Editorial, Vancouver Sun, October 21, 2011
Premier Christy Clark was out of government when the atrocious behaviour occurred that led to the $30-million settlement announced this week with Boss Power Corp.
But she is responsible for how the government responds now to the extreme bumbling and abuse of power admitted in court but never publicly discussed.
The facts as admitted by the government lawyer in the lawsuit by Boss Power are that the mining company filed a notice of work for a prospective uranium property near Kelowna.
The government announced three days later it was not going to allow any more exploration for uranium or thorium.
But it wasn’t clear that the new ban covered existing claims.
The government got a legal opinion that the Chief Inspector of Mines was legally required to process the application by Boss Power.
Despite that advice, Douglas Sweeney, the chief inspector, was ordered to put it aside and to refuse to grant approval for the work.
At that point, the job was given to someone else and Sweeney was shuffled off to a regional office, his career in tatters simply because he refused to ignore his legal obligations.
Boss Power sued initially because it had invested in a property that had become worthless as a result of a change in government policy.
Governments at all levels change directions occasionally and sometimes that means that a party acting on the previous direction needs to be compensated.
What Boss Power subsequently discovered, however, was the malfeasance to which the government subsequently admitted in court.
On Wednesday, Clark’s government announced it was paying $30 million to settle the suit, but not why.
What we need to hear is that the premier understands how badly the government has behaved.
Any denial now raises legitimate fears that there have been no lessons learned.
What occurred here was an abuse of the power of government. Public officials knowingly flouted the law to deny the rights of a private company.
Then they punished a public servant for trying to serve the public as he was legally required to do.
It also was mismanagement of the highest order.
As the government’s lawyer argues in the suit, there was no prospect that the mine would have been developed if the government had exercised other legal levers that it possessed.
The mine could not be developed without a road through the surrounding Crown land.
The government was under no obligation to allow that road to be built.
Taxpayers will now pay the price of this malfeasance and incompetence.
But that shouldn’t be the end of this affair.
The treatment of Sweeney was both a disservice to him and a terrible message to send to public servants. It needs to be addressed, starting with an apology.
Clark also should consider a mechanism to allow public servants who believe they are being given orders to act illegally or against the public interest to get advice and help without putting their careers at risk.
The government also needs to consider whether the incompetence displayed in the handling of Boss Power’s claims is also at play in the dismal record it has after a decade in power in encouraging the development of new major base metal mines.
Most important, Clark should send a message that public servants will not be ill-treated in the way Sweeney was and a mess like this will not be tolerated in her government.
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