Joy Illington is a public sector leader with 18 years of experience in the BC Public Service – seven years as a deputy minister.  She has a proven record of oversight as the former chair of the Medical Services Commission, and she is an expert in administrative and procedural fairness, founded on her experience as an investigator in the Ombudsman’s Office and as a lawyer in private practice.

Joy attended secondary school in Quesnel and graduated from the University of British Columbia with her BA and her law degree, which she received in 1977.  She earned a diploma in Personal and Organizational Leadership at Royal Roads University in 2005.

Joy investigated complaints about fair public services and achieved individual and systemic resolutions in the Ombudsman’s Office.  As Assistant Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs she was responsible for province-wide mandates for land claims negotiations.  In 1998 she joined Cabinet Operations, where she served four Premiers and their Cabinets as Deputy Cabinet Secretary.  She also chaired the Medical Services Commission, a statutory body accountable through the review and investigation of audits for the $2.4 billion budget for publicly insured medical services.  In 2005 Joy was appointed Associate Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, where she worked to implement government’s priority of a new relationship with First Nations and Aboriginal organizations, leading up to the Kelowna Accord.

In 2005 Joy was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Silver Medal, which recognizes the exceptional achievement of a person who has shown distinctive leadership in public administration in British Columbia.

In May 2006, Joy was selected, following a competition, by an all party committee of the Legislative Assembly for a three year appointment as the first Merit Commissioner to be an independent Officer of the Legislature.

Message from the Merit Commissioner, Joy Illington