Firing was 'catastrophic,' made me 'a pariah,' Margaret-Ann Blaney tells inquiry
Former PC cabinet minister says party affiliation was sole reason for her termination
Former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Margaret-Ann Blaney says her 2014 firing by a Liberal government was "catastrophic" for her financially, turning her into a pariah and forcing her to leave New Brunswick to find work.
The one-time Rothesay MLA told a labour board hearing Wednesday that the controversy over her appointment as CEO of Efficiency New Brunswick, and her firing more than two years later, made her name synonymous with political patronage in the eyes of the public.
"To find myself in this situation was catastrophic," she said.
"I became persona non grata. My colleagues had distanced themselves from me because of the association with my name and political patronage. I was completely vilified in a very public way," she said, describing how she searched in vain for a new job.
"At every turn with every conversation it became increasingly apparent that I was like a pariah."
When her daughter finished school two years after the firing, she moved to Nova Scotia to start over, she said. She now lives in Newfoundland and Labrador, where she grew up.
9 years to get to labour board
Blaney, who turned 63 Wednesday, is before the Employment and Labour Board as a result of a complaint under the Human Rights Act that the Liberal government of then premier Brian Gallant fired her because of her PC affiliation.
"The cloud that hung over all of it was the political piece," she said in her first public comments on her firing since it happened.
"If I had been a high-profile Liberal sitting in that position … none of this would have happened."
It took Blaney nine years to get before the labour board because two successive governments, one Liberal and one PC, tried to block her.
Blaney, a PC leadership candidate in 1997 who sat as an MLA from 1999 to 2012, was a minister in the Bernard Lord and David Alward governments.
In June 2012, she resigned from cabinet and the legislature when Alward appointed her president and CEO of Efficiency N.B., a move widely denounced as a patronage appointment.
The government had eliminated the CEO position a year earlier, folding it into the duties of the energy department's deputy minister, but the job was re-established when Blaney was appointed.
Even her cabinet colleague, then-finance minister and now premier Blaine Higgs, refused to endorse the appointment.
Before Brian Gallant was sworn in as Liberal premier in 2014, he told reporters that Alward assured him Blaney and another PC appointee, Invest N.B. CEO Robert MacLeod, would be laid off along with six deputy ministers closely tied to the Progressive Conservatives.
It was "common practice" for a defeated government to lay off "politically hired individuals" with severance before a new government was sworn in, Blaney explained in her testimony.
But when the Liberals took power Oct. 7, 2014, Blaney and MacLeod had not been laid off and were still in their positions.
"There are some things that will … have to be dealt with," Gallant said at the time.
'I literally could not get into my office'
Blaney testified she was told on Oct. 6 and 14 by two senior bureaucrats, Kelly Cain and Marc Leger, to not report to work and to turn in her government phone and pass card. Her government email account was disabled.
"I literally could not get into my office," she said.
The following spring, the Liberals introduced legislation to dissolve Efficiency N.B., fire Blaney and block her from suing over the termination. The law was passed in March 2015 but applied retroactively to Oct. 16, 2014.
The then-Liberal energy minister who introduced the bill, Donald Arseneault, had been summoned to testify Wednesday by Blaney's lawyer Kelly VanBuskirk.
Arseneault showed up, and chatted amiably with Blaney before the hearing, but VanBuskirk opted not to call him as a witness.
Former Liberal energy minister Donald Arseneault leaves the hearing after being summoned to testify. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
The province tried in court to block the Human Rights Commission from investigating Blaney's complaint and from sending it to the labour and employment board for an inquiry.
But Blaney argued the initial directives to not report to work happened before the retroactive date in the legislation extinguishing her right to sue.
The Liberal legislation also did not explicitly prevent a human rights challenge to the firing.
'It became a huge political issue'
Last year, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal finally cleared the way for the inquiry to go ahead.
In Wednesday's hearing, Blaney recalled how her 2012 appointment "resonated. It grew legs. It became a huge political issue."
But she said her experience in a range of cabinet positions, including environment and energy, qualified her to head Efficiency N.B., which was set up by the PC government of Bernard Lord to administer energy-efficiency programs.
