New Democrat MLA Jenny Kwan got a snap unpaid leave of absence approved Monday, notwithstanding that up until now in the legislature, there has been no such thing.
NDP Leader Adrian Dix said it was arranged Monday morning by new Opposition house leader Bruce Ralston and legislature clerk Craig James.
While it’s fairly routine for MLAs to take paid leaves for things such as medical reasons, no one can remember anyone taking an unpaid leave for personal reasons.
The distraught MLA announced the move Friday after paying back $35,000 worth of travel bills to Europe and Disneyland. She accompanied her then-husband, Dan Small, on the trips and an audit released last week showed that some of them were funded by the Portland Hotel Society, the non-profit housing society for which he worked.
The wildly inappropriate travel bills were just a sampling of some outrageous spending uncovered by audits that led to the axing of the board and termination of the management last week. While work begins with a new team on rebuilding the society’s reputation for serving hard-pressed clients on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Kwan is now on the sidelines pondering the hit to her own name.
She’s out $35,000 and losing $8,500 a month during the indefinite time-out. You have to wonder if she’d be better off just toughing it out, answering all the hard questions for a few days and hoping the storm subsides. Her defence to this point is that she was blindsided by how her ex billed the trip, and is paying all her costs back and more.
She wouldn’t get any particularly rough treatment from the government if she rode it out. The B.C. Liberals are staying noticeably quiet on Kwan’s involvement.
Rich Coleman, minister responsible for housing, took a pass on criticizing her. “She stepped up and said what her issues are.”
And he downplayed the potential for any scandalous misuse of money in the past, saying the Portland Hotel Society started to raise flags only two years ago when it posted a deficit. An audit in 2002 raised some specific accounting problems that were dealt with and the outfit got a clean bill of health for the next several years. A deficit a couple of years ago was the trigger for some tough questions that eventually led to the audits that were completed last summer and made public last week.
They outlined a culture of entitlement presided over by a lax board that led to limousine bills, travel jaunts to four-star hotels and cosy dealings between executive management and board directors. Coleman blamed it on “a bit of arrogance, and the comfort zone that management got into.”
Even though the Liberals are lying low, there’s no question the Opposition took a hit when Kwan’s involvement came to light.
Dix said the leave stems from significant personal issues and the caucus backs her decision. “I don’t think it’s correct to criticize people and say they have to take full accountability for things involving their spouses … She was misled by her husband; you can only imagine the seriousness of that.”
Apart from Kwan’s difficulties, he said the audit scandal is negative and distracting.
“I’m outraged at the results of the audit,” he said. The findings are “very damaging to the work we have to do together.”
Caucus chairman Shane Simpson said the NDP caucus believes Kwan has been clear about her position and acted responsibly.
He said she’s having a stressful time and needs a while to sort out some matters.
“She didn’t want this to be a circus here,” he said.
The most obvious impact of Kwan’s involvement on Monday was the remarkably mild way the Opposition handled the issue in question period.
Simpson managed two circumspect questions about government oversight of non-government bodies such as the Portland Hotel Society. Coleman answered them and the house moved on to other issues.
If the society wasn’t so friendly with the NDP, and if Kwan’s name hadn’t wound up in the middle of the spending outrage, it’s a safe bet the Opposition would have feasted on the outrages the audits exposed.
lleyne@timescolonist.com
