Your Voice of Fairness.
Communication breakdown leaves inmate without rights. An inmate at a provincial correctional centre called our office stating he was being held in a COVID-19 isolation unit nearly two weeks after he was cleared to be moved out of isolation. The isolation units in this centre require 24-hour lock-up, leaving inmates with limited time out of…
Providing fair and equitable service that is responsive to an individual’s needs is an important part of administrative fairness. In early March 2021, Ms. Smith* called the Ombudsman’s intake line to complain that Alberta Works had held back her monthly cheque for the third time in recent months. She believed the problem was that the…
Responding to a vulnerable individual—an inmate with a history of mental health challenges—required particular sensitivity. The inmate complained that correctional officers used mind control techniques to alter his memory and negatively influence the outcome of his trial. As a first step, Ombudsman staff advised the inmate to elevate his concerns to the centre director. Several…
First featured in the Ombudsman’s 2019-20 annual report, this case describes a good outcome when a government department committed to consistent assessment of childcare rates for foster parents taking in children with special needs. It also serves as a good example of how the Ombudsman can help bring about large-scale reform. A foster mother…
This case involves Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services (AHS) and Indigenous Services Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNHIB) (previously Health Canada). As background, in 2015 an Indigenous woman required ambulance services. She believed that as an Indigenous person she was exempt from paying the costs. Her understanding was based at least in part…
Alberta Maintenance Enforcement (MEP) has agreed with the Ombudsman that creditors should not suffer financially in the event MEP makes an administrative error. A bank imposed daily interest and penalty fees on a mother after she paid off debts using a $50,000 payment from MEP. At the time, MEP believed it had collected long standing…
Focus on the people who lodged a complaint, rather than the substance of the complaint resulted in a biased and unfair outcome, the Ombudsman found after looking at an investigation by the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee ( the public guardian). The public guardian protects the interests of vulnerable Albertans by providing services,…
In order to satisfy citizens a decision is fair, government authorities should be able to explain it. A man complained Court Services in Alberta Justice and Solicitor General paid inadequate interest on $5,000 he was required to deposit into a court trust fund as security. The money was deposited in the 1990s. When his case…
The Ombudsman exists to help balance the rights of individual citizens against the power of a large bureaucracy. In performing this task, the Ombudsman accepts a secondary function, equal to or nearly equal to the first, to improve the systemic fairness of government. An individual complained she was required to pay a $7,150 overpayment by…
When can the Ombudsman investigate decisions of elected councilors? When political issues are voted on by elected councilors, an appointed official like the Ombudsman must respect the democratic process and allow those decisions to proceed unchallenged. A political decision might be approving the budget or passing a bylaw to bring in photo radar. At that…