Battle for secret Algoma Public Health forensic report goes to nation's top court

How much Saultites will be allowed to know about one of the top local news stories of the past five years will be decided by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Dr. Kim Barker, former Algoma Public Health medical officer of health, applied this past week to the country's highest appeal court, one day before a secret KPMG forensic audit was to be released to SooToday.

Dr. Barker is asking the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal an Ontario Court of Appeal decision ordering the entire, unredacted document be released to us.

If the court rejects Barker's application, the report will be immediately turned over to SooToday.

If the nine-judge court agrees to hear her appeal, we will receive the KPMG audit only after a favourable decision.

Dr. Barker, daughter of the beloved Canadian cartoonist Ben Wicks, has been fighting for four years to prevent SooToday from accessing the KPMG forensic audit, which is known to contain sensitive and possibly distressing personal information about her.

Algoma Public Health, Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Christian Provenzano, then-MPP David Orazietti and then-Minister of Health Dr. Eric Hoskins have all called for the report, originally commissioned by Algoma Public Health, to be made public.

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in April of this year that any personal privacy interests are trumped by the "compelling public interest" in knowing whether a conflict of interest existed in 2013 when Barker hired Shaun Rootenberg as the health unit's interim chief financial officer.

Rootenberg had previously pleaded guilty to multiple counts of fraud involving more than $2 million and did time at Beaver Creek Institution in Gravenhurst.

"Algoma Public Health's selection of a consulting company, the subsequent actions of its interim chief financial officer, and the devastating consequences of those actions on the broader community, have been of enormous, perhaps unprecedented, public interest here," SooToday argued in a 2015 appeal heard by Brian Beamish, Ontario's information and privacy commissioner.

"Private actions can have tragic public consequences," we argued, pointing out that Barker resigned and forensic audits were ordered by both the health unit and the Ontario government, shortly after SooToday's initial reporting about Rootenberg's background.

"Further consequences from the APH situation have occurred through the ongoing restructuring of the APH board after four members were asked by Ontario's health minister to resign.... Please note that two of the four APH directors who were asked by Minister Hoskins to resign remain prominently active in political life," SooToday argued in the 2015 appeal.

Appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada can result in historic decisions but is generally considered a legal long shot.

"Leave to appeal is granted by the court if, for example, the case involves a question of public importance or if it raises an important issue of law (or an issue of both law and fact) that warrants consideration by the court," says the Supreme Court website.

"The court’s decision whether to grant leave to appeal is based on its assessment of the public importance of the legal issues raised in the case in question," the website states.

"Of the approximately 600 leave applications submitted each year, only about 80 are granted. The possibility of succeeding in getting an appeal heard is in general remote.... The court never gives reasons for its decisions. It is important to remember that the court's role is not to correct errors that may have been made in the courts below."