3 JANUARY 28, 2004 Bond Dodges Questions about Walls Scandal ‘Photo by Stephanie Wilson Shirley Bond, Minister of Advanced Education, was at UNBC on Friday January 23 and unenthusiastically answered questions about her involvement in the Doug Wallis scandal. by Kathleen De Vere The scandal surrounding the Ministry of Children and Family Development that caused Gordon Hogg to resign his position as the Minister may soon spill over to affect Shirley Bond, MLA for Prince George Mount Robson and Minister for Advanced Education. On Friday, January 23, Hogg announced that he was resigning his position as Minister of Children and Family Development to ensure public confidence in his office and in the independent audit involving the interim authority for community living BC and its CEO Doug Walls. The Deputy Minister to the Premier Ken Dobell and the Comptroller General have appointed an independent auditor to review all matters related to the involvement of Doug Walls as a consultant to government and its agencies, and his roles on the behalf of the government. The audit will complete an internal audit into the business transactions of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. The scandal began when Doug Walls, former president of the bankrupt Prince George car dealership Fred. Walls and Son, resigned from his position as the Senior Consultant of Planning and Development (CEO) of a provincial agency that contracts out to the Ministry of Children and Family Development after the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into Walls’ past busi- ness dealings. Fred Walls and Son went bankrupt in 1998, and shortly after- wards, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce discovered that the dealerships account had been engaging in ‘kiting’ (where one writes cheques from an empty bank account to another account they control, then writes nfore cheques using the false balance at the second account). Once this was discovered, CIBC officials turned the investigation over to the RCMP, who then recommend- ed charges be laid. The government appointed special prosecutor is looking into whether charges should be laid against Walls. The affair became linked to Shirley Bond when it was uncovered that she had given Walls a glowing recommendation which helped him get his government position, in spite of knowing about his business troubles. While Bond did know that Walls’ business had gone bankrupt, she has claimed she did not know that the RCMP had been investigating Walls’ financial practices, According to Bond, Walls has been a family friend for years, but she only briefly talked to Hogg regarding Walls’ qualifications for the position. _ Walls was hired for the position last year by the interim author- ity for community living’s board, despite the fact that Hogg had been notified that Walls had been accused of fraud by the CIBC. At first Walls’ term as CEO of the interim authority for com- munity living was carried out quietly. However in 2002, a member The affair became linked to Shirley Bond when it was uncovered that she had given Walls a glowing recommenda- tion which helped him get his government position, in spite of knowing about his business troubles. of the government appointed community living transition steering committee brought it to Hogg’s attention that Walls had received over $60,000 dollars in untendered government contracts, and the proper rules of competition and bidding had not been followed. In light of the RCMP investigation into Walls’ previous business practices, the awarding of government contracts without competi- tion has brought a considerable taint to the operations, which has cumulated in Hogg’s resignation. All this is complicated by the fact that Walls has deep ties to the Liberal government and many of its Ministers. Walls served with Minister Bond on the Prince George School Board for seven years, has had a longstanding professional relationship with Deputy Minister of Children and Family Development Chris Haynes. His wife’s cousin is also the cousin of Premier Gordon Campbell’s. Political Science clamps down on Plagiarism New signed contracts ensure students know the consequences of their actions by Kathleen De Vere Most students’ first weeks back at school were discussions of course outlines and grading poli- cies, but if you were a Political Science student you got an extra added surprise - you signed a contract about plagiarism. “You are allowed to use other thinker’s ideas, if you give proper citations, but, you're not allowed to use another writer's sentences or phrases even if you some of the words.” The contract ads another level to the already strict Political Science program’s policy about academic honesty. “There is not morc plagia- rism, but it is an ongoing problem”, according to Boris DeWiel, the Chair of the Political Science Program. The contract outlines the definition of plagia- rism, and proper uses of another author’s work, but goes one step further than many other pla- giarism policies, as it also forbids what is called ‘close paraphrasing’. Close-paraphrasing is when a student takes another author’s sentences, and changes some of the words, but still keeps most of the original sentence. Even if the original source is indicated in a footnote after the ‘closely para- phrased’ sentence, it is still plagiarism according to the new policy. “Tt’s the mistake that I sec most commonly” according to DeWicel, “close paraphrasing is the form [of plagiarism that] I sce most frequently.” The idea behind the contract is to make stu- dents aware of the new department policy - and if an offender is caught, the signed document prevents that student from trying to claim that they were ignorant of what thcy were doing, The new policy has caused some students to worry that all forms of paraphrasing may be unacceptable, a problem when a research paper looms in the near future. “You arc allowed to use other thinker’s ideas, if you give proper citations, but, you're not allowed to use another writer’s sentences or phrases even if you change some of the words.” Says DeWicl. taking a sentence. directly out of another author’s work and changing only minor details, such as replacing some of the words with syn- onyms is plagiarism. Thus, if a student wanted to summarize another author’s thesis or findings into a sentence for their paper, and gave proper footnote credit, this would be fine, but taking a sentence directly out of another author’s work and changing only minor details, such as replacing some of thc words with synonyms is plagiarism. “We want students to create cvery sentence on thcir own from the ground up - with the exccp- tion of direct quotations, clearly indicated as such.” Said DeWiel. The new policy may be one of the most rigor- ous at UNBC, but it pales in comparison to the one employed at McGill university. At McGill students are asked to submit their papers in clec- tronic format only, and are checked against an online database of papers at turnitin.com. In the last two years plagiarism has become a high profile problem at Canadian universities, with large groups of students being caught in the act at SFU and other schools. » For more information on plagiarism & www.turnitin.com # web.unbc.ca/politicalscience/2004_winter/pl agiarismdocument.pdf & www.ncgill.ca/integrity/strategies/papers & www. plagiarism.org * www.utoronto.ca/writing/plagsep.html