Three high-profile deputy ministers were part of the fallout as Premier Christy Clark's cabinet was sworn in Monday.
The group included former B.C. deputy health minister Graham Whitmarsh, who signed termination letters for employees fired in an alleged privacy breach investigation.
The premier wouldn’t comment on Whitmarsh’s termination, saying it was a personnel matter.
Whitmarsh joined the public service in April 2007 as a special adviser to the premier’s office on carbon trading, becoming the head of the Climate Action Secretariat in May 2007.
He rose to become deputy finance minister and later deputy minister of health.
Whitmarsh is part of several civil lawsuits and grievances filed after a 2012 probe into allegations of conflict of interest and inappropriate conduct within the ministry’s pharmaceutical services division, which ultimately led to the firing of seven ministry staff and two contractors.
Clark praised Whitmarsh’s replacement in the Health Ministry, Stephen Brown, as having been “hugely successful” in the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
He’s “up to the task” of slowing the annual growth in health spending and establishing future labour agreements, Clark said.
Also out of a job was deputy minister Cairine MacDonald, whose innovation and technology portfolio was split from the Advanced Education Ministry as part of a reorganization.
Don Fast, deputy minister of Community Sport and Cultural Development since 2011, was the third senior official let go.
Deputy ministers with more than five years of experience are entitled to up to 18 months’ severance. The three each earned between $228,000 and $273,000 a year.
