Veteran MLA John van Dongen arrived at the legislature Monday prepared for battle, and his paired public defection and attack on Premier Christy Clark's leadership weren't the only weapons in his arsenal.

While standing to announce his new allegiance to John Cummins' upstart Conservative party, van Dongen alluded to the BC Rail scandal that has dogged his former Liberal colleagues for almost a decade.

"There are still serious unanswered questions regarding the writing-off of $6 million in legal fees in the BC Rail case contrary to government policy," van Dongen said, referring to the decision to fund convicted government aides David Basi and Bobby Virk's defence in 2010.

But it wasn't until a post-announcement press conference that the MLA who kicked the hornet's nest revealed his intention to have the scandal investigated by a private lawyer -- at his own expense.

"The legal fees deal itself will never stand up to scrutiny in any way shape or form, and I've been asking those questions for a year-and-a-half," he said.

He did not specify what the lawyer would be doing, or which aspect of the scandal he would focus on.

But the representative for Abbotsford South said he's been disappointed by the government's failure to address the controversy, and suggested Clark has unresolved issues with respect to BC Rail that date back to 2002-2003, when she served her stint in Gordon Campbell's Liberal government.

He did not elaborate on his concerns about Clark other than to say she made several statements about BC Rail during her leadership campaign last year.

The four-term MLA added that his decision to jump ship was "significantly about the leader."

Basi and Virk copped to charges of breach of trust and accepting bribes in connection with the controversial $1 billion deal to privatize the formerly Crown-owned BC Rail in 2003, which saw police officers raid the provincial legislature.

The government had pledged not to privatize the company two years prior.

The decision to cover the two former aides' legal fees in October 2010 as part of a plea deal was widely criticized, spurring an independent review of the indemnity policy for government employees. The report determined that the government is obligated to pay the legal costs of its employees only when they are found to be innocent.

Basi and Virk were sentenced to two years each under house arrest.

With files from The Canadian Press