Gin Yee | District Three HRSB Candidate

‘Full airing’ needed in Reid case
Minister responds to report on school board member

Bernadette Reid could be kicked off the Halifax regional school board and may even face criminal charges after the province referred a damning report from a conflict-of-interest inquiry to the police and courts on Wednesday.

"These are serious allegations that are made, and I think that there needs (to be) a full airing," Justice Minister Murray Scott said of sending inquiry commissioner LeRoy Lenethen’s report to Halifax Regional Police and Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

The minister said he didn’t want to comment on the specifics of the case.

"I think the public demand that all of us hold the public trust in high regard, so I think it’s important that we do everything we can to ensure that trust is well-founded," he said.

In his strongly worded 72-page report, Mr. Lenethen found that Ms. Reid "deliberately and knowingly" misled the public and the rest of the board when she sold products to her husband’s former school and another board school.

Carl Reid resigned as principal of Gaetz Brook Junior High in June 2005 after a board investigation found that $11,333 of school funds was used for non-school purposes. He pleaded not guilty to charges of theft and fraud this week. A trial date will be set Oct. 27.

Mr. Lenethen found that Ms. Reid was in a conflict of interest, breached the public’s trust and committed malfeasance and misconduct. But he also said he believed she did not know "of any breach of board policy by her husband."

Still, Ms. Reid skirted the board’s purchasing policy by giving an "unusual" 19.76 per cent discount on products she sold to Gaetz Brook to stay "under the radar of the board’s purchasing policy," Mr. Lenethen wrote. "I am satisfied that had she not been confronted with each of these transactions, she would not have disclosed any of them.

"Her various responses were deliberate attempts to conceal or obscure the true facts of the transactions."

Under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, the justice minister can ask the court to rule whether a board member has violated the act.

If a judge finds that the member did contravene the act, the seat is declared vacant. The member could also be barred from sitting on any board or council for up to 10 years or be subject to a fine.

Board members were scheduled to discuss the report at a special meeting Wednesday evening but decided instead to wrap it up early.

After board lawyer Ian Pickard presented the report, member Gin Yee immediately made a motion to adjourn and a majority of members agreed.

"The report spoke for itself, it went to the attorney general, it’s going to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia," Mr. Yee told reporters after the meeting.

"What else can we discuss? We didn’t really need to debate it. I was concerned that debate would have been volatile."

Ms. Reid was at the meeting Wednesday night but would not talk to reporters.

"I’m not giving any comment because I have decided not to give any comments," she said as she left the building with family and friends, pursued by reporters and camera operators.

Doug Sparks, the board’s African-Nova Scotian representative, said he wasn’t defending Ms. Reid but wondered why other board members don’t take an equally hard look at their own actions and potential conflicts of interest.

"When we talk about conflict of interest, what we apply to one individual we need to apply to all of us," he said. "You guys are aware of a couple of incidents where clearly there could have been and certainly are conflicts of interest."

Mr. Sparks wouldn’t elaborate. But board chairman Gary O’Hara said that Mr. Sparks complained to him that a sitting board member may not have paid for campaign literature she had printed for the 2004 board elections. Mr. O’Hara refused to identify the member.

"There’s no foundation to it," he said. "I looked at that and I found there was no foundation to it. If there was foundation to it, I’d bring it forth."

Debra Barlow, the board’s vice-chairwoman, said Mr. Sparks’s allegations are groundless.

"I happen to know the member that he is speaking about and that member has two legal opinions that she is not in conflict. So let Mr. Sparks bring that forward and he can dance all he wants."

Mr. Sparks said he may do just that.