I’ve just spent a couple of weeks reviewing 1,000 pages of material related to the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) – Trellis Seniors Services deal to build a new long-term care facility in Sechelt. You can read our stories about it in the news section.
The material – including copies of the contracts – came through a freedom of information request filed over the summer, not long after VCH announced it had made a deal with Trellis for the facility in Sechelt and two others on the Lower Mainland and would be shutting down Shorncliffe and Totem Lodge in 2018.
At the time we knew next to nothing about the proposal or the company behind it. The reaction from the community was shock and anger, followed by demands for the details of the agreements. In the seven months since we’ve had plenty of gentle (and a few not so gentle) reminders from the public that they were counting on us to get those details.
It took time, and put a dent in the Coast Reporter expense account.
I’m a bit of a research nerd and I’m in my happy place combing through stacks of reports and primary source material trying to fit together the pieces, and this is one of those times where that material should have been available from the start – for everybody – without filing a request or paying a fee.
Let me pause briefly here to say that in processing my FOI request, the people who handle access to information at VCH were professional, helpful and thorough. The rules they operate under – the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act – can be a bit arcane, and it’s no easy job to meet deadlines.
But I don’t think they, nor I, should have needed to go through that process.
I don’t personally object to the government – or government agencies – purchasing services from the private sector as long as both the public and private sides of those deals accept that it’s not a normal business relationship. That’s especially true in the case of health care services.
Most of the information redacted from the documents released by VCH involves the money side of the deal. We don’t know what VCH is paying for these 125 long-term care beds. We don’t know what Trellis is budgeting to run the Silverstone Care Centre. We’re not even certain – thanks to redactions – what the corporate structure behind Silverstone is. We do know the contract VCH signed isn’t with Trellis directly, but a specially created company called Silverstone Care Centre Limited Partnership.
It was just a line in an email – one page out of a thousand – but it spoke volumes. VCH officials were concerned after the announcement about misinformation in the community. It was a legitimate concern, made worse by unnecessary secrecy.
Details of the corporate structure behind the company that’s being trusted to deliver a vital public service in our community and the agreement it signed with the public body that oversees that service, should have been released the day the deal was announced.
It might have made the difference between shock and anger and a considered public debate over the merits of the deal.
