N.W.T. MLAs talk betrayal, ambition at premier's conflict inquiry
Yellowknife-area MLAs Glen Abernethy and Dave Ramsay told sole adjudicator Ted Hughes they have lost trust in Roland for waiting months before revealing his extramarital affair with Patricia Russell, who was a deputy assembly clerk at the time. She no longer works at the legislative assembly.
In the months leading up to Roland's revelation, Russell attended confidential committee meetings between Ramsay, Abernethy and other non-cabinet MLAs in which they discussed the performance of the premier and cabinet.
"There's always going to be certain information which needs to be confidential; specifically, when we are talking about ministerial performance and stuff," Abernethy said at Thursday's inquiry hearing in Yellowknife.
"At that time, the premier was able to quote back to me a statement that was actually made from [Hay River South MLA] Jane Groenewegen to Dave Ramsay when we were discussing the performance of [Health Minister] Sandy Lee."
'Betrayed' by premier and clerk
Abernethy said Roland indicated at that time that his source of that statement was not Russell. Still, he said it's a question of perception.
"I found it incredibly hard to believe that any two individuals in an intimate relationship don't share information," he said.
"If we can be betrayed by our premier and by our clerk, we can be betrayed by anybody."
Abernethy and Ramsay were among six MLAs who filed the conflict-of-interest complaint against Roland earlier this year.
Conflict-of-interest commissioner Gerald Gerrand recommended an adjudicator's investigation after he found it was reasonable to believe Roland's relationship with Russell had compromised his duty to MLAs and the public.
MLAs' motives questioned
"Mr. Roland alluded to the fact that he had information on all regular members — he had a book, I believe he called it, of information — and he'd use it if he had [to]," Ramsay said.
In cross-examining Ramsay, Roland's lawyer asked whether the six MLAs were motivated by political ambition to complain about Roland's relationship and, in February, to unsuccessfully attempt to oust the premier and his cabinet with a non-confidence motion.
"I do get a bit tired of people suggesting that political ambition is my motive for doing things I believe in," Ramsay said.
"It got to the point that I was getting so tired of that — you know, people thinking that was my motivation — that I had even gone to the premier and other cabinet ministers and told them that if there was an opening for a cabinet seat in Yellowknife, following out of the removal of this cabinet, that I would not seek a seat in cabinet just to prove a point."
The conflict-of-interest hearings will continue Oct. 6-9.