City councillor Brian Skakun remained as combative as ever following his conviction for leaking personnel-related documents to the media, and in so doing, breaking provincial legislation.
"I'm extremely disappointed, extremely disappointed," Skakun said Tuesday outside the courthouse when asked for his reaction. "We put forward a good case, we put forward some good legal arguments."
Skakun said Judge Ken Ball "changed municipal law" by finding that as an elected official, Skakun was not covered by the so-called whistle blower defence as set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.
He also felt Ball was the wrong judge to hear the case given his history of representing police agencies when he was a lawyer.
"By the time I heard what the judge's background was, I was already into the case for $25,000," Skakun said. "There was no way I could've said to my lawyer, let's appeal this, let's get a different judge."
Skakun disagreed with Ball's finding that he failed to go through proper channels to get what he wanted. The court heard during the trial that Skakun stormed out of a closed meeting in which a report by labour lawyer Kitty Heller was presented to council, but he never made a motion to make the report public.
"I didn't think it was going to go anywhere," Skakun said when asked why he never took the step.
Nor did he make a formal application under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to obtain a copy of the report outside of council chambers.
"There are so many things that go on in closed meetings that sometimes I think the public really needs to know," Skakun said. "It could've stayed in closed meetings and never ever made public and I think that would've been a shame."
Skakun admitted near the end of the trial to leaking the document after the court heard at the outset of testimony the copy posted on the CBC website had markings showing it was a version presented to city council.
When he learned it was posted on the CBC website on Aug. 19, 2008, he immediately called the Prince George station and demanded it be taken off the site, Skakun also told the court.
Skakun said the trial ran up more than $30,000 in legal bills for him and could be exposed to further lawsuits.
"Possibly, I'm not a lawyer," he said when asked if Ann Bailey, the civilian Prince George RCMP manager named in the Heller report, could pursue legal action against him.
Heller found Bailey committed no wrongdoing but concluded she was in a conflict of interest due to her romantic relationship with then-Prince George RCMP Superintendent Dahl Chambers and criticized administrative services director Rob Whitwham for allowing the situation to get to that point.
City administration disagreed with Heller's conflict finding, calling the conflict "perceived" and asserting Whitwham acted appropriately under the circumstance.
SKAKUN APOLOGIZES... SORT OF
Asked if he feels any sympathy for Bailey or Whitwham, Skakun apologized "to anyone that's been hurt because of this."
However he quickly referred to the original complaints filed with the City by then-civilian RCMP employees Sheri McLean-Smith and Linda Thompson largely about Bailey's and Chamber's treatment of Ken Corrigan, then the top civilian manager at the detachment, all of which launched the Heller report.
"You cannot forget about the three victims and what happened with them and their harassment that they had to face working for the City of Prince George at the RCMP detachment that are no longer there," Skakun said.
Asked if he would do it again, Skakun said he did not know.
"It's been hard on me, it's been hard on my family, I don't know as far as the process with anymore legal stuff but I do know that I would definitely stand up for people that come to me and say that they've been harassed at work, that people aren't supporting them, that it's changed their lives," he said. "I am still here to help the individual."
He also said he'll remain on council.
"They can vote for me in November, but I'm not going anywhere."
