B.C.’s longest serving ombudsperson, whose report on the wrongful termination of Health Ministry employees led to the province’s first broad whistleblower protection law for the provincial public sector, is retiring.
After a decade as B.C. ombudsperson, Jay Chalke, a lawyer who was appointed in April 2015, has announced he’ll step down early next year. The process to appoint a new ombudsperson will begin shortly, according to his office.
Chalke, who was reappointed to a second six-year term starting July 1, 2021, called serving as B.C.’s Ombudsperson “the honour of my career.”
He said his decision to retire is rooted in his belief that leadership transitions bring new energy and ideas.
Chalke led a sweeping investigation into the 2012 wrongful firings of seven Health Ministry researchers under the then B.C. Liberal government, resulting in a 488-page report called Misfire.
It was the first referral of a matter to the ombudsperson by a legislative committee and the most resource-intensive investigation in the 40-year history of the ombudsperson’s office in B.C.
Released in 2017, the report found the seven researchers —one a co-op student who committed suicide following the privacy breach allegations — were wrongly fired by the Health Ministry and there was no RCMP investigation as suggested.
As a result of Chalke’s report, 41 recommendations were implemented under the subsequent NDP government, including the first material change in the ombudsperson’s mandate, the responsibility to investigate allegations of wrongdoing and reprisal under B.C.’s new whistleblowing protection law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act.
Chalke’s latest report, released this month, detailed how a flawed audit and unjust legislation left people scrambling to repay the $1,000 BC Emergency Benefit for Workers, introduced in 2020 to support people who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other investigations led by the ombudsperson’s office under Chalke that led to lasting reforms include a report examining how government disaster supports must be more accessible, equitable and adaptable in the face of extreme weather events; reports highlighting how rigid or outdated government practices can disproportionately harm vulnerable British Columbians; and a series of reports that strengthened protections for people in provincial custody, including adults in correctional centres, involuntary patients in psychiatric facilities and youth in custody.
From 2011 to 2015, prior to his appointment as ombudsperson, Chalke led the justice services branch of the Justice Ministry. He was also the first Public Guardian and Trustee of British Columbia from 2000 to 2011.
During that time, he was a member of Canada’s delegation to the Hague Conference on Private International Law, which negotiated the Convention on the Protection of Adults.
Before holding office in B.C., Chalke, who began his career as a correctional and psychiatric services investigator with the ombudsman of Ontario, held a variety of public-sector positions, including deputy public guardian and trustee of Ontario, and Crown counsel with Ontario’s Attorney General.
