So the head of the Lottery Corporation has been fired following the disclosure of fiddling in the Lotto Corporation. No doubt he should resign and so should the entire Board of Directors. What has not been much discussed is the question of ministerial responsibility for it was not John Les’ ministry that discovered there was serious trouble afoot but the Ombudsman Kim Carter who said that she was prompted to look into the B.C. lottery system after questions from the public and media arose last December about why the people who sell lottery tickets appear "to be winning major prizes at a higher rate than others in the province."

Is it too much to expect the Minister, John Les, to resign as well?

I don’t think so but then I’m so out of date – I thought that after he got drunk, drove a car and wound up in the slammer Premier Gordon Campbell ought to have resigned. He also ought to have resigned in my view after the Doug Walls affair but instead he persuaded the then Minister, Gordon Hogg to run up on his own sword. You will remember that Walls was hired to administer $65 million welfare dollars when he was being investigated for forgery and fraud. He was the guy the Premier denied knowing until he was forced to admit that he had stayed with the Walls family in Prince George and had gone all the way to Prince George to lease a car from Walls’ car dealership.

When, many years ago, I had the portfolio of Consumer & Corporate Affairs I looked after the supervision of most of the business activity in the Province. One of my jobs included residential tenancies and at one point a judge, quite erroneously, accused me of interfering with a Rentalsman hearing. It was made clear to me that unless I could refute this pronto, I was toast. Within 48 hours the Judge agreed he had been completely mistaken and I was cleared.

In days where Ministers did resign when bad things happened in their ministries, Solicitor General John Les would have resigned. At the very least ought he not stand down until it’s determined why it was the Ombudsman, not the ministry who blew the whistle?

I suppose in a government headed by an unrepentant jailbird the notion of ministerial responsibility does seem a bit quaint.