A B.C. Supreme Court judge was highly critical of the province’s conduct in a recent judgment awarding a fired public servant $250,000 in damages, following her role in a 2012 scandal that involved fired health researchers and a man’s suicide.

Wendy Taylor, who was one of the investigators that looked into the 2012 allegations that led to the firings of a number of Ministry of Health researchers, was herself fired on June 29, 2017 — the same day the then-B.C. Liberal government collapsed.

Justice Lindsay LeBlanc found that the province withheld Taylor’s severance payments, and that she was scapegoated when she was terminated amid significant public and media attention on the scandal.

LeBlanc said there was a serious power imbalance between the province and Taylor — who was the subject of media reports as an investigator involved in the scandal even as she was unable to respond to the reports herself.

“A clear message must be sent to the defendant that public servants are not to be used as pawns for political purpose,” the judge wrote.

“The manner in which the defendant sought to politically benefit from the plaintiff’s termination is highly reprehensible,” the judgment adds. “I find it is worthy of denunciation and punishment.”

Taylor sued the province in 2019, saying she was “terminated in bad faith and for political gain” despite a distinguished career in the public service for 30 years.

Ultimately, while the province claimed its decision to fire her was not in bad faith, the judge disagreed, awarding Taylor $50,000 in aggravated damages and $200,000 in punitive damages.

Ombudsperson report

The scandal that Taylor was investigating began in September 2012, when B.C.’s then-minister of health, Margaret MacDiarmid, announced that her ministry had fired a number of workers, alleging a data breach in a drug research program. She claimed the RCMP had been asked to investigate.

Taylor was listed as the “lead investigator” of the case in May 2012, in her capacity as the director of privacy investigations at the province, as the government looked into the data breach allegations at the time.

The judgment says that while Taylor’s title indicated she was the lead investigator on a formal investigation into the alleged privacy breach, she actually had limited involvement in decision-making and was part of a wider team.

One of the researchers, co-op student Roderick MacIsaac, died by suicide three months after he was fired.

Multiple B.C. Ombudsperson reports were issued about the case, and the judgment states that Taylor spent many subsequent years providing testimony and responding to freedom-of-information requests related to the scandal.

An April 2017 report found that key decision-makers had acted in response to a flawed and rushed investigation into what turned out to be erroneous information provided by a whistleblower and that none of the workers should have been dismissed.

Heightened media attention

According to the judgment in Taylor’s case, multiple news reports were written with particular attention on her as the “lead investigator” in 2012.

That was despite Taylor’s recommendation in 2012 to not have any of the researchers fired, according to the judgment, and her limited decision-making powers.

“The [formal investigation] team was criticized by the media for the way they conducted investigations,” the decision reads.

“In addition, the media implied that the plaintiff was responsible for the MOH [Ministry of Health] terminations and the government reporting that the RCMP had commenced an investigation.”

Taylor was unable to respond to the media attention, as a ministry staffer, though the province was able to issue statements and make people available for interview as the scandal unfolded.

The judge wrote that after the April 2017 ombudsperson report, the head of the B.C. Public Service at the time faced public pressure to terminate Taylor’s employment — and that she was ultimately tied to the scathing report.

“I find as a matter of fact that the plaintiff did suffer reputation risk as a consequence of the defendant’s approach to tethering the plaintiff’s termination to its [Ombudsperson] Report response,” LeBlanc wrote.

The judgment states that, after being fired without cause, Taylor’s severance payments were withheld for over a year, meaning she had to dip into her pension earlier than anticipated.

The province argued that there was “no dishonesty in relation to [Taylor’s] without cause termination,” and that it never identified her as lead investigator to the media.

But ultimately, the judge found that the province had made Taylor its scapegoat in 2017, as it sought to manage the 2012 scandal.

“Effectively, the government wanted to communicate to the public that the persons responsible were no longer employed by the province, because it suited them politically,” LeBlanc wrote.

A spokesperson for the B.C. Attorney General said the province had received the court’s ruling on the matter, and would be unable to comment further as it reviews the case.