B.C. lawyers cashing in on taxpayers’ dime
Province metro affairs columnist Jon Ferry
Photograph by: File photo, The Province
A burst pipe at my home last week reminded me how easy it is to pour water down the drain . . . or taxpayers’ money. The $6 million handed defence lawyers in the Basi-Virk trial is a prime example.
Here were two sleazy public servants who, with the help of highpriced lawyers, were able to play our justice system for years before finally pleading guilty last fall to corruption charges and getting the usual slap on the wrist.
As Attorney-General Barry Penner confirmed to me Friday, their legal bills, vetted by “a third party,” continued to be paid in instalments. The trickle became a torrent. Then, a couple of deputy ministers, apparently acting alone, decided it was futile even to try to claw back some of that cash.
Penner sums it up nicely: “The legal system has become very expensive, and it’s hard to comprehend some of the bills that have piled up.”
The A-G’s not kidding. The $6 million covered just the defence bills. Taxpayers also paid the prosecution lawyers. And the whole seven-year exercise, according to government figures released in January, cost the province $17.3 million . . . and counting.
It’s not just the Basi-Virk case. There were the Willie Pickton and Air India trials, during which tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars poured into lawyers’ bank accounts.
Gregory Thomas, B.C. director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, wonders why the Picktons of this world need $500-an-hour lawyers to defend them. He calls it an “obscene waste of public funds” that must be capped.
I agree with him. So, it seems, does Canada’s chief judge, Justice Beverley McLachlin, who last month deplored the fact that, with legal fees now averaging nearly $340 an hour, full representation was now out of the question for many Canadians.
Penner, who’s practised as a lawyer, said he understands people’s frustrations. But he noted that, in the Pickton and Air India cases, it was the courts who ruled the taxpayer had to “get out the chequebook for the lawyers’ fees.”
With Basi and Virk it was different, Penner said. The government agreed to pay their bills, apparently on the understanding they would repay them, if found guilty. When the guilty pleas came, however, it was concluded that, given Basi and Virk’s financial condition and the costs of collection, attempting to recoup any of that money simply wasn’t worth it.
Did the deputy ministers consult with their political masters? “Not that I’m aware of,” Penner said, adding he hopes in a couple of weeks to launch a review of the so-called legal indemnity policy for civil servants.
The B.C. Law Society, meanwhile, said a provincewide poll it conducted shows a “modest improvement” in the public’s opinion of lawyers.
But it also shows that, on a scale of one to 10, only 16 respondents rated lawyers between eight and 10 when it came to providing good value for money -and only 15 per cent did so over lawyers’ commitment to public service.
Given the rich and powerful monopoly that lawyers enjoy over legal services in B.C., it’s not hard to understand why.
Th3Uglytruth: We spend our lives teaching our children to do what is right…the real world seems to only reward those who can bend the truth!
Th3UglyTruth 