that I access through my financial institution and I utilized those to pay back the money,” Kwan, the Vancouver-Mount Pleasant MLA since 1996, told reporters at an April 9 news conference in Victoria.
Asked if she would seek reimbursement from Small, she said: “I've taken responsibility for this and I'll just leave it at that.”
Neither Kwan nor Small responded to Courier interview requests. The Courier was allowed to view, but not photograph, a copy of Kwan’s processed cheque to PHS at the NDP Vancouver caucus office.
Cheque 172 was dated March 21 for “travel payment” to “PHS.” It was drawn from an account in Kwan’s name at the Vancity Fraser St. Community Branch. A request to view supporting documents to confirm the funds were Kwan’s was denied.
“While I understand you are suspicious due to extraordinary events surrounding the Federal Conservative Party and Senate, we do not believe there is any obligation on our part to show you personal banking information for anyone,” said NDP senior communications officer Edward May via email.
IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis disagreed. He said Kwan has an obligation to be transparent about the repayment.
“There can be no doubt in anyone's mind that someone else might have paid these expenses for Jenny Kwan in any way, shape or form,” Travis said. “There's a paper trail and British Columbians have a right, her constituents have a right on this issue, to be able to follow the money.”
Travis said public skepticism about politicians has grown. In April 2013, Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy said he repaid $90,172 of expenses after it was ruled his primary residence was in Ottawa, not Prince Edward Island. The repayment was actually from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright, who quit over the scandal.
The week after Kwan’s repayment, Speaker Linda Reid and Deputy Speaker Raj Chouhan repaid $5,528.16 and $2,200, respectively, for taking their spouses on a trip to last year’s Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Neither Reid (Liberal, Richmond-East) nor Chouhan (NDP, Burnaby-Edmonds) responded to interview requests. May claimed Chouhan followed the rules and his offer to pay for his spouse was refused by Reid both before the trip and after the story broke. The NDP did not provide access to view Chouhan’s processed cheque or bank statement.
“The speaker, Raj and Jenny Kwan, and any other MLAs caught in similar circumstances in the future, have to clearly demonstrate that there is nothing untoward in how the payments were made,” Travis said.
Meanwhile, Kwan bought a house last November on the Westside, meaning she no longer lives in her riding that includes the Downtown Eastside. Land registry records show she bought a house a half-kilometre west of Kitsilano secondary school. It was assessed at $2.076 million, which is substantially more than the value of Premier Christy Clark’s $1,415,667 Mount Pleasant house less than a kilometre south of city hall.
A statement emailed from the Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner to the Courier on April 11 said Kwan notified the office that she sold residential property on Nov. 14, 2013, acquired residential property on Nov. 15, 2013 and placed a Vancity mortgage on the property. On March 25, 2014, she advised the Commissioner of her payment to PHS.
“This information, like all information given by Members to the Commissioner, is confidential,” said the statement. “However, Ms. Kwan has authorized the Commissioner to release it to you.”
Travis said it is not uncommon for Canadian politicians at any level to live outside their electoral districts. It is ultimately for party members at open nomination meetings and voters on election day to decide what is acceptable. He said Kwan’s situation differs greatly from Clark’s. The Premier lost her Vancouver-Point Grey seat in the 2013 election and returned to the Legislature after a July by-election in Westside-Kelowna. Ben Stewart stepped aside for Clark to run. She eventually appointed him the province’s $150,000-a-year, Beijing-based trade representative.
“In some circumstances you will find MLAs may live a few minutes from their riding in urban centres,” Travis said. “It is a bit rich for somebody to represent a riding that is literally hundreds of miles from where they call home.”
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