If John Les walks, so should bureaucrat

By Les Leyne, Times Colonist June 26, 2010 7:06 AM

It's outrageous that a former Chilliwack bureaucrat has to face criminal breach of trust charges for doing exactly what his mayor and council encouraged and subtly guided him to do. Former Chilliwack mayor John Les was cleared yesterday of wrongdoing arising from a four-year investigation of suspicious rezonings and agricultural land exclusions. Fair enough. If police have spent four years investigating and a special prosecutor has spent three years poring over evidence, the conclusion can be accepted.

But if Les walks away in the clear, then so should the municipal staff member whose job was to execute the will of the mayor and council. Instead, the special prosecutor elected to file three breach of trust charges against then-subdivision approving officer Grant Sanborn. There are no allegations of bribery in the information provided. There are no allegations Sanborn's allegedly criminal decisions were made for money or personal gain. The prosecutor's outline says that Sanborn made the decisions based on the "pro-development, can-do" culture established in Chilliwack over the years that Les was mayor. Les went on to provincial politics and was in cabinet when this case surfaced. He properly resigned and has been waiting to be cleared for two years. Sanborn was following the prevailing ethos in Chilliwack at the time, doing what he was encouraged to do by a firm-handed mayor who was responsible for establishing the municipality's enthusiastic attitude toward growth and development. But the ex-mayor gets cleared and the ex-bureaucrat gets booked. It's not right. (more)

----Every bureaucrat should read the special prosecutor's report on Les. It's an example of how blame follows the law of gravity. It flows down in a hierarchy, not up.