Alberta Premier Danielle Smith answers questions at a news conference about Alberta Hleath Services while Health Minister Adriana LaGrange listens in the background in Calgary, on Feb. 19.Todd Korol/The Globe and Mail
When The Globe and Mail published its first story about allegations made by former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos of inflated contracts and inappropriate procurement procedures in the province’s health care system, one of the key lines in Carrie Tait’s story was this:
“The AHS board, after Ms. Mentzelopoulos provided an update on her investigation in December, recommended that she take her findings to the RCMP,” Carrie wrote on Feb. 5, referring to allegations now contained in a $1.7-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit.
The day after The Globe broke the story, the RCMP received a complaint about problems at AHS and the province’s Ministry of Health. They said at the time that they were reviewing the complaint, but that changed Thursday.
The RCMP now say they are investigating the allegations, which have already sparked an Auditor-General examination, an internal investigation and a resignation from Premier Danielle Smith’s cabinet.
“Following a review, the RCMP has begun an investigation into the matter,” said Christina Zoernig, a federal policing strategist with the Mounties, in a statement. “As this is an ongoing investigation, no further details are available at this time.”
The provincial government fired Mentzelopoulos on Jan. 8, with three years remaining on her contract. (The entire AHS board was fired just over three weeks later.) She alleges that the Premier’s then-chief of staff, Marshall Smith, and other government officials put pressure on her to sign deals to the benefit of private businesses. Mentzelopoulos alleges she was terminated two days before she was scheduled to meet with the Auditor-General to discuss the investigations she herself had launched.
Those investigations, according to allegations in her lawsuit, looked at contracts and procurement tied to chartered surgical facilities and Alberta’s $70-million deal to import generic children’s medication from Turkey.
None of the allegations have been tested in court.
On Thursday, Jessi Rampton, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, said the government will participate in the RCMP investigation as necessary.
“The [government of Alberta] is unaware of the identity of any party under RCMP investigation, but will provide the required cooperation to the RCMP should the government be requested to do so,” Rampton said in a statement.
“We refer any further inquiries regarding this matter to the RCMP as it would be entirely inappropriate for the Government to comment on an ongoing police investigation.”
Mr. Smith, who is not related to the Premier, did not acknowledge a request for comment but has previously said he would co-operate with the government’s internal investigation and the Auditor-General.
Dan Scott, the legal counsel for Mentzelopoulos, said his client welcomes the RCMP investigation but declined to say whether she has been interviewed by police.
This week, the Premier also appointed Raymond Wyant, a former chief judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba, to lead the government’s internal investigation. He is supposed to provide a report and recommendations by the end of June.
This, of course, isn’t the first time the RCMP have investigated potential political funny business.
Last March, the RCMP said that as many as 200 fraudulent votes may have been cast in the United Conservative Party’s inaugural leadership contest in 2017, but the force didn’t have enough evidence to charge any suspects or prove that candidates co-ordinated any wrongdoing.
That high-profile case involved allegations that Jason Kenney’s campaign cheated in the leadership contest before he became Alberta’s premier. Kenney was later replaced by Smith in the fall of 2022.
This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.