Alberta Premier Danielle Smith denies any wrongdoing amid AHS political interference allegations

Premier Danielle Smith is denying any wrongdoing after Alberta’s auditor general said Thursday he was investigating procurement practices in the province’s health ministry.

On Wednesday, the Globe and Mail reported that Alberta Health Services (AHS) chief executive Athana Mentzelopoulos was fired on Jan. 8, two days before she was to meet with auditor general Doug Wylie to discuss the findings of her investigation into procurement at AHS and Alberta Health (AH). On Thursday, Wylie announced he had launched an investigation into procurement at Alberta Health and AHS.

Smith issued a statement Saturday morning to deny any wrongdoing on her part as premier in the process, insisting any “insinuation to the contrary is false, baseless and defamatory.” Smith said she would write to Wylie to ask for a “fully transparent” and expedited review.

“I have read various media stories containing allegations regarding the procurement and contracting processes of AHS. They are troubling allegations and they should be reviewed as quickly as possible,” Smith said.

“We need to get to the bottom of this issue quickly to identify any potential wrongdoing, correct it, and address it appropriately. I have also asked that AHS’s internal review be completed as quickly as possible and delivered directly to me so we can study the results and make improvements or adjustments to these processes.

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The Globe’s report cites a letter from Mentzelopoulos to AHS lawyers that claims the since-ousted AHS board had recommended she take her findings to the RCMP, and that Smith’s then-chief of staff Marshall Smith had pressured her to approve more chartered surgical facilities, including those operated by the Alberta Surgical Group (ASG).

Mentzelopoulos was concerned about the proposed rates included in contracts with ASG, the report states, and had also been looking into the relationship between AHS and MHCare, the company that imported children’s pain medication from Turkey in 2022 and hosted multiple cabinet ministers at Edmonton Oilers playoff games at Rogers Place last summer.

Health Minister Adriana LaGrange’s office said in a statement Thursday the changes to the AHS board were part of the organization’s transition under the new Acute Care Alberta agency and denied Mentzelopoulos had been sacked because of her investigation.

In a statement, AHS said it was reviewing its procurement processes and had paused the awarding of any contracts involving the parties included in that review.

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“It’s no secret I have been unhappy with the level and quality of service delivered by AHS and in the inability of AHS to deliver quality and timely healthcare to Albertans,” Smith said Saturday.

“I will continue to relentlessly push forward to make improvements. Although that has required difficult decisions and major change, I do not accept the current results. There is a widespread and deep-seated resistance to change that we must overcome.”

Alberta NDP demand RCMP investigation

Later Saturday morning, Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi issued a statement calling for a full RCMP investigation, and an independent public inquiry.

“Our team has already written to the RCMP, the Auditor General, and Alberta’s Ethics Commissioner to demand these investigations,” Nenshi said.

“While all of these investigations are ongoing, the Premier, Health Minister, Mental Health and Addiction Minister, the Acting CEO/Administrator/Deputy Minister, and all those implicated need to do the right thing and step aside now to ensure that these investigations will be conducted without political interference.”

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The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) issued a Saturday evening news release calling for Smith and LaGrange to resign while emphasizing the importance of maintaining publicly-delivered health care.

“The premier knows she is on thin ice and cannot simply say she is not involved when she has publicly defended accepting the Oilers tickets – and attending the games – which is the entire basis of the alleged corruption and bribery scandal,” AUPE Vice-President Curtis Jackson said in the release. “The shady deals in which private interests seek to profit off of public health care must end.”

AUPE members are planning to rally at LaGrange’s constituency office in Red Deer Feb. 8.

‘Bigger than Sky Palace scandal’

Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt said Saturday’s statement was carefully crafted after days of silence from the premier’s office, but it also ignores some key context, including the firing of the AHS board and CEO in 2022 and the subsequent appointment of Mentzelopoulos as CEO and president in 2023.

“This is all the Smith government. She’s not firing Dr. Verna Yiu because she had been hired by someone else, this is someone that they had put into place. Why was the CEO fired? Why was the board fired? If you have known about this since December, why do you just seem shocked now?” Bratt said, adding Smith’s statement did not rule out the possibility of a public inquiry.

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“But how long does that take? How long does the forensic accounting take? Those things take time.”

Comparisons have been drawn to the Alison Redford Sky Palace scandal that drove the former premier from office in 2014, but Bratt argues this is bigger than all of Redford’s scandals.

“Redford’s scandals were very personal and did not involve the health-care system,” Bratt said. “In retrospect, they were small dollar amounts. We call it the ‘Sky Palace Scandal,’ but the original scandal wasn’t the Sky Palace, it was the plane tickets from South Africa for (Nelson) Mandela’s funeral. And then it became having fake passengers on the Government of Alberta planes because she didn’t want to speak to MLAs, and then the Sky Palace.

“So the Sky Palace actually encompasses a whole bunch of things, just like this Turkish Tylenol case — that’s what I’m calling it — involves other forms of personal protective equipment and chartered surgical facilities. And then you’ve got the stories around the Oilers game.

“So this has been going on for a while, but I think this is now capturing the public consciousness in Alberta.”

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trobb@postmedia.com

— With files from Matthew Black

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