Former MLA Rich Coleman running for mayor in Township of Langley

Langley’s longest-serving MLA and former RCMP officer Rich Coleman is joining the race to be the next mayor of the Township of Langley.

Coleman made the official announcement Friday morning, running with the newly created Elevate Langley party.

“I have grown up doing public service all my life. I have more to give and I want to give it to this community,” said Coleman in a statement.

As Solicitor General, Coleman was involved in creating the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) and introducing B.C.’s first gang task force.

Coleman was first elected as MLA for Langley East in 1996. He was last re-elected for a sixth term in 2017.

He says he has delivered on a list of Langley projects in the past, including the Langley Events Center, two Langley Memorial Hospital expansions, and the Langley Hospice.

Related links:

• ‘We are responsible’: Former B.C. gaming minister admits he didn’t do enough to address money laundering

• Money laundering not main cause of rising B.C. home prices, Cullen commission finds

Earlier this year, British Columbia’s public inquiry into money laundering found senior members of the former BC Liberal government, which Coleman was a part of, had opportunities to stop money laundering, and they failed to act.

That was a key finding from former B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen, who publicly released his final report and recommendations back in June.

In Cullen’s report, he specifically identified former Premier Christy Clark and her then-gaming ministers, Mike de Jong and Coleman, as knowing about the problem but displaying a failure of will to address it.

When discussing Coleman specifically, Cullen wrote in his report that at one point, the former minister “should have recognized that there was a need to take aggressive action to bring an immediate end to the suspicious activity, that by the end of his tenure, was clearly spiraling out of control.”

Cullen’s report says Coleman arranged for an independent review of anti-money laundering measures in the gaming industry, but did not act to stop the flow of suspicious transactions.

Councillors Blair Whitmarsh and Eric Woodward and former councillor Michelle Sparrow are all also running for mayor.

The date of the election is set for Oct. 15.

With files from Martin MacMahon and Robyn Crawford and Denise Wong