British Columbia legislator Ian Paton said RCMP have asked to interview him on Wednesday, and expects them to ask about allegedly being offered a job to give up his seat so Conservative Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay could run.
Paton, who quit the Conservative caucus last week among an exodus of MLAs from the official Opposition, said Findlay’s chief of staff Chris Delaney asked him in July to step down in Delta South, saying he would be given a job as an adviser for two years with the same salary as an MLA.
“I was told I would be given some sort of a staff job as a party staffer and I would be an agriculture adviser or policy adviser to the B.C. Conservative Party,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
Paton rejected the offer but said he initially wasn’t aware that it could be an offence.
“I’ve never been through this before, so I thought well, maybe that’s fairly common. I didn’t realize it’s become such a big deal,” he said.
It is illegal under the Criminal Code to negotiate a reward or benefit related to resignation from political office.
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Paton said police would visit him Wednesday morning and he believed two other Conservatives had been speaking to the RCMP in recent days.
Findlay, who won the party’s leadership in May but does not have a seat in the legislature, will be running in a byelection this month in Abbotsford-Mission. The seat was vacated by Conservative Reann Gasper, who has since been appointed Findlay’s deputy chief of staff.
Findlay has denied offering jobs in exchange for resignations, and said that suggestions that a recording released online shows she illegally did so, are “preposterous.”
She said in a statement last week that the recordings were “normal political discussions” that did not constitute a criminal offence.
“Any fair-minded person listening to the recording will immediately realize that this is not a good faith allegation of wrongdoing,” she wrote.
RCMP said last week they were aware of the purported recording of Findlay addressing Conservative legislators, but “does not confirm or deny any investigation, or the identity of any person who may be subject to an investigation, until such time as charges have been laid.”
Seven MLAs have left the Conservative ranks this month, some citing ideological and strategy differences with Findlay.
Bruce Banman on Monday called Findlay “unelectable” and said she had surrounded herself with people concerned about whether MLAs are “hard right enough.”
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