As the Saskatchewan NDP fraud cover-up scandal finally lurches to a halt 16 years after it started,  the nation's most morally perfect political party -- chock full of only the most noble, virtuous and self-righteous -- should be taking a few moments right now to stop, reflect and get ready to offer the rest of us an explanation.

Back in 1992, when the just-defeated Grant Devine Conservatives in Saskatchewan were imploding -- actually they'd done that years earlier -- Conservative MLAs were being publicly investigated, charged and perp-walked over a caucus fraud scandal that implicated a dozen MLAs.

For the newly elected Roy Romanow NDP this was the political equivalent of winning the lottery -- every week had a different Tory going up in flames. 

While this political fraud scandal was unfolding, it turned out that the NDP had a fraud of its own going on at the same time, as an employee of the NDP forged cheques in the caucus office and blew out of town with nearly $6,000 stolen dollars and a please-forgive-me confession letter left behind.

The NDP's top staffer in its Caucus Office, Jim Fodey and his political masters could have gone to the police.  After all $6,000 was not a huge theft and the whole case "would have been long forgotten if those that learned of [the theft] had dealt with it in an honest, straightforward and transparent matter". 

But they didn't.

Instead, Fodey cast "a veil of secrecy and deception" over the theft, "misled the police", concealed the existence of the confession letter (even swearing another employee to secrecy) and even misleading the media about the departure of the thief by saying "an audit turned up no evidence of wrong doing".

At the same time, the NDP's Caucus Chair, Moose Jaw MLA Glenn Hagel "played no active role" in Fodey's deception but did give a "factually inaccurate description of events" to NDP MLAs and "took no steps" to undo the misleading of the media that Fodey had pulled off.

Just how and why some in the NDP were prepared to lie and conceal the existence of a criminal act, even from the police, who were actually told that "everything was in order" is anyone's guess. 

But you'd have to be either naive or thick to suspect that this had no connection with trying to politically minimize the NDP's own fraud problem when the NDP's opponents were knee deep in a fraud of their own.

So, life moved on.  The NDP won three more elections and in the intervening 15 years even Jim Fodey stayed employed in the NDP Caucus Office.

 In 2007, the bombshell dropped when a file of police reports, the confession letter and some NDP file notes ended up in the possession of the Sask Party.  And the file showed a damning paper trail: the NDP files had the confession letter hidden away at the same time the NDP were telling the police that no theft had been committed.

So broke the story of the NDP fraud cover-up scandal.  Amidst a great deal of bloviating, whining and anger, the NDP tried accusing those with the files of being in possession of stolen property.  For desperate deflection strategies that one didn't work well.

So, the NDP government -- under seige from the Opposition -- managed not to hold an inquiry, not to appoint a lawyer or judge to look into the allegations of a fraudulent cover-up but to refer the matter to the Legislature's Conflict of Interest Commissioner.  

Today, Conflict Commissioner, Gerry Garrand, released his report.  Wherever I've used quotation marks above -- these are the Commissioner's words not mine. And the Commissioner noted that those who learned of the theft "chose to deceive and mislead others about the theft for misguided political objectives".

Now the old and new NDP can wonder why simply telling the truth seemed such a bad idea at the time. 

And, while they're at it, the new generation NDP can explain why as this scandal blew up in 2007 they fired Jim Fodey and then thought it appropriate to pay him severance of more than $130,000 of public money.

When you read the findings of the Conflicts Commissioner it is clear -- painfully plain and obvious -- what Fodey did.  And what he did deserved a firing for cause -- no thank yous, no good-byes and certainly no severance pay.

The Commissioner's report is here:

http://www.gov.sk.ca/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.aspx?DocID=2590