EES Wednesday, November 30, 1988 By HUBERT BEYER VICTORIA — How would you like to earn $235,000 for 18 months’ work? You would? I’ll have a chat with Premier Vander Zaim and see what I can do. I mean, what’s good enough for David Poole ought to be good enough for a lot of other people. Me, you can count out. I know what’s involved in the job and | don’t want it. But if your inclination runs to manipulating the boss and play- ing power games with col- you. The pay, you must admit, isn’t ..bad, although I should mention that the job actually pays only $90,000 a year. The other $100,000 is for screwing up. For Poole, it worked out just fine. He earned his spurs by working on Vander Zaim’s lead- ership. campaign. When his man ended up in the B.C. equivalent if the Oval Office, Poole surfaced on the government payroll as: assistant to Elwood Veitch. From there, it. was but one short step to the premier’s office where Poole proceeded to play power broker. It didn’t take very long for Poole to become the nemesis. of every, senior public servant. Deputy ministers, some of whom -had capably served the public when Poole was still unravelling the mysteries of trigonometry, were relegated. to the role of puppets — Poole’s puppets.: ~ Poole would sit in judgment of. who in the senior ranks of the. public service was. “‘on side,” meaning. blatantly pro-Socred. . in his opinion, o weren’t, ran into all sorts of Those. who, - - problems. ».., Eventually, Poole over-reached 7 himself. It started with a-press. # “conference at which he*took it § : upon himself to.outline the gov- jf _ -emment ‘policy “of regionaliza-. ooo tion; a-job: that’ should clearly _ ~ have. been done by the premier or. e “at least a cabinet minister. . Ieagues, the job is just right for . Poole e really got himself i in the a | glue when he interfered in the affairs. of the B.C. Enterprise Corporation on behalf of Peter Toigo. Toigo, a good friend of the premier’s, wanted to buy the Expo lands in Vancouver. Rather than learning his Ics- son, Poole continued to blunder on. His grip on the premier and his influence on the govern- ment’s day-to-day operations became so odious that Grace McCarthy, once the heart and: soul of the Social Credit party, resigned from cabinet. Still, the premicr protected Poole. Nothing the man did would seem to make. Vander Zalm waver in his loyalty. wll, “almost nothing. In the end, the premier had no choice. The havoc Poole was causing, coupled with his: own mistakes, placed the premicr’s | political future in severe jeo- pardy. The last straw was proba- | . bly Poole’s role in the Knight Street Pub scandal. When ombudsman Stephen Owen reported that Poole had ~ _ phoned Bert Hick, then manager dum that would make or break THE REVIEW 9781-2nd St., Sidney B.C. Page Al3 TREASURE ISLAND SMOKED SALMO ' SIDES AND SLICE PACKS N Now thatsa | * ol ¥en handsnake PLANT SPECIALS AND REGULAR STOCK ‘‘PROCESSED LOCALLY - KNOWN WORLD WIDE"’ PACIFIC SEAFOODS INTERNATIONAL LTD. 10210 BOWERBANK RD. SIDNEY, B.C. V8L 3X4 TEL: 656-0901 month at age 65. ] suppose we should be grateful for small mer- cies. Finance Minister Mcl Couvel- ier says there is nothing out of the ordinary with Poole’s fare- well present. He says he of the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch, morc or Iess suggesting that there was nothing wrong with appointing a specific individual to conduct the referen- Dorman’s Carpet Cleaners ° CARPET CLEANING e UPHOLSTERY CLEANING Owner Wilf Dorman gives personal attention to all orders 9570 Northiawn Terrace, Sidney, B.C. FREE ESTIMATES Phone: 656-4754 - 30 Years Experience the approval of the Knight Sucet. Pub licence, Vander Zalm, at long last, acted, forcing Poole to resign, But the pot was sweetened. Poole got a-$100,000 severance package. He also got recognition - for pension purposcs of 64 months of service with commun- ity colleges in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Add the $100,000 to the $135,000 Poole earned during his 18 months of service here in B.C. and you come up with a nice litle bundle. But even at that, the taxpayers were lucky. With the 64 months of pensionable service he was granted for previous jobs, and his 18 months in B.C. counting at time and a half, Poole was just 29 months short of being eligible for a pension. Had-he stayed on for another two and a half years, he’d get an estimated $1,500 a instructed the people who worked out the severance pay formula to give Poole. no more and no less than anyone else. would get. " JUST US 1 FLOOR COVERING | DEPARTMENT We have to clear out our CARPET AND LINOS and best thing about it, it’s in time for Christmas, but hurry in, these prices © can’t last for long. 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