NDP wants probe into health-firings conduct

RECORDS: Review of refusal to release documents

B.C.’s privacy commissioner has been asked by the Opposition to review the government’s conduct during a freedom-of-information case in which a non-existent RCMP investigation was used as an argument against the release of documents.

In separate letters sent Tuesday to the privacy commissioner, Health Minister Terry Lake and Justice Minister Suzanne Anton, NDP critic Adrian Dix accused the government of misleading the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) during a series of appeal hearings in 2014 relating to an information request.

That request was for records related to the 2012 dismissal of eight health researchers from the Ministry of Health, who were fired under a cloud of an alleged RCMP investigation. Specifically, the request was for records associated with data-sharing and the research agreements with some of the workers.

Dix wrote that the government tried to block the release of the information due to a police probe that the public now knows never happened. Back then, however, the government never tried to alter that narrative, even on being notified by the RCMP last July that the file had been closed due to “inaction.”

“They (the RCMP) closed the file and the government failed to inform the privacy commissioner of this,” Dix told The Province. “They continued to use the so-called investigation as a way to stop the public from getting access to information they were entitled to. And that’s very serious business.”

While the adjudicator overseeing the case ultimately released the documents in question, Dix wrote it in “no way changes the fact that it is time for the deception to end in this case.”

The health-firings scandal has been a thorn in the side of the Christy Clark government for the past two-and-a-half years. Last week, documents published by the Vancouver Sun debunked the government’s repeated claims of an RCMP investigation into the alleged privacy breach that prompted the firings.

The disclosures have led to renewed calls from NDP leader John Horgan for a full public inquiry.

Of the eight workers fired, several have been reinstated and/or have settled wrongful-dismissal suits. Two remain before the courts.

One of the fired employees, Roderick MacIsaac, later committed suicide.

In an email to The Province, a health ministry official said the Dix letter is being reviewed.

“While the Ministry of Health determined that they would no longer pursue action by the RCMP, the Office of the Comptroller General did have an ongoing investigation. The RCMP indicated they were awaiting that report in October 2013, and again in November 2014,” said the written statement.

The report from the comptroller general’s office was provided to the RCMP, and “it is now up to the RCMP to determine what, if any, action they will take based on the information that they received from the OCG,” said the statement.