The NWT’s integrity commissioner is recommending that the Legislative Assembly pay some of a former nurse’s legal costs in a successful complaint against a MLA.
Earlier this year, commissioner David Phillip Jones found Richard Edjericon, the MLA for Tu Nedhé-Wiilideh. broke the code of conduct for MLAs when he orchestrated a campaign to have the nurse-in-charge at Fort Resolution’s health centre removed from her position.
Edjericon said at the time that he accepted Jones’ findings.
NWT MLAs then fined and reprimanded Edjericon on the recommendation of the commissioner. Jones said Edjericon accepted the reprimand and paid the $2,500 fine.
In a supplemental report related to the complaint, released on Monday, Jones further recommended that the legislature pay a portion of the complainant’s legal costs related to the making and investigation of her complaint.
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“It would be unfair for the board of management to pay all or some of Mr Edjericon’s costs but not pay a portion of the complainant’s costs, especially in the particular circumstances of this complaint, which was justified and affected her personally,” Jones wrote.
According to the report, the legislature’s board of management has a policy that it will pay outside legal counsel to help an MLA deal with a complaint at a rate of $325 per hour, with any additional costs paid by the MLA.
Jones recommended that the assembly also reimburse the nurse for her legal fees using the $325 hourly rate.
The commissioner’s report will be formally tabled during the upcoming sitting of the Legislative Assembly, with MLAs set to resume sitting in late May.
Once the report is tabled, MLAs must either accept or reject the recommendation within 15 sitting days.
