The leader of the BC Liberals is responding to the Peter German money laundering report saying its time to stop blaming politicians of the past.
While Andrew Wilkinson deflects blame for the explosion of money laundering under the former BC Liberals government and pointed questions at the former minister responsible Rich Coleman, he is saying there should be some action taken.
“Well you have to ask if anything will change as a result of this or do all the staff people stay in their roles or will you going to reorganize accordingly? We will be holding the NDP to account for that. You can’t say that Rich Coleman needs to be blamed for everything but nothing is going to change. Well that is grossly irresponsible. If they are going to improve things into the future and get these prosecutions going they are obviously going to have to re-organize.”
Wilkinson, a former Attorney General, was asked if his government ever ignored or suppressed serious money laundering allegations.
“Well no these things never come up in cabinet because criminal investigations should not be reviewed by politicians and must not be reviewed by politicians. The issue becomes this is about the oversight and management of criminal investigations.”
Wilkinson agrees with the German report that there was a systemic failure but adds the problem wasn’t being ignored.
“There were a number of revisions of the model over the years and finally they found one that worked in 2015 and it continues to this day and I am certainly not going to apologize for that.”
Wilkinson says he doesn’t think heads should roll instead the province should be focused on fixing things and putting criminals in jail.