REGINA - Alberta prosecutors will review an investigation into an alleged case of fraud that happened in the Saskatchewan NDP caucus office 15 years ago and ended up costing a cabinet minister his job.
It's a common practice to send files outside the province when they are politically sensitive, said Justice Minister Frank Quennell.
"In rare circumstance, where things have some sensitivity and potentially some appearance of conflict, you avoid all that by having another office look at it,'' Quennell said in a telephone interview from Saskatoon.
The RCMP confirmed Wednesday that they have wrapped up their investigation into the alleged fraud and are waiting from an opinion from the Crown.
The case relates to a caucus worker who disappeared from her job mysteriously in 1992, but first left a letter confessing to inflating expense cheques by about $6,000.
When the letter was brought forward by the Opposition Saskatchewan Party earlier this year, the governing NDP said it was promptly turned over to police in 1992 and no charges were laid.
But Regina police said they didn't see the letter until 1994, when another caucus staffer raised concerns that the matter had not been investigated properly.
The Saskatchewan Party suggested that the NDP tried to cover up the fraud because the Opposition Tories were being investigated at the time by police for abuses related to government expense accounts.
In the years that followed, 14 Conservative members of the legislature and two caucus workers were convicted of fraud and breach of trust.
The RCMP agreed to reinvestigate the case at the behest of the Regina city police. Premier Lorne Calvert also asked the province's conflict-of-interest commissioner to look into the matter, although that was put on hold during the criminal investigation.
The caucus chief of staff resigned when the letter surfaced earlier this year. So did government house leader Glenn Hagel, also culture, youth and recreation minister, who was caucus chair in 1992.
Hagel stayed on as a member of the legislature and is currently seeking re-election for the NDP in the Nov. 7 election.
