Jay Chalk, B.C.’s Ombudsperson, has an obligation to release, in whole or in part, his report into the firings of eight Health Ministry drug researchers before the provincial election in May, said Dermod Travis of government watchdog group IntegrityBC.
On the heels of revelations this week that Chalke’s investigation has uncovered four million related records for review — as compared with the 200,000 the Health Ministry estimated were relevant — critics are questioning the disparity and the delaying of the report until at least February or March.
“I think the government fully expects the report won’t come out before the election,” Travis said.
The “document dump” by the provincial government was “fully intended” to delay the ombudsperson report until after the May 9 election, Travis said. It was originally due last month.
If the report can’t be produced by March, the ombudsperson “should look at producing a preliminary report and government should have no say in that,” Travis said. There’s an obligation to inform voters before the election about how the 2012 mass firings unfolded, he said.
In 2012, seven Health Ministry employees and at least one contractor who worked as researchers lost their jobs. One drug researcher later killed himself.
The government has since apologized to some of those it fired, rehired others and settled all lawsuits and grievances out of court.
In October 2015, the BC NDP released documents showing that when it asked the Health Ministry for any records sent or received by former deputy minister Graham Whitmarsh or his replacement, Stephen Brown, from May 2012 to July 2014, the government released just one heavily censored email.
Linda Kayfish, the sister of University of Victoria PhD student Roderick MacIsaac who killed himself after he was fired, said she is “very frustrated.” She said she has faced four years of roadblocks trying to access documents related to her brother’s firing — yet the ombudsperson’s office has four million.
“We have yet to receive one document,” Kayfish said. “Our public bodies have yet to take responsibility and be held accountable to their incorrigible behaviour,” she said. “It is destructive and discouraging.”
Kayfish said her freedom of information request was delayed three times to January 2017. The delayed requests of other fired workers “hinder the victimized people of this debacle and the citizens of the province from knowing the true facts,” she said.
Vincent Gogolek, executive director of the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, said it’s not rational to believe the government’s count of relevant documents could be out by 20 times the original estimate.
Gogolek said it’s troubling that in a 2014 review, Victoria lawyer Marcia McNeil wrote that she was unable to determine who ordered the firings or why, in part because she lacked “the reports, briefing notes, meeting notes or other documents which are frequently prepared in situations where discipline may be contemplated.”
“Obviously, more documents existed,” Gogolek said, “and the government didn’t want to give them to her. The best you can say about this is the government’s record keeping is appalling.”
BC NDP MLA Adrian Dix, who as former health critic sought a public inquiry into the firings, said the leap from 200,000 documents suggests a “serious coverup.”
“Senior government officials are all lawyered up but the researchers — who lost a great deal because of the government’s actions and misconduct — have not had access to documents to be able to participate fully,” Dix said.
The ombudsperson’s process should not reflect the very injustices it is examining, said Dix.
Elections BC spokesman Andrew Watson said there’s nothing in the Election Act that would prevent government or an independent officer of the legislature from releasing a report in the lead up to an election.
Auditor General Carol Bellringer said in a phone interview on Wednesday there are no hard and fast rules but that based on the tradition of independent officers of the legislature, her office will not release reports about two months before and after an election.
Bellringer said the independent officers’ tradition is based more on practicality than with possibly interfering with the electoral process.
