Article content

VICTORIA — Roderick MacIsaac sat in a room with government investigators for hours as they peppered him with questions. Fourteen times over 90 minutes, the soft-spoken University of Victoria co-op student insisted he didn’t know what his inquisitors were talking about.

Nine times he denied misusing public health data and five times he insisted he hadn’t stolen anything away on a flash drive as they alleged.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or B.C. government was wrong to fire health researchers, says ombudsperson Back to video

The government investigators didn’t listen. Instead, they kept asking the 46-year-old closed-ended questions, ignoring his denials, interrupting his answers, acting like police investigators rather than provincial employees. At one point, they admit, they lost their cool.

MacIsaac tried to explain. But he was nonetheless fired as a health researcher, just days before the end of his research term. His dismissal letter said he had tried to manipulate investigators. The government publicly announced he was under police investigation.