Warktimes has obtained a copy of what appear to be the 20 recommendations issued by Montana Consulting Group following its 2021 workplace assessment of Sackville Fire & Rescue and, after careful consideration, has decided to publish them in the public interest.

Although the document does not contain a Montana Consulting letterhead or signature page, its contents closely correspond with the list of implemented actions released by Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne in April.

The decision to publish the recommendations comes after five years of turmoil within the fire department including the departure of numerous firefighters and a renewed crisis on January 5th when 12 volunteers turned in their pagers, prompting the municipality to launch another workplace investigation.

Publishing the recommendations gives citizens the opportunity to judge for themselves whether the reforms proposed in 2021 were adequate to address the problems inside the department and whether greater public scrutiny could have helped prevent the crisis from continuing.

It also raises a broader question about transparency: why were recommendations dealing largely with governance, hiring practices, supervision, workplace procedures and accountability treated as confidential personnel information and withheld under New Brunswick’s Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (RTIPPA)?

Judicial decision

In April 2024, Mr. Justice Jean-Paul Ouellette of the Court of King’s Bench upheld Tantramar’s refusal to release the Montana report under RTIPPA, accepting the municipality’s argument that confidentiality is needed to protect the integrity of workplace investigations.

Warktimes is not publishing witness statements, allegations, interview notes or the workplace assessment itself. The document being released consists of the recommendations arising from that assessment. They focus mainly on changes to fire department governance, policies, procedures and accountability measures.

If those recommendations had been made public in 2021, residents, councillors and the media would have been able to monitor whether recommended reforms were actually carried out as additional firefighters continued to leave the department.

Once again, the town has classified the latest investigation by VanBuskirk Law as a personnel matter, and once again, that report and its recommendations are being withheld from the public.

Earlier this month, Councillor Alyssa Greene served notice that at a future council meeting she will introduce a motion directing CAO Jennifer Borne to disclose the VanBuskirk report to council and to prepare a comprehensive summary of its findings for the public.

The town argues that a section of RTIPPA prevents the release of personnel investigations, but the law is currently being challenged in an ongoing court case by the CBC on the grounds that it violates Canada’s Charter of Rights.

To read the 20 Montana recommendations, click here.

To read my earlier analysis of how many of the recommendations have been implemented, click here.

To read about the CBC’s case seeking to strike down Sections 20 and 21 of RTIPPA as unconstitutional, click here.