Category

Featured Cases

Clarifying Criteria

A UPEI student complained that they were unfairly denied admission to the Co-op Program. Despite the student’s high academic performance and demonstrated skills, UPEI offered positions to applicants with lesser qualifications who, the university concluded, were able to benefit more from the program. The student believed this was unfair. While UPEI had the discretion to…

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Clear Instructions

A Holland College student complained that they were unfairly denied admission to another program because Holland College failed to consider their current grades when scoring their application. The complainant believed that because their application form stated they were a Holland College student, their grades would be automatically considered. This is not what occurred. Holland College…

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Option to Inquire

A person complained that UPEI unfairly denied them admission without explanation. The letter they received did not explain the reasons for the denial or the process for finding out why they were denied. We reached out to UPEI and learned that they had provided a verbal explanation after receiving a phone call from the person.…

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Closing the Loop

A worker complained about unreasonable delay by the Workers Compensation Board (WCB) in determining their entitlement to benefits. The worker had been off work for approximately three months without any source of income.  WCB explained that the delay occurred due to a misunderstanding between WCB staff and a healthcare provider about whether all requested medical…

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Maintaining Connections

Shortly after OmbudsPEI began operations in February 2022, we began receiving complaints from inmates at the Provincial Correctional Centre (PCC) about who they were permitted to contact by telephone. We learned that PCC required inmates to submit telephone numbers for approval in advance and it could take more than a week for numbers to be…

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Fair Representation

OmbudsPEI received two complaints alleging that Legal Aid unfairly denied or cancelled their applications for representation. One complainant was initially accepted, however their first meeting with their Legal Aid lawyer ended abruptly after only a few minutes with the Legal Aid lawyer deciding they wouldn’t represent the complainant after all. No reason for this was…

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Registering for Care

An individual who is waiting for a family doctor or nurse practitioner on PEI’s Provincial Patient Registry contacted our office to complain that they believed the registry was being misused or ignored by practitioners. The individual had reason to believe that medical practitioners in their community were taking on patients who had not been on…

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Knowing the Rules

A person incarcerated at PEI’s Provincial Correctional Centre (PCC) contacted us to complain that they were not able to access the written set of rules and policies the centre expected offenders to follow. They felt because they were unaware of the rules and expectations, they were consistently getting in trouble for breaking those rules. We…

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Social Media Matters

An individual complained that the Rural Municipality of Breadalbane was conducting Council business on private social media pages and refusing to provide members of the public with minutes of two Council meetings. In both instances, the complainant believed the Municipality was breaching the requirements of the Municipal Government Act (MGA). Membership on the Municipality’s social…

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Procuring Fairness

An individual contacted OmbudsPEI to complain about the process for how government contracts are awarded to private service providers on PEI. The individual disputed the reasons for why their own bids had been unsuccessful and complained of a lack of transparency and availability of policy governing the procurement process. They believed that the lack of…

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