Ontario's top court rules secret forensic report be released to SooToday

Dr. Kim Barker has fought for four years to keep the KPMG forensic audit from becoming public

Dr. Kim Barker, minutes before her resignation was accepted by the board of Algoma Public Health on January 21, 2015. David Helwig/SooToday.

A forensic report containing sensitive and possibly distressing personal information about a former Algoma Public Health medical officer of health should be released to SooToday, the province's top court ruled today.

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

Rootenberg had previously done time at Beaver Creek Institution in Gravenhurst after pleading guilty to multiple counts of fraud involving more than $2 million.

"The revelation by media outlet SooToday prompted Barker to resign in early 2015, sparking questions about her role in his hiring and whether the two had a personal relationship that had put her in an undisclosed conflict of interest," wrote Canadian Press reporter Colin Perkel, breaking the news of today's appeal court decision in Toronto.

SooToday applied under Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act for the KPMG forensic report, originally commissioned by Algoma Public Health.

Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Christian Provenzano, then-MPP David Orazietti, Algoma Public Health, then-Minister of Health Dr. Eric Hoskins and Brian Beamish, Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, all agreed that the report should be made public.

But Dr. Barker appealed to Ontario's Divisional Court, which sided with her.

Commissioner Beamish then fought back, taking the case to Ontario's Court of Appeal.

Unless Dr. Barker appeals further to the Supreme Court of Canada, the KPMG forsenic report must now be turned over to SooToday, which will review the document in the context of Canadian media law before deciding how much of it can be made public on our website.

After her resignation at Algoma Public Health, Dr. Barker became Nunavut's chief medical officer of health.

She held that position from January 2016 to last October, when she told CBC News she'd been fired without notice or cause.