‘The opposition has not found one single, solitary instance of improper use of my office’

EDITOR’S NOTE — Canadian politicians have been much in the news lately for the spending of taxpayers’ money on travel for family members. Alison Redford, Jenny Kwan, Linda Reid and others have felt the political consequences. Getting in trouble over family travel isn’t new in B.C. politics. In 1968, ‘Flying’ Phil Gaglardi was at the top of his game as MLA for Kamloops and minister of highways in the W.A.C. Bennett government. But an incident involving a flight by a family member was to cost him his job as highways minister. This is third and final part in a series of excerpts from a chapter called The Plane, The Plane in Friend O’ Mine, my biography of Phil Gaglardi published in 1988. In the first two installments, opposition MLAs discovered that the government’s Lear jet had flown to Dallas with Gaglardi’s daughter-in-law Karen and grandson Tom on board. Then the press got hold of it, too, and political pressure mounted as Gaglardi nursed a sore jaw caused by dental surgery.

By MEL ROTHENBURGER

Gaglardi returned to Victoria with his aching jaw and assured the premier he could bring everything under control once again. Gaglardi would go into the House to speak on his estimates and deliver a rip-roaring speech in defence of the Lear and in explanation of the Dallas fiasco. Then he went away to work on the speech. He almost always delivered his speeches from the cuff, but this time he worded it carefully, and had it typed out for him to read.

“I would like to make a statement to the House concerning some of the utterly ridiculous, small-minded and inaccurate nonsense which has been levelled at me over use of my department’s jet aircraft,” the draft speech began.

Then he lambasted (Lester B.) Pearson, Art Laing and John Nicolson of the federal Liberals for using publicly owned aircraft for private trips.

“Now, Prime Minister Pearson, I’m told, frequently takes newspapermen with him on Department of Transport aircraft, and I’m told that other cabinet ministers do likewise. The bar opens the moment the plane takes off and one newsman has described the 12-hour flight to London as 12 hours in which to get stoned.”

The eight-page draft said that, “I have absolutely nothing to hide, although I freely admit that because of the outrageous character assassination and the campaign of innuendo that has been directed against me in the last few weeks I have not always been as candid with the press in the last few hours as I would normally like to be.”

On page six he got around to the question of the Dallas flight. “The answers are childishly simple…. I am the guilty monster here. I am the errant cabinet minister who suggested to my daughter-in-law that seeing as the jet had to go anyhow, she might was well go along as far as Seattle, where the plane had to stop for customs, or to Wichita, and take a regular airline from there…. In one place I am reported as saying I didn’t know who was on the plane. And I didn’t. I didn’t volunteer that it could be my daughter-in-law and not my daughter.”

Gaglardi’s speech concluded: “If it’s a flight log the people of this province want, I would be happy to do this. I have nothing to hide. The planes save the taxpayers millions of dollars.

“The opposition has not found one single, solitary instance of dishonesty or improper use of my office, so they want to investigate and unearth 20 minutes of extra flying time.”

The speech was remarkable in several respects. One was Gaglardi’s insistence on taking full blame for supposedly suggesting that his daughter-in-law make the trip in the Lear — a scenario readily accepted by the public and press — even though his son Bob had made the request, and (pilot Bert) Toye had promoted it. Another was that his assertions about use and abuse of public aircraft by other politicians were absolutely correct but, of course, other politicians weren’t Phil Gaglardi and they didn’t receive the attention Gaglardi received.

Then there was the admission that he hadn’t been entirely candid about who was on the plane. Later, he retrenched to the position that he had tried to be honest.

And there was his ready agreement to maintain detailed logs on use of government aircraft, a practice he had brushed off many times in the past, and soon would again.

Finally, there was that concluding statement, his refusal to resign and the rationale that he must stand before the opposition and refute their charges.

Gaglardi never got to make his speech. Only 24 hours later, he was to be condemned by the opposition for failing to face the legislature to answer to the airplane scandal.

In the highways minister’s Victoria office, Edith Valen received a phone call from Katherine Mylrea, Bennett’s secretary. It was essential that Gaglardi see the premier before going into the legislative assembly that day.

Gaglardi, now in his office, continued receiving phone calls and visits from reporters. “I am responsible for the plane. It has nothing to do with the premier or the cabinet. I am the culprit, nobody else.”

As the noon hour approached, Katherine Mylrea called Edith Valen again. Gaglardi was tied up.

Shortly after 12:30, she was on phone again “in a very disturbed state and wanted to make sure that Mr. Gaglardi had to talk to the premier before attending the session,” Valen recalled. “I passed this message to Mr. Gaglardi and he then left the office to see the premier.”

Only two people knew for sure what was said at that meeting: Gaglardi and Bennett. Both of them, at the time, maintained that Gaglardi submitted his resignation voluntarily. Years later, Bennett told an interviewer he had, indeed, fired Gaglardi.

Gaglardi reluctantly agreed to stay on as a minister without portfolio, with a cut in salary and allowances from $25,000 to half that.

“I ask permission of the House to make a statement of public interest,” said Bennett (in the legislature).

“I wish to announce to this House that with great regret, at 3:15 p.m. this afternoon, his honour the lieutenant-governor accepted the resignation of the minister of highways and appointed him as minister without portfolio. He will continue to be an advisor. And two minutes later the premier was sworn in as minister of highways.”