‘The Ministry of Health has asked the RCMP to investigate…”
Thus began a press release issued a year ago Friday, signalling the start to what is likely the biggest scandal to ever hit the B.C. Ministry of Health.
On Sept. 6, 2012, the day after being appointed as the minister of health, Dr. Margaret MacDiarmid, and her deputy minister, Graham Whitmarsh, called a press conference. They announced that four employees had just been fired and three more were suspended without pay. No specific reasons were given, but the press release indicated that allegations around the use of Ministry of Health data and research contracts were serious enough to warrant RCMP involvement.
We were told that ministry officials had been carrying out an investigation for months. We learned from those affected that many ministry employees (some with more than 25 years in the public service) were taken to rooms and questioned, by as many as four ministry officials. Sometimes those interviews lasted for several hours at a time, with the employee having no representation, other than the shop steward for the three unionized workers. Those subjected to this questioning say it was a truly Kafkaesque experience, like being on trial and facing angry accusers with unspecified charges.
Because the ministry says “the investigation is ongoing,” ministry spokespeople won’t confirm what the accused faced in those interviews. Some of the tactics used included asking the employee in the hot seat to explain the contents of emails — some of which were more than a decade old — without allowing them to reread them. Witnesses say that one of these interview sessions had to be interrupted due to the accused experiencing some form of medical distress.
Regardless of what those employees did, if the conduct of this investigation is shown to be as harsh and ham-fisted as people say it was, then the ministry has a much bigger mess on its hands than it ever bargained for.
Of those fired and suspended, Rod MacIsaac was the most vulnerable. He was studying for a PhD in public administration at the University of Victoria and completing a co-op assignment at the ministry’s Pharmaceutical Services Division. He was using ministry data to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs used to help people stop smoking. On Sept. 6, 2012, the axe fell on MacIsaac as he was called into a room and summarily fired. It was three days before his co-op term was to expire and effectively killed his chances of finishing his PhD thesis. He died four months later.
Of all the firings, MacIsaac’s is the most enigmatic. What could a lowly co-op student possibly have done to merit such swift and inexplicable termination? The public service has a clear process around discipline, performance evaluation and appraisals. Where were the people supervising MacIsaac?
Employees are typically given a chance to correct their behaviour, but in this case it was a direct line from investigation and interrogation to termination, with no apparent disciplinary paper trail.
The B.C. coroner was called in to investigate MacIsaac’s death; eight months later, we’re still waiting for that report. Apparently the coroner can act fast if the mysterious death involves a Hollywood actor, such as Glee star Cory Monteith who overdosed and died in a Vancouver hotel on July 13. The B.C. Coroner Service completed that investigation in three days. But if you are the family of a deceased UVic co-op student who happened to be collateral damage in a ministry scandal … well, it’s eight months and counting.
In mid-summer, a lawyer representing MacIsaac’s union, the BCGEU, came to an agreement with the lawyer representing the government. The deal? MacIsaac’s estate got three days’ back pay. Why exactly was he terminated? What sort of rationale would justify such an insulting and bizarre settlement?
Freedom-of-information requests are the family’s only way to get answers. They are also told that they could do what the other half-dozen employees caught up in this scandal are doing and hire their own lawyer to sue the government.
MacIsaac’s family is grieving. They want closure. They want answers. But they’re not alone. There are tens of thousands of government employees in this province who are watching and perhaps wondering who will be there to protect them the day they get called into a room and accused of something. And there are university students wondering if doing a co-op placement with the public service is such a wise idea, given how MacIsaac’s thesis hopes and his life ended.
This scandal is not just about fired employees and unanswered questions. The scandal has also destroyed several major drug evaluations, such as the one MacIsaac was working on, and halted data access for others doing drug-safety studies.
I was at that press conference a year ago this week. There were many things that didn’t add up then. Many things that didn’t make sense. And still don’t. As for the RCMP? It appears they haven’t called any witnesses or carried out any investigation, whatsoever. The Ministry of Health, the B.C. Coroner Service, the RCMP — can’t anyone clear the stench of scandal that has hung over Victoria for a year?
Alan Cassels is a drug-policy researcher and the author of Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease.
