If Vancouver-Mount Pleasant MLA Jenny Kwan had been doing her job, she would have been the one to expose the Portland Hotel Society scandal, rather than being caught up in it.
She says she is repaying travel expenses incurred by her family and paid by the society, and is taking an unpaid leave of absence. She should resign outright.
Government audits show that top managers at the PHS, including Kwan鈥檚 ex-husband Robert Dan Small, spent lavishly without any apparent financial oversight, racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in a breathtaking list of perks, including meals, overseas travel, limos and parties. The society鈥檚 managers, including executive director Mark Townsend and Small, have been forced by the province to resign.
The nonprofit society was created in 1993 to advocate and provide programs for vulnerable people in Vancouver鈥檚 Downtown Eastside. It provides a wide variety of services, including housing and, most famously, a safe-injection site for drug addicts. It has developed an international reputation for its work, but that reputation has been badly and sadly tarnished.
It is difficult enough to generate sympathy and support for the people the PHS helps. The federal government would love to shut the safe-injection site down. This could provide the excuse.
We assume that people involved in such endeavours as the PHS are motivated by altruism and a willingness to set aside personal comfort. Yet while they were looking after the interests of some of the poorest people in the country, they were travelling first class, riding in limousines and dining at expensive restaurants.
Kwan and her children accompanied Small on at least two trips in 2012, one to Europe and the other to Disneyland, but she said she believed Small paid the family鈥檚 proportion of travel and accommodation expense out of his own pocket. She has pledged to repay nearly $35,000 in travel expenses, incurred not only by her and her children, but also by Small.
That鈥檚 commendable, but this isn鈥檛 the first time her travel expenses have come under scrutiny. As the minister responsible for Vancouver鈥檚 SkyTrain, she and her entourage of nine officials jetted off 鈥� first class, no less 鈥� to have a look at London鈥檚 underground transit system in 1999. Ostensibly, the object of the trip was see if the kind of turnstiles and ticket-checkers used on the Underground might work to increase security on Vancouver rapid-transit system. It cost taxpayers more than $60,000, and Vancouver is still wrestling with how to collect transit fares.
The PHS scandal is not of Kwan鈥檚 making; she said she was shocked and felt betrayed by what the audits revealed. And yet, the society operates in the heart of Kwan鈥檚 riding, which she has represented since 1996. Small, from whom she separated last year, was the society鈥檚 director of of policy research and funding development and had been with the organization since 1998.
As a prominent member of the NDP government 鈥� her cabinet portfolios included Municipal Affairs, Women鈥檚 Equality, and Community Development, Co-operatives and Volunteers 鈥� Kwan should have been more aware of how the society was being run. In opposition, she should have held the government鈥檚 feet to the fire for the way public money 鈥� almost $29 million a year 鈥� was being used.
Undoubtedly, she is wishing she had paid closer attention, for this is a difficult time for her. She should resign, or at least be expelled from the NDP caucus. She has failed in her duty as an elected official, and she failed her most vulnerable constituents.
Those are the people most likely to be overlooked in this scandal. They are the ones most likely to suffer the consequences.
