Inside the legislature, Bill Barisoff is responsible for impartially interpreting its rules and traditions.
But, outside the precincts, Public Eye has learned the speaker of the legislative assembly shares his Victoria accommodations with Premier Gordon Campbell - raising the eyebrows of one of the province's most seasoned political observers.
MLAs elect one of their colleagues to be the speaker at the start of each new Parliament - with the government putting forward its preferred candidate in advance of that vote.
Once elected to that post, the MLA becomes the legislature's referee, setting aside partisanship to ensure elected officials on both sides of the aisle are treated fairly.
Barisoff, a Liberal, has been the speaker since September 2005, being re-elected to that job in August 2009.
But in an email, a spokesperson for the premier's office confirmed that outside the legislature Barisoff rents the second bedroom in his condominium to Campbell when he stays overnight in the capital city.
Asked about that arrangement, the spokesperson stated Barisoff has a "reputation as a neutral and independent speaker who ensures both sides of the house follow established rules and procedures speaks for itself and we are not aware of any suggestion to the contrary."
"Every member has an equal opportunity to meet with the speaker," the spokesperson continued. "In fact, due to the premier's schedule he has less opportunity to meet with the speaker than most members."
But in an interview with Public Eye, University of Victoria political science professor emeritus Norman Ruff said the arrangement was questionable.
"I don't think it's a hanging offence. But it makes you raise your eyebrows," he said.
"I wouldn't turn around a jump up and down and condemn him for doing it. But the optics of it is not good. It's probably preferable if [Barisoff] didn't [share his accommodations with the premier]."
This isn't the first time Barisoff has raised eyebrows since being elected speaker.
Back in 2005, we revealed he had appointed a Liberal supporter - Louise Burgart - to the non-partisan commission responsible for redrawing the boundaries of British Columbia's ridings.
Following extensive coverage of that appointment by Public Eye, Burgart - who owns and is a director with a ski resort in the speaker's riding - stepped down.
The dangers of recycling
Substantial portions of provincial New Democrat environment critic Rob Fleming's speech commemorating Earth Day seem to have been copied from the website of the organization that co-ordinates Earth Day event in Canada.
But, when asked Fleming why that was, he tried to downplay the issue and dodge questions.
The Victoria-Swan Lake MLA made the speech last week in the legislature, opening his speech by describing Earth Day as the "largest, most celebrated event worldwide" - the same words used in the About Us section of the Earth Day Canada Website.
"Today more than 6 million Canadians will join a billion people in over 170 countries in staging events and projects to address local environmental issues, and today nearly every schoolchild in Canada will take part in an Earth Day activity," he continued - again almost exactly mirroring the website.
We could on. Suffice it to say, though, there wasn't much in the speech's structure or content that hadn't first been written by Earth Day Canada.
So what did Fleming have to say about those similarities?
Scoffing at our question, the environment critic told us, "A two-minute statement that's a public service announcement in the legislature on the history of the environmental movement and the 40th anniversary of Earth Day? I don't Really?"
Really.
But despite repeatedly pressing Fleming, the best we could get out of him was this statement: "This is all stuff that's well-documented. It would be like doing a history of the Magna Carta I suppose This is a matter of the public record."
Of course, that hasn't stopped students from failing courses and journalists from being fired for doing what Fleming appears to have done.
But we digress.
Sean Holman is editor of the online provincial political news journal Public Eye (publiceyeonline.com). He can be reached at [email protected].
