“The need for revenue was never a driver for anything we did on this file,” he said.
Over his close to five-hour testimony, Coleman, an MLA between 1996 and 2017, described his role as a primary architect of expanding gambling under the BC Liberal government commencing in 2001. Coleman was responsible for gambling policies and enforcement on three separate occasions (2001-2005, 2008-2010 and 2012-2013), during which time it is now known large and suspicious transactions reached hundreds of millions of dollars annually despite being illegally underreported by casinos for many of those years.
Under oath, Coleman explained perhaps one of his most controversial decisions as the minister responsible for gambling – the disbandment of the Illegal Gaming Enforcement Team (IGET) in 2009.