Sask. Health Authority won't release details on CEO resignation despite privacy commissioner's recommendation

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) won't release information about its former CEO's resignation despite recommendations to do so from the province's privacy czar.

Information and privacy commissioner Ron Kruzeniski found the SHA failed to properly apply the law when it denied CBC Saskatchewan's requests for documents about the departure of Scott Livingstone, who abruptly resigned from the SHA in November 2021.

Livingstone's departure came at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in Saskatchewan and was reportedly motivated by an internal power struggle with government.

Livingstone collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance in the last fiscal year, even though he had apparently resigned voluntarily more than a year prior.

Kruzeniski recommended the SHA "reconsider" releasing Livingstone's resignation letter. He also found the SHA never asked Livingstone about releasing the letter, even though SHA cited his privacy as the reason for withholding it.

But the SHA says it has no plans to change tack. 

"The subject individual is no longer associated with SHA and releasing this information would create an unjustified invasion of privacy," the authority said in its response.

It offered no further comment when contacted by CBC Saskatchewan. Neither did the office of Health Minister Everett Hindley, which redirected CBC Saskatchewan to the SHA.

Critics say the authority's refusal to budge illustrates fatal failings in the province's transparency legislation and deepens the intrigue about why Livingstone left.

"This is another example of the lack of transparency we see every day from this tired and out of touch government, and this underscores the need to give the information and privacy commissioner the power to force public bodies like the SHA to make documents public," Saskatchewan Opposition NDP health critic Vicki Mowat said in a statement.

Livingstone's departure

Livingstone, the former head of the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, was the first-ever CEO of the SHA after it was forged from 12 regional health authorities in 2017.

He resigned on Nov. 24, 2021, but his departure was not announced until two weeks later on Dec. 2.

At the time, Saskatchewan had just flown dozens of critically ill COVID-19 patients to Ontario, because this province no longer had the resources to care for them.

Saskatchewan's government had also recently wrested control of COVID-19 management from the SHA and handed it to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, which reports directly to a government ministry.

Then-Health Minister Paul Merriman would not say why Livingstone had left. But The Saskatoon StarPhoenix reported at the time that his departure came, in part, because of government's decision to create a new job for a Saskatchewan Party political staffer in the upper rungs of the SHA.

Two weeks before Livingstone left, then-SHA board member Dr. Janet Tootoosis also resigned. She told the StarPhoenix it was "very difficult to see individuals as committed as Scott feel they have to leave."   

Tootoosis, now a senior executive at the University of Saskatchewan, told CBC in an emailed statement that she "resigned over principle in support of health system leaders" and that she was "not at liberty to discuss further details."

Merriman said Livingstone resigned voluntarily. However, this year's public accounts from the SHA show he was quietly paid severance of $425,000 — slightly more than a year of his previous annual compensation.

Livingstone himself did not respond to CBC Saskatchewan's request for comment.

Searching for answers

After Livingstone resigned, CBC Saskatchewan filed a request for documents under Saskatchewan's Freedom of Information laws, which guarantee access to public records with specific exemptions.

That led to a 20-month-long battle that ultimately ended with the SHA deciding not to release the documents.

The legislated timeline for government to respond to such requests is 30 days. It took the SHA roughly 11 months to respond. When it did, it had redacted communications between Livingstone and SHA board chair Arlene Wiks, including the body of Livingstone's resignation letter.

CBC Saskatchewan appealed that decision to Kruzeniski's office.

The SHA said it redacted those records because it considered them to be personal information, something Kruzeniski found to be correct.

But the legislation also allows authorities like the SHA to release that information anyway if the public interest outweighs a person's right to privacy.

Authorities can also release personal information when it is about "the terms or circumstances under which a person ceased to be an employee of a local authority, including the terms of any settlement or award resulting from the termination of employment."

Kruzeniski found the SHA had not properly exercised its discretion under either of those clauses. He also urged the SHA to contact Livingstone for his view, given they cited his privacy as a reason to not publish the information.

In their response to Kruzeniski's report, the SHA said it wouldn't release the letter and only that it "will consider contacting the individual."

Freedom of information expert Ken Rubin said the denial illustrates a fatal failing in Saskatchewan's Freedom of Information system.

Unlike some provinces, where a commissioner has the power to compel government bodies to release information, Saskatchewan's can only offer recommendations.

"Some commissioners have order-making powers and are a little stronger, but others are weak to begin with," said Rubin, an Ottawa-based researcher and transparency advocate.

Rubin said the only recourse that leaves applicants is going to court, something that is expensive and time-consuming.

"A case like what you're talking about, in my opinion, the public interest outweighs privacy," Rubin said.