Grey Bruce Board of Health Regains Powers as Assessment Stays Sealed
Ontario's Chief MOH has rescinded the order that gave him the Grey Bruce board's powers. The assessment behind it has never been released and is now before an adjudicator.
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health has returned decision-making authority to the Grey Bruce Board of Health, ending more than 11 months of provincial control.
Dr. Kieran Moore rescinded a direction issued under section 77.1 of the Health Protection and Promotion Act. He had invoked it on August 14, 2025, telling the public the step followed an independent assessment and would keep public health services running while concerns about the board’s ability to govern were addressed.
The board met in a special session on July 24 at Grey Bruce Public Health and selected Kenneth Craig, the mayor of Kincardine and a Bruce County representative, as chair.
Shirley Keaveney, Meaford’s deputy mayor and a Grey County representative, was acclaimed vice-chair. The health unit says both serve to the end of 2026.
“I look forward to working with my fellow Board of Health members and the leadership at Grey Bruce Public Health as we set priorities, begin work on new governance and finance committees,” Craig said in a statement issued by the health unit.
Three board members return
Both officers of the new board sat on the board before the province assumed its powers.
Chad Richards, who was vice-chair of the board at the time of the intervention, is the third returning member. His earlier appointment ran to October 2027. He now holds a new term running to March 2028.
Craig and Keaveney were among seven municipal representatives sent termination notices on August 6, 2025 by then-chair Nick Saunders — notices Moore subsequently told them did not take effect.
Eight days later Moore assumed the board’s powers, sidelining its members. The special advisors later referred to them as the furloughed board.
In April, Grey County appointed Keaveney, Dane Nielsen, Barbara Dobreen and Scott Greig to serve the remainder of the current council term.
Bruce County appointed Rod Anderson, Craig and Steve Hammell. The county has not said what term its appointees serve.
Five other municipal representatives who held seats in August 2025 were not reappointed. They are Georgian Bluffs Mayor Sue Carleton, West Grey Mayor Kevin Eccles, Grey County Warden Andrea Matrosovs, South Bruce Peninsula Mayor Jay Kirkland and Bruce County Deputy Warden Don Murray.
Matrosovs said in April that the appointments would provide strong and effective leadership. “We appreciate the commitment of our council members, both past and new, who choose to serve on the Board of Health,” she said.
On the provincial side, the Public Appointments Secretariat lists two members: David Nusko of Tara and Richards of Port Elgin, both appointed March 12. Three provincial seats are vacant.
The board’s three other provincial appointees no longer hold seats.
In an August 2025 letter to Moore and copied to media, Saunders requested that the province “put to rest the inaccurate and unfair allegation that I unilaterally attempted to remove the municipal representatives from the Board of Health.” His term expired April 5.
Beverly Wilkins and Helen-Claire Tingling had terms due to run to December 2026. The orders that appointed them were revoked by the province in February.
The health unit’s Board of Health page, which listed 11 members with photos and some biographies in April 2025, does not list its members today.
A rebuild the public did not see
The work of reconstituting the board took place outside public view. Grey and Bruce counties, health unit staff and Moore’s office negotiated through the fall and winter, and the public record consists almost entirely of nine numbered communiqués issued by special advisors Jim Pine and Dr. Eileen de Villa.
Those communiqués disclosed a skills matrix of 16 competencies, agreed to by the counties on November 27, 2025, and an Action Plan Moore accepted on December 19. The specific criteria applied to candidates were not released. The Action Plan was to be shared publicly in early 2026.
Decisions of consequence were made while Moore held the board’s powers. They include a five-year extension of the health unit’s banking arrangement with RBC and approval of a three-year collective agreement with OPSEU/SEFPO Local 276.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Ian Arra left the organization on May 4, 2026 in a departure the advisors announced without explanation. Dr. Brittany Graham is acting in the role.
Pine and de Villa described their July communiqué as their final update. They said continued support will be available to the new board.
The record behind it
Neither the province nor the health unit has released the assessment that preceded the intervention.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones has said the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health launched the assessment in 2023 after multiple complaints about the board’s operations, finances and governance practices, and that the resulting report went to the board chair with a direction to submit a plan addressing its findings.
Owen Sound Current requested the report in full. The Grey Bruce Health Unit refused, first under section 9 of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, then in a revised decision adding sections 6(1)(b), 9(1), 14(1) and 52(3). The Current appealed.
Mediation closed on March 11, 2026. The mediator’s report confirms the record is a 48-page assessment and that the health unit dropped one of its four reasons for withholding it. Three remain.
The main one is that the freedom-of-information law does not cover the report at all. The health unit says the assessment is a labour relations and employment record, which puts it outside the Act (s. 52(3)).
If the adjudicator agrees, the other questions never get asked — not whether releasing it would cause harm, not whether parts could be blacked out and the rest released, not whether the public interest in seeing it outweighs the reason for keeping it secret. The report simply falls outside the system.
If the adjudicator disagrees, the health unit has two backup arguments.
The first is that the report came to it from the province in confidence (s. 9). That section also says the record must be released if the government that supplied it agrees — so on the health unit’s own reasoning, the Ministry of Health could release the report whenever it chooses.
The second is that the report contains personal information about individuals (s. 14). Institutions are normally required to black out that material and release what’s left, which on its own would not account for withholding all 48 pages.
The appeal moved to an adjudicator after March 18.
In an Owen Sound Current reader poll conducted in November 2025, 96% of over 250 respondents said it mattered to them that the ministry release the report, with 83% calling it very important.
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