Closing British Columbia’s independent Office of the Merit Commissioner will undo a significant change the NDP government made in 2018 in response to “wrong and unjust” firings from the Health Ministry.

Following a recommendation in Ombudsperson Jay Chalke’s report “Misfire: The 2012 Ministry of Health Employment Terminations and Related Matters,” the NDP gave the merit commissioner oversight of dismissal practices and responsibility to assess “whether government has complied with its legal... requirements and policy requirements.”

But in last week’s budget, Finance Minister Brenda Bailey quietly scrapped the merit commissioner, an office that for more than two decades has been responsible for making sure B.C. public service hirings were based on merit.

Bailey said the Health Ministry firings were made “quite some time ago” and the merit commissioner’s oversight of the BC Public Service Agency, or PSA, is no longer needed.