Conflict of Interest Commissioner Says Sask Party MLA Serge LeClerc ''Unethical, Unlawful'

Brad Wall's hand picked candidate in Saskatoon was 'unethical and unlawful' while he sat in the Saskatchewan Party government ranks. Brad Wall can sure pick candidates that reflect what the Saskatchewan Party is all about.

Here is the Leader Post story -

REGINA — The ethical watchdog of the legislative assembly has found that former Saskatchewan Party MLA Serge LeClerc engaged in “conduct that was both unethical and unlawful during the time he was an MLA.”

LeClerc left the Saskatchewan Party caucus and went on medical leave in April after CBC reported it had received a package of Internet chat room transcripts along with a recording of an individual who sounded like LeClerc discussing marijuana and cocaine use.

LeClerc denied the accusations but resigned his seat effective at the end of August.

In a report released Tuesday, conflict of interest commissioner Ronald Barclay rejected LeClerc’s assertion that the recording had been doctored.

Barclay sent the recording for forensic analysis to the RCMP, with police experts determining that all the audio clips were from the same original recording, are not composites and there was no evidence words and phrases had been spliced together or edited.

“According to the content of the recordings, it is my opinion that Mr. LeClerc smoked marijuana during the time period he was an MLA, and that he had an unidentified person bring cocaine to his residence during the time period he was an MLA,” wrote Barclay.

RCMP experts had also examined computers used by LeClerc and his constituency assistants during the time he was MLA. While four of them had not been used for Internet chats, LeClerc told Barclay he had thrown away the hard drive of his government issue laptop, “rendering any forensic analysis entirely impossible.”

“Mr. LeClerc destroyed the one vital piece of evidence that may have assisted in exonerating, or implicating, his participation in the chats,” wrote Barclay, who noted that when relevant evidence is destroyed “a presumption arises that the evidence would have been unfavourable to the party who destroyed it.”


RLP