Editorial: Silence on Dornan payout is unacceptable

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New Brunswickers have a right to know how much money the Higgs government paid to settle its labour dispute with Dr. John Dornan, the former Horizon Health Network CEO who was fired after a patient died in a Fredericton emergency room. Later, the provincial labour board awarded Dornan $2 million in compensation.

Both sides aren’t talking. Logically, neither would want to be outed as the one who “blinked” by choosing to settle, before the issue was due before the provincial court of appeal last week.

Nor will either side acknowledge if the deal included a non-disclosure agreement, binding both sides to secrecy – and thereby shutting the public out of answers.

The only bright spot in this story is Liberal Leader Susan Holt, who has opined that the matter should be made public. Dornan is planning to run under Holt’s banner in the next provincial election, so it’s of some significance that the party leader thinks this should be disclosed. But will it ever happen?

In the main, this is a simple case to make: Dornan’s settlement involves money drawn from taxpayers. A democratic society demands transparency about spending taxpayer funds. Ergo, Dornan’s settlement should be disclosed as a matter of transparency.

But there’s a bit more to it. Holt is eager to paint the issue in purely political terms. It was the Higgs government who fired Dornan – unjustly, in the opinion of the labour board and the judge in the first round of appeal. As such, Holt argues, this is fundamentally an issue of uncovering the public’s cost for Higgs’s “mistake.”

Except we aren’t sure it’s that simple. In our view the two decisions in Dornan’s favour didn’t take into proper account that health-care executives in New Brunswick are effectively political appointments – to be made or unmade according to the judgment of the elected government. A fair severance is one thing; taking taxpayers to the cleaners is quite another.

The crucial point here is that Dornan was not fired “for cause.” Indeed, whatever Higgs’s public statements linking his dismissal to the patient’s death, legally Dornan was terminated “without cause” and was to be paid his full salary for a whole year by the terms of his written employment agreement.

But later, the labour board sided with Dornan’s complaint, in part on the grounds he couldn’t find comparable employment and so was entitled to more money.

And yet Dornan, we have learned, is already working again for Horizon. Surely that should count for something in terms of mitigating the taxpayer’s obligation.

That’s to say nothing of the possibility Dornan may soon become a member of the provincial legislature, and then perhaps a well-compensated cabinet minister if the Liberals form government. Does he really think it will be reasonable to continue receiving a payout for his last job, while also drawing a new politician’s salary?

We’ll never know if the court of appeal would have found merit in the province’s arguments, had the matter proceeded. So the public will never ultimately learn who was right – and more importantly, how much money was spent to make it go away.

This whole affair strikes us as dubious. The Higgs-Dornan dispute is more of a personal squabble than a pressing legal issue worthy of a tax-funded settlement – amounting to some fraction of $2 million.

We fully support Dr. Dornan’s right to put his name on the ballot in the next election. But he shouldn’t have gotten a golden handshake for his last government job. Especially a secret one.