Early last week Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was getting kudos from her base for what they saw as a successful foray to Mar-a-Lago to beg for a tariff exemption; which she almost got 鈥 10 per cent on oil instead of the 25 per cent for everything else. It was time to do some crowing while preparing for the next assault by U.S. President聽Donald Trump.
But then her fortunes abruptly changed. A former CEO of Alberta Health Services accused the government of corruption in deals for contracts for surgical services and COVID medication and supplies.
The CEO, Athana Mentzelopoulos, had already been fired on Jan. 8 鈥 two days before she was to meet with the auditor general to lay a complaint. Her entire board was fired along with her and replaced by one CEO, a deputy minister of health.
Alberta NDP leader聽Naheed Nenshi聽 when he said: 鈥渋t was among the most shocking allegations that I have ever seen鈥 and called for an investigation by the auditor general, the police, the ethics commissioner as well as a judicial review.
The auditor general has since confirmed that he has opened an investigation.
In a 聽from Mentzelopoulos鈥檚 lawyer to legal counsel for AHS and obtained by the Globe and Mail, Mentzelopoulos alleges she faced pressure from various government officials, including Marshall Smith (no relation) the premier鈥檚 former chief of staff when deciding on contracts with private clinics where surgery is paid for by the province.
In her letter Mentzelopoulos, a former executive director of the Alberta Medical Association and longtime public servant, raises concerns about why she was expected to approve new contracts with private surgical clinics when there were questions about who really owned them and why the new contract cost significantly more than the previous one.
Mentzelopoulos was also looking into the deals arranged by Premier Smith and Sam Mraiche president of MHCare Medical to obtain $614 million in medication, masks and PPE. 聽$75 million up front for medication 鈥 a pseudo Tylenol 鈥 but never received the required amount of the children鈥檚 painkiller from the Turkish manufacturer. Most of what it did receive was considered unusable.
On Saturday, after three days of silence, Smith issued a statement saying that 鈥淎s premier I was not involved in any wrongdoing” and calling for an expedited inquiry by the auditor general.
This is the second bombshell coming from the health field to hit Smith. Two weeks ago, the government quietly posted a $2 million COVID report that was supposed to look at how well, or not, the pandemic was dealt with in Alberta. , an emergency medicine physician from Red Deer, was named chair of the聽review despite the fact that he had accused the government of fixing statistics so it could impose a lockdown. The resulting report could have been written by a COVID conspiracy theorist. It was as 鈥渁nti-science and anti-evidence.鈥
On top of this, a huge restructuring of Alberta’s health-care system is underway. It鈥檚 being divided into four distinct segments 鈥 acute care, primary care, continuing care, and addictions and recovery. Very little is known about what is going on as the government doesn鈥檛 report much. Although Jason Nixon, minister of seniors, community and social services announced two weeks ago that his new responsibility will be called Assisted Living Alberta.
Critics say the system is being broken up so its parts can be sold off more easily to the private sector. Is it any surprise that confusion reigns?
Smith has enough on her plate already without having to traipse all over the U.S. in search of a better deal from Trump. It seems that the only way to get to the bottom of this mess is a full investigation under the Public Inquiries Act. An inquiry led by a judge with full power to compel testimony and documents from the government and private individuals.
Smith may have enjoyed her moment of victory until reality came home to roost.
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