{"id":329,"date":"2012-12-11T21:18:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T21:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shillersllp.brandandmortar.com\/?p=329"},"modified":"2012-12-11T21:18:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T21:18:00","slug":"ornge-settles-lawsuit-with-ex-employee-allegedly-fired-for-whistleblowing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/2012\/12\/11\/ornge-settles-lawsuit-with-ex-employee-allegedly-fired-for-whistleblowing\/","title":{"rendered":"Ornge settles lawsuit with ex-employee allegedly fired for whistleblowing"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1\/1″][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”12″][vc_column_text]View Article <\/span><\/a>[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”12″][vc_column_text]Ontario\u2019s scandal-plagued air ambulance service has settled a lawsuit with a former employee who alleged she was fired for being a whistleblower.<\/p>\n

Lisa Kirbie sued Ornge only about six weeks ago, but a spokesman for the arm\u2019s-length provincial agency says the case has now been resolved, though details of the settlement are confidential.<\/p>\n

Ms. Kirbie, who was hired in March 2010 as the director of government and regulatory affairs, alleged in her lawsuit that former CEO Chris Mazza was volatile and sexist.<\/p>\n

Ms. Kirbie said in her lawsuit that she co-operated with an auditor general\u2019s probe of Ornge, gave provincial police information about Ornge as part of their criminal investigation and notified senior Ministry of Health officials about Mr. Mazza\u2019s $1.4-million salary.<\/p>\n

Ornge has come under close scrutiny at Ontario\u2019s legislature, where a committee has heard explosive testimony about an alleged kickback scheme, exorbitant salaries and what one politician called \u201cheavy-duty nepotism.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her lawsuit, Ms. Kirbie alleged she was fired in July without cause and was seeking the equivalent of 40 months of pay and benefits and damages of $100,000.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was settled before the allegations could be tried in court.<\/p>\n

Kirbie\u2019s lawyer, David Shiller, said his client is \u201csatisfied with what she achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the lawsuit was filed, Stephen Patterson, Ornge\u2019s general counsel and acting CAO, said in a statement that Ornge didn\u2019t dispute that Ms. Kirbie was owed \u201ccompensation for termination without reasonable notice,\u201d but that Ornge didn\u2019t agree with the amount Ms. Kirbie was claiming.<\/p>\n

When asked last month about the lawsuit, Mr. Mazza\u2019s lawyer offered a statement from Kelly Long, Mr. Mazza\u2019s girlfriend and former junior executive at Ornge. The allegations are \u201cwithout merit and entirely false,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Ms. Kirbie said she questioned dealings with Italian firm AgustaWestland, which sold 12 helicopters to Ornge. Ornge Global, a for-profit subsidiary controlled by Mr. Mazza, also signed a marketing services agreement with AgustaWestland.<\/p>\n

Ms. Kirbie said she came to believe that the government agency used public money to pay millions extra for the helicopters then drew up a \u201cbogus\u201d contract to kick back funds to Ornge\u2019s for-profit arm.<\/p>\n

Agusta executive Louis Bartolotta has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s auditor general has criticized the governing Liberals for failing to oversee Ornge, despite giving it $730-million over five years and allowing it to borrow another $300-million.<\/p>\n

Ornge is currently under a criminal probe for financial irregularities.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1\/1″][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”12″][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”12″][vc_column_text]Ontario\u2019s scandal-plagued air ambulance service has settled a lawsuit with a former employee who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-media"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shillers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}