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.”
Barclay said he would resist making that presumption but said “LeClerc’s actions do impact his credibility.”
The commissioner’s investigation was launched by a motion of the legislative assembly after the Regina police announced in May it would not lay charges against LeClerc.
At the same time he was looking into the audio recording and computer issues, Barclay was also conducting an investigation requested by the Opposition NDP to look into whether LeClerc had improperly used his constituency office for business purposes.
A separate report on that issue released Tuesday by Barclay found that LeClerc had not violated the Member’s Conflict of Interest Act.
In an e-mail received by The StarPhoenix in October, LeClerc said he had been diagnosed and was being treated for colon and stomach cancer.
LeClerc has written a book and speaks regularly about overcoming his past as a career criminal.
jwood@thestarphoenix.com
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