Firing was 'catastrophic,' made me 'a pariah,' Margaret-Ann Blaney tells inquiry

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 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.