Nurses union failed to send some records to Wettlaufer inquiry

The union that grieved the suspension and firing of Elizabeth Wettlaufer, then negotiated a settlement that changed that dismissal to a resignation, failed to provide a public inquiry some of the documents about those dealings until two weeks after testimony began.

The Ontario Nurses’ Association “electronically locked” certain records related to the health-care killer and failed to submit those records to a public inquiry by an April deadline — a failing that only came to light after a new lawyer for the union stumbled across references to records she had never seen.

“(The union) locked the filed when Elizabeth Wettlaufer was arrested,” said Liz Hewitt, a lawyer for the inquiry commission. “The result is these files were not disclosed.”

While Hewitt called the failure to disclose an “oversight” and the head of the commission, Justice Eileen Gillese, called it a “glitch,” a lawyer for the union who only inherited that role recently expressed concern.

“I was quite upset when I found out,” said lawyer Nicole Butt, who was hired by the union in May, after an April deadline to disclose records to the inquiry.

Butt quickly notified the inquiry commission after her discovery. But while those running the inquiry seemed satisfied that the union’s failing had been an oversight, no one from the commission asked questions — at least not in public session — about why the files had been hidden in the first place. That left a number of questions unanswered:

What does the union mean

■ when it says the Wettlaufer files were locked? Did someone at the union move them to a separate hard drive for which only certain union officials would have a password? Were the files encrypted and then placed on such a passwordprotected drive?

If the files were placed in a

■ password-protected drive, which union officials had the password, who decided to place them there in the first place and how is it possible that this person, and others with the password, failed to produce them for the inquiry?

If the goal of the union was to ■ preserve the files, as Hewitt said, why not back up the files electronically and on paper? Aren’t password-protected drives just as prone to hardware failure and loss as drives that are full accessible? The final settlement records between the union and Caressant Care in Woodstock, where Wettlaufer murdered seven residents, were submitted to the inquiry by the April deadline, but some of the paper trail to get to that point was not, Hewitt said, including submissions by Wettlaufer herself and notes taken in a meeting that included someone from the Ontario

I was quite upset when I found out.

Labour Relations Board. Gillese paused the inquiry so that all parties and lawyers could review the additional documents and also noted that witnesses who worked side-by-side with Wettlaufer at Caressant Care and who previously testified in the first two weeks of the inquiry, sometimes through tears, may have to be called back to testify again. Wettlaufer confessed and pleaded guilty to eight counts of firstdegree murder, four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault between 2007 and 2015, with seven deaths occurring at Caressant Care in Woodstock and one at Meadow Park Long Term Care in London. Her murder spree led the Ontario government to create a public inquiry to examine the circumstances that allowed Wettlaufer to get away with her crimes despite being fired twice.

Nine weeks of testimony are expected to be done in September, with a report into the matter due next year.