Horgan says he’s confident former minister Jinny Sims can ‘clear the air’
Posted October 7, 2019 1:30 pm.
Last Updated October 7, 2019 1:31 pm.
VICTORIA – Premier John Horgan says he’s not aware of the allegations facing former cabinet minister Jinny Sims, but he’s confident she can clear up the issue.
Sims resigned from the New Democrat cabinet on Friday following an announcement that a special prosecutor had been appointed amid an
investigation by RCMP.
Horgan says he watched Sims when she was leader of the BC Teachers’ Federation, then a federal member of Parliament and now a member of his government and he has every confidence in her.
He believes the Mounties will clear her of the allegations, which haven’t been made public.
RELATED: B.C. cabinet minister Jinny Sims steps aside amid RCMP investigation
Similar investigations into other politicians have taken years to complete, but Horgan says it’s difficult to say if that is fair or unfair.
“Where, after a long period time of time, little or no consequence came from it, other than reputations being damaged, people living and working under a cloud. But it is the system we have, I have no intention of making any changes,” he says.
Sims said in a statement Friday that her name would be cleared and that the allegations against her, which haven’t been made public, have no credibility.
The Opposition B.C. Liberals have accused Sims of using personal emails to allegedly circumvent the province’s freedom of information
laws and of writing letters to support visa applications for 10 Pakistani citizens who were on a security watch list.
The BC Prosecution Service says in a statement that Vancouver lawyer Richard Peck was appointed as the special prosecutor on the request of RCMP, while it looked into allegations of criminal wrongdoing against Sims and others.