"I knew the files very well. I knew the agency very well," she said.
The opposition Liberals denounced the appointment at the time because there was no formal search process, just a cabinet order naming Blaney to the job.
Blaney said Wednesday that was the nature of the hiring — a decision by cabinet identical to that of her predecessor, former NDP leader Elizabeth Weir.
"There wasn't any other process in place, i.e. an interview process. It was a political appointment process."
Name synonymous with political patronage: Blaney
Even so, she said she became a lightning rod for what turned into a wider political debate about partisan appointments to government jobs.
"It's my name attached to that issue, every time," she said.
"Even to this day, when political appointments are referenced … my name is still attached to it. I am the reference point for it."
On the other hand, she said, "the feedback I received from the [agency's] board of directors was very positive." From stakeholders, she said, "there was never to my knowledge … any complaint."
Blaney earned about $155,000 a year in the position and had a generous pension plan that would double the value of her benefits over the five years of her contract.
The firing ended all of that, with no severance, she said, forcing her at one point to collect Employment Insurance for a year.
Lawyers representing Blaney and the province called no other evidence Wednesday and will make closing arguments to labour board vice-chair John McEvoy next Thursday.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Forget what this issue is all about. How can it take that long to get the case heard. That this is in any remotely acceptable is a problem
Justice delayed is justice denied. Patronage or not, completely unacceptable.
CBC News · Posted: Feb 27, 2003 5:22 PM AST
A prominent New Brunswick lawyer has no trouble admitting his support of the federal Liberal party translates into government business. David Lutz of Hampton says his firm works for the federal Justice Department because he works for the party.
Last February, David Lutz sent a memo to the staff at his firm instructing them when, where and how to vote for Shawn Graham in the provincial Liberal leadership race.
The memo said voting for Graham would help the firm, because its number one client is the federal department of justice, and that business is secured by Lutz's profile in the party.
"We've done work work for the party in the past, and it's been my experience that the party returns the favour," Lutz said on Thursday.
The business brought up to $100,000 in revenue to the firm in 2002, enough to keep three of his employees busy.
While the lawyer has no trouble talking about the memo, Graham says the memo is news to him.
"I can say though that I've never discussed government contracts with Mr. Lutz or with the Federal Department of Justice. And I can't comment on the observations made in this memo because it was an inter-office memo in a private sector company and certainly nothing I had any involvement in."
The leader says he does appreciate the support Lutz provided in helping him win the Liberal leadership.
Margaret-Ann Blaney worked as a reporter for both television and radio from 1982 to 1993, when she met Wayne Gretzky and became a candidate against Brian Tobin in the 1993 Canadian federal election, finishing a distant second. Shortly thereafter she married and moved to Rothesay, New Brunswick where she managed her husband's veterinary practice. In 1994, Ms. Blaney and her husband started their own small business, the Atlantic Veterinary Hospital in Rothesay, N.B. She was active in the business as co-owner / general manager until June 1999. In 1997, she was a candidate for leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick, losing to Bernard Lord.
Political career
She was elected to the New Brunswick legislature in the 1999 election and was named to cabinet as Minister of Transportation. While minister, her riding executive solicited donations from highway contractors, implying that Blaney would favour those who donated. There was briefly a large amount of controversy surrounding this, however; the Moncton Times & Transcript newspaper ran an editorial cartoon with one contractor asking another, while referring to a bulge in his pocket, "Is that Margaret-Ann Blaney in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" This cartoon was derided as sexist and both Blaney and Bernard Lord cried in the legislature when commenting on it. The legislature unanimously passed a motion condemning the cartoon and the controversy soon shifted from Blaney to the paper.[1]
On October 12, 2010 Blaney became a member of the Executive Council and Environment Minister, Minister Responsible for the Advisory Council on the Status of Women and Minister Responsible for Communications New Brunswick. On March 15, 2012 Blaney became Energy Minister and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women.
On May 16, 2012 Blaney announced that she was resigning as a minister and MLA, and had accepted appointment as chief executive officer of Efficiency New Brunswick.[2]
