Vaughn Palmer: Eby adds a legal adviser to an office already crammed with lawyers

VICTORIA — When I wrote last week about the growing, inner circle of advisers around Premier David Eby, I got a note from a reader saying, “You missed one.”

Enclosed was a posting from Thompson Rivers University dated last November, announcing that law professor Craig Jones had been “retained to serve as general counsel to the premier.”

My first thought was to wonder whether Eby really needed his own general counsel.

After all, he’s a lawyer. So is his deputy minister and new head of the public service, Shannon Salter. Ditto Doug White, the premier’s special counsel on Indigenous reconciliation. Likewise, Jessica Prince, the new assistant deputy minister in the premier’s office.

Then there’s Attorney General Niki Sharma, whose prime duties include providing legal advice to the government, and her entire ministry, which is known to have a lawyer or two.

I mean, I’ve heard of “lawyering up,” but this was getting top heavy.

I also wonder what David Eby himself would have said if — during his days as a turf conscious attorney general — an outsider were retained to serve as “general counsel” to Premier John Horgan.

When I asked the premier’s office about the rationale for the Jones appointment on Monday, I got back a statement back from Eby which somewhat bristled with indignation.

“Minister Niki Sharma is an incredibly skilled lawyer and passionate advocate who is more than capable of single-handedly fulfilling the important role of Attorney General and any suggestion to the contrary is simply inaccurate. Craig Jones, like other outside counsel, is retained by the Ministry of Attorney General.”

The premier’s office added the following: “Craig Jones’s current work as outside counsel doesn’t in any way impact the duties and the responsibilities of the attorney general. All legal advice to government is provided through the Ministry of Attorney General — either through lawyers directly employed or retained as outside counsel.”

Jones was indeed retained by the Ministry of the Attorney-General. But it was “with specific assignment to issues highlighted by the premier’s office.”

Those specifics, plus his close relationship with Eby, distinguishes him from other outside lawyers who’ve been retained by the AG’s ministry over the years.

Jones began working on issues that were identified by the premier’s office during transition from the Horgan to the Eby administration. He has since provided legal advice on issues of particular interest to the new premier — such as homelessness.

“Craig Jones has tremendous amount of legal experience on complicated cases for and outside of government,” continued the statement from the premier’s office. “His creative legal approach will be focused on a number of individual issues, like homelessness, that require innovative and urgent attention.”

Some of Eby’s suggestions on homeless and public safety do raise thorny legal questions and Jones’ experience on complex legal matters could come in handy.

The premier has raised the possibility of involuntary detention of overdose victims and of reopening a modern-day version of Riverview as a state-of-the-art mental health facility.

His administration has already directed Crown prosecutors to press harder to jail chronic offenders.
Eby recently joined other Canadian premiers in urging the federal government to amend its recent changes to the Criminal Code to “better protect the public,” the police and other first responders.

“The justice system needs to keep anyone who poses a threat to public safety off the streets,” the letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau read in part. “This starts with meaningful changes in the Criminal Code, an area solely within the federal government’s jurisdiction.”

The statement from the premier’s office did not provide much detail on the issues where Jones would be asked to provide advice.

Jones also provided legal and constitutional advice to the previous B.C. Liberal government.

But Jones and Eby go way back and the two share activist roots.

They worked together for the Pivot Legal Society. When Eby was appointed attorney general in July 2017, one of the first visits he paid was to Jones and his students at the TRU law school in Kamloops.

Twenty-five years ago, Jones, then a young law student at the University of B.C., was drawn into the protests against APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, at UBC.

Disturbed by heavily armed security response to the antiglobalization protests, Jones posted signs advocating “free speech” and “democracy” along the route that world leaders were travelling.

It got him arrested.

“When I was lying on the ground with three police officers on my back, I thought, ‘I am in deep shit here,'” Jones told CBC reporter Maryse Zeidler on the 20th anniversary of the protests.

Up to then, said Jones, “I was a pretty straitlaced, middle-of-the-road kind of law student. … I remember it all pretty vividly. It became a pivotal or defining moment in my life.”

One ingredient in the perspective he brings to the job of general counsel to the current premier.

While advising the premier, Jones is continuing to teach his classes at the university.

No word on what he is being paid on retainer to the premier. If past practice is any guide, the amount will be withheld on grounds of solicitor client privilege.

vpalmer@postmedia.com

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