Liberals walk into cover-up charges in deaths

It's rarely mistakes that get governments in trouble. It's the attempts to conceal them.
The Liberals are falling into that trap, fighting to keep important evidence from being heard at inquiries into two terrible deaths.
There's a grim inquest under way in Victoria, one touching on a lot of critical issues. A man broke stabbed to death his wife, young son, her parents and then himself.
The woman, Sunny Parks, had predicted the killings six weeks earlier, when Peter Lee crashed their vehicle into a utility pool in what she saw as an effort to kill or injure her. She had also recounted past abuse to police. She told them he always carried a knife.
But Crown prosecutors decided he should be released on bail. The police officers who had investigated disagreed. They thought Lee was dangerous.
But the prosecutors were unconvinced. Lee was released, with several conditions.
He didn't obey them. He violated orders not to call his wife and to stay away from her and the family home. Lee's bail supervisor warned she was having trouble tracking his movements.
So a bail review was scheduled. Neither Lee nor his lawyer showed. It lasted one minute. The Crown accepted an adjournment and a new hearing was set, for a week later. Lee knew bail might be revoked. And hours before the hearing, he went on a killing spree.
There were two chances for a different outcome. If prosecutors had argued that Lee should have been held in the first place. Or if they had argued that a warrant should be issued when he failed to appear for the second hearing.
There's no clear answer here. Locking up someone who might be innocent shouldn't be done lightly. Lee had no criminal record and owned a business. Jail would be a serious hardship.
A five-person jury is hearing the inquest evidence. The province sent a supervisor of Crown prosecutors to testify. She said the prosecutors did everything right - although police might have been at fault, she said. No policy changes were needed.
That was a little bit puzzling, given the five bodies.
Another Crown prosecutors manager frustrated the inquest by saying she couldn't answer many questions, because she wasn't involved in the actual decisions.
Lawyer Diane Turner, representing the B.C. Task Force on Family Violence at the inquest, described the first supervisor's testimony as "an insult the victims."
The jury and coroner Jeff Dolan decided they needed to hear from the prosecutors who made the decisions.
That seems reasonable. There are serious unanswered questions. Experts have testified the available information indicated Lee was a serious threat.
So why didn't the prosecutors act on that basis? Is their training in family violence adequate? Did a heavy workload influence the decision to let Lee be on the street? Were they worried that the local detention centre was already overcrowded? Did communication with police break down?
Fair questions, which only the prosecutors can answer. The coroner ordered the prosecutors to testify.
Then the provincial government stepped in. Prosecutors wouldn't be allowed to testify.
So even though Premier Gordon Campbell promised the inquest would answer all questions, it's now shut down indefinitely. The government is trying to get the coroner's order that the prosecutors testify overturned in B.C. Supreme Court.
It has linked the case with a similar battle at an inquiry into how Frank Paul was left by police to die in a Vancouver alley. The government is fighting the inquiry's order to hear from prosecutors in that case as well.
The questions are reasonable. Only the prosecutors can answer them.
And prosecutors have often testified at other inquiries. (In fact, Richard Peck, the lawyer the government has hired to argue prosecutors don't have to testify, demanded prosecutors be called when he was a defence lawyer in the Air India case.)
A family is dead. And the government is fighting to withhold evidence.
Footnote: The government is claiming that prosecutors - like judges - never have to account for any action or inaction. But judges are appointed; prosecutors are hired. Judges' decisions can be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada; there's no recourse or review of a prosecutor's decision.
Attorney General Wally Oppal says allowing them to testify would mean prosecutors would constantly have to second-guess their decisions. It's hard to what's so wrong with that; but the reality is that inquiries and inquests like these are extremely rare.
Among the victims are the two prosecutors being barred from testifying. The government's intransigence denies them the chance to talk about the efforts they made to reach the right decision.