Sauvageau completed two weeks of direct deposit on Thursday, describing the province’s emotional, physical, professional and financial tax in 2014. Sauvageau told the court she felt intimidated all summer. She also felt subject to political interference. “I was not in a good place,” Sauvageau told the court on Wednesday, revealing she has Crohn’s disease, which can break out due to stress. “I had constant abdominal pain,” Sauvageau testified. Sensing that she had run out of options, Sauvageau contacted a CBC reporter. He said he leaked documents to the CBC, but asked to remain anonymous. “I wanted this situation to be rectified,” he said. She said she felt her best choice was to speak anonymously. Sauvageau said it leaked three documents to the CBC and did not know how other documents were obtained that were used in a story published on September 18, 2014. She had a meeting later that day with the assistant secretary of state who felt he had intimidated her. When the subject of the CBC article arose, “I said if I were the source, I could say much more,” Sauvageau testified. She said she was bitterly disappointed when nothing changed after the story was published. On September 23, 2014, Sauvageau wrote to Premier Jim Prentice about her concerns. Prentice wrote back two days later to say it would not be involved because Sauvageau had already conveyed its concerns to the public interest commissioner. The situation escalated the next day when Sauvageau received an email on a day off stating that a decision had been made not to renew her employment contract. No reasons were given. She said a part of her felt relieved that she should not continue to feel the constant stress of work. “At the same time, on a personal level, it was catastrophic,” Sauvageau testified. “I had just lost my dream job, my purpose, my identity. I thought it was employment until I retired. I was very dedicated to doing the best I could for the Albertans.”
“It always concerned what happened to me in 2014”
Sauvageau’s contract expired at the end of 2014. He said that he immediately started looking for another position in forensic pathology, but rarely reached the interview stage. After a pre-interview for a job in Newfoundland, she was told that after a Google search, they were no longer interested in hiring her. She remains unemployed and even her conventional job, which usually involves consulting for court cases, has begun to decline because it has been so long since she underwent an autopsy. By December 2016, Sauvageau had testified that she had committed suicide. Her first husband had committed suicide and she did not want to leave her second husband in the dark, so she asked his permission to commit suicide, she told the court. “I was in so much pain that I did not want to live anymore. I was in so much pain,” he said. “But he took me to the doctor because he did not want me to die.” Her doctor diagnosed her with depression and gave her antidepressants. “It always concerned what happened to me in 2014,” he said. The Sauvageau cross-examination will begin on Tuesday. The trial for illegal dismissal is scheduled to last eight weeks.
