Dismissal of Dr. Deena Hinshaw from Indigenous health team prompted Alberta ethics investigation
CBC
After Dr. Deena Hinshaw was briefly hired and quickly removed from a position with an Indigenous health team at Alberta Health Services earlier this year, more than 100 physicians signed a letter calling for an ethics investigation.
Unbeknownst to the public, they got their wish.
CBC News has learned that Alberta Ethics Commissioner Marguerite Trussler opened an inquiry into the matter some months ago.
The timing and current status of the investigation is unclear, but two people who resigned to protest what they saw as interference in staffing a health position told CBC News they were interviewed by Trussler in October.
One of those people is Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, a celebrated Indigenous physician who led the team that selected Hinshaw.
The other is Dr. Braden Manns, a former senior executive at AHS to whom Tailfeathers' team reported.
The Office of the Ethics Commissioner declined to comment or confirm the investigation, as the Conflicts of Interest Act prevents it from doing so.
The ethics commissioner is limited by legislation to investigating the conduct of members of the legislature and those in ministerial positions along narrow definitions of conflict of interest.
Such matters generally deal with actions taken to benefit the private interest of a member of the legislature. Her office's website states that she "does not have the power to deal with every situation that the public thinks is 'unethical'."
The letters sent by Trussler to Tailfeathers and Manns in August, which CBC News has obtained, state that she is investigating "the revocation of the appointment of Dr. Hinshaw" but give no further information on the scope of the investigation.
The controversy centres around the revocation of a job offer for Hinshaw in June 2023, days before she was to start a new role with the Indigenous Wellness Core, an AHS program focused on Indigenous health care.
The role, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Lead, was posted in January and a selection committee evaluated a shortlist of candidates.
The role was a key part of a strategy to broadly advance Indigenous health care in Alberta, according to Tailfeathers.
"In order to drive a strategy forward and begin to make public health measures, we needed a public health physician," Tailfeathers told CBC News in an interview.
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