Even the legal bill was off-limits after he sought the file on his own complaint

A workplace harassment investigation ran entirely through a lawyer. When the complainant later asked to see the report on his own complaint, he was refused. Every page was locked behind solicitor-client privilege.

The decision came on July 20, 2026, from Elizabeth Barker, director of adjudication at British Columbia's Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. She confirmed that the Provincial Health Services Authority could withhold all 334 pages the former employee had requested, from the investigation emails to the legal invoices, under the province's freedom-of-information law.

A complaint routed through a lawyer

The dispute traces back to a workplace complaint the former employee filed under the health authority's Respectful Workplace Policy. He alleged that two members of its human resources department had bullied, harassed and discriminated against him, according to Barker's account of the file.

Rather than run the review internally, the authority retained an external lawyer to investigate the complaint. According to the sworn affidavit of the authority's executive director and senior legal counsel, that lawyer was engaged to carry out the investigation and to provide legal advice on matters related to the complaint.

Some months later, the former employee filed a freedom-of-information request. He sought the final report, the instructions given to the investigator, all related...

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