If you are not regular readers of Paul Willcocks at Paying Attention and Andrew MacLeod at The Tyee, you should be. They shine light on an expense payment of $167,342 to BC Innovation Council CEO Dean Rockwell, primarily for relocation expenses, and $80,469 paid to lobbyists to discuss BCIC’s compensation of its CEO with Government. Yes, unbelievable as it may seem, government now hires lobbyists to talk to government.

The BC Liberals are restraining some expenditures but apparently not those involving comfort for friends and insiders. Lobbying in Victoria is BC’s fastest growing industry so, no doubt, Jessica McDonald will soon be joining the ranks.

She is leaving the Premier’s office and Gordon Campbell is lawyering up. Allan Seckel, a “non-partisan” deputy attorney general, has been protecting Liberal backsides in the BC Rail scandal. Now, he replaces Jessica McDonald as deputy minister to the Premier. He receives a base salary of $295,000, an increase of $63,000 over that paid to McDonald.

I find it interesting that Premier Campbell, needing a Chief Executive Officer to manage the 35,000 member civil service and almost $1 billion a week of public spending, hired a lawyer. Not a person experienced in general management of a huge enterprise – or a medium sized enterprise – but, a lawyer. And, not just anyone. This Premier, who some believe should be in court himself over the sham sale of BC Rail, selects the lawyer who has been overseeing the administration of justice in British Columbia. Hmmm.