Sister of Roderick MacIsaac blasts Christy Clark for reaction to health firings report
Linda Kayfish has released a letter blasting Premier Christy Clark and her response to the B.C. ombudsperson's report on the 2012 Ministry of Health firings.
"Premier Clark has shown the same callous and cynical attitude towards my family for over four years now, and her response to the ombuds report is no different," said Kayfish.
Kayfish is the sister of Roderick MacIsaac, one of eight health researchers fired for alleged data breaches.
At the time the minister of health raised the spectre of potential criminal conduct by the researchers when she publicly stated the RCMP was investigating, which was not the case. MacIssac took his own life in Dec. 2012.
Last week Ombudsperson Jay Chalke released a scathing report into the firings, calling the government's actions "deceiving, flawed," and "needlessly rushed."
Clark stepped back from directly responding to the report , saying it was wrong for politicians to interfere with civil service hiring and firing decisions.
Kayfish says the premier is trying avoid taking responsibility.
"That is disgustingly disingenuous considering that Christy Clark's own Health Minister — a politician — went in front of the cameras in 2012 and announced to the world that my brother and his colleagues were suspected criminals. Where was the premier's false sense of propriety then?"
Apology requested
Kayfish told CBC On The Coast host Stephen Quinn that, above all, she wants Clark to accept accountability for what happened.
"They could have dealt with this much sooner," she said. "Had they dealt with it when they realized that my brother had done no wrong, he might still be here today. They chose to do nothing."
The first step towards closure, she said, would be an apology from Clark without having to ask for it.
"Nobody ever reached out to us before I came forward in 2014 and I've had to fight for everything," she said. "It would be good to have that apology — a personal apology, one that has meaning to it and one that we can start moving forward with."
With files from On The Coast.
