One day after getting the assignment, Ombudsperson Jay Chalke is warning that his probe into the 2012 Health Ministry firings of eight people — one of whom committed suicide — won’t be a quick process.
“I understand the desire for answers and the wish that all this be completed in a timely way, so we’re going to get to work,” Chalke said. “However, speed is not our first goal — a thorough, high-quality investigation is really what our primary objective is.”
The investigation was referred to ombudsperson’s office by a legislative committee on Wednesday.
Chalke will broadly review the events that led to a decision in September 2012 to publicly terminate eight Health Ministry employees and contractors, and the actions taken by the B.C. government following those firings.
Critics have suggested that Chalke, who assumed office July 1, tried to pass the political hot potato by pointing out the legal hurdles that stand in his way. His concerns — to do with non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality — were addressed by the committee and the government, which amended the Ombudsperson’s Act to give his office greater power and remove potential roadblocks.
“They were able to deal with a number of the matters we had raised and we are in a better position than we were a month ago on issues such as matters covered by cabinet privilege or confidentiality provisions and other statutes,” Chalke said.
The ombudsperson had asked that the probe not be referred to him unless he had the unanimous support of the committee and those who publicly bore the weight of the flawed investigation — seven fired Health Ministry workers and the sister of an eighth who killed himself in the aftermath of the dismissals.
But on Monday, the fired researchers rejected a probe by his office and called for a public inquiry.
The ombudsperson’s final report will be made public, but the interviews will be confidential.
“It is clear that our needs and those of the public cannot be met through an ombudsperson’s investigation … it is a legal impossibility,” the researchers said. “Our careful deliberations only clarified the need for a full public inquiry.”
They noted that Chalke’s office has limited scope and powers and could be restricted by litigation, solicitor-client privilege and issues of jurisdiction to investigate matters already considered by the court and B.C.’s privacy commissioner.
Two lawsuits related to the firings remain before the courts. One is scheduled to go to court in March 2016. The other does not have a court date.
“We’ll have to see where the litigation is when we get to that point in our investigation and how we address the fact there may be ongoing litigation during the currency of our investigation,” he said. “But it’s really premature to kind of forecast what that might be and whether there will be problems once we get to that point in our investigation.”
The committee’s NDP members wanted Chalke to attend the committee’s final meeting on Wednesday to address the possible legal hurdles that remained. The Liberal members refused, saying the concerns of the researchers had been answered and that the government had gone to great lengths to give the ombudsperson the powers he needs. The Liberal-dominated committee pushed through the referral with a 5-4 vote.
Chalke said he would have been happy to answer questions at the meeting and is “disappointed” by the split vote — but is encouraged by the collaboration on the committee in the weeks leading up to that vote.
“With an investigation of this breadth and complexity, we are going to come up against things that right now we can’t anticipate and we’ll have to figure out how to solve them,” Chalke said.
For now, the ombudsperson is hopeful the collaboration that broke down Wednesday will re-emerge as the committee chairman, Liberal MLA Scott Hamilton, and deputy chairwoman, NDP MLA Carole James, draft the terms of reference over the next few weeks. Agreement here could boost public confidence in the process, he suggested.
“There’s still an opportunity for the committee to agree on other matters even though they weren’t able to agree [Wednesday],” Chalke said. “I’m actually quite excited and have relished over the past month the opportunity to really roll up my sleeves and, in-depth, get into a particular issue.”
