Premier Danielle Smith’s government has ratcheted up its defence against allegations related to its relationship with Edmonton businessman Sam Mraiche, including by attacking a Globe and Mail journalist by name in the legislature.
Ms. Smith and her government have been under fire for more than a year amid allegations of political interference tied to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of contracts awarded to Mr. Mraiche’s companies; Mr. Mraiche has denied wrongdoing. The Premier and her ministers have maintained they did nothing wrong, dismissed a former health CEO who first raised the allegations as incompetent, and suggested critics are simply opposed to health care reform.
The allegations have since prompted investigations by the RCMP ‐ which executed search warrants last month, including at Mr. Mraiche’s company – and the Alberta Auditor-General.
On Monday, Joseph Schow, House Leader for the governing United Conservative Party, responded to a motion calling for the ouster of provincial Justice Minister Mickey Amery in light of new reporting by The Globe that Mr. Amery rewrote election rules last year while Mr. Mraiche, his friend and relative, was under investigation by Elections Alberta.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Joseph Schow in Calgary last year.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Standing in the legislature, Mr. Schow ripped the motion paper in half and set it on his desk: “Yeah, don’t think so,” he said. He called the motion, introduced by the Opposition Alberta NDP, a tactic to malign Mr. Amery’s character.
Alberta NDP demands Justice Minister be fired over ties to Sam Mraiche
Mr. Schow continued: “It is also interesting that the members opposite are relying upon an article in The Globe and Mail from Carrie Tait.”
“Listen, Mr. Speaker, I will take Carrie Tait’s writings as seriously as I take dietary advice from Jabba the Hutt,” he said, referring to a grotesquely large character from the Star Wars films.
Mr. Schow did not respond to a request for comment.
The Smith government has been embroiled in the continuing health care procurement controversy since last year when Ms. Tait first revealed allegations made by former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos, who has since sued the government for wrongful dismissal. In court documents, she alleges the government fired her for investigating potential conflicts of interest in the health agency’s procurement process, and that senior political officials put pressure on her to award surgical contracts with inflated fees to private businesses – including two partly owned by Mr. Mraiche.
Another one of Mr. Mraiche’s companies, MHCare Medical Corp., has been awarded more than $600-million in contracts since 2020, including a $70-million deal in 2022 to import children’s medication, only a third of which was ever delivered.
Alberta Justice Minister curtailed election regulator when Sam Mraiche was under investigation
The government denies the allegations, which have not been tested in court. Mr. Mraiche has said he acted properly and denies wrongdoing.
Ms. Smith and her UCP caucus have routinely pointed to Alberta Health Services’ procurement practices as the primary culprit of any issues.
The government has pointed to the results of a third-party investigation conducted last year by retired Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant, which concluded that no politicians, political staff or government official was involved in wrongdoing.
However, Mr. Wyant wrote that some people declined to be interviewed or to answer certain questions. He didn’t have the power to subpoena or hear testimony under oath.
“When I find that there was no wrongful interference by any government official in the matters concerning this report, that only means that I found no evidence of such, but I am not in a position to make a final and absolute determination,” he said.
The Globe has published a series of stories since last year documenting ties between Ms. Smith’s government and Mr. Mraiche.
The Alberta health care procurement controversy, explained
The most recent revelation about Mr. Amery’s changes to election laws, which cut the amount of time Elections Alberta has to pursue an investigation, has complicated his role as justice minister given his ties to the Edmonton businessman.
Heather Jenkins, spokesperson for Mr. Amery, recently characterized questions about whether the legislative change had anything to do with the investigation into Mr. Mraiche as a “conspiracy theory.”
After The Globe revealed Mr. Amery’s relationship with Mr. Mraiche last spring, he said it did not conflict with his job as Justice Minister and that he had neither a business nor professional relationship with Mr. Mraiche.
“We all have our personal relationships,” he said in an interview last April.
Last fall, a Globe investigation found Mr. Mraiche joined more than a dozen of Ms. Smith’s closest advisers to watch the 2023 provincial election results roll in at a downtown Calgary hotel.
Alberta health authority trying to recoup millions it paid MHCare for drugs never delivered
Ms. Smith, when asked how Mr. Mraiche ended up in the hotel room that night, said: “You’ll have to ask my advisers.”
Then, last month, RCMP officers searched MHCare’s offices in Edmonton and an accounting firm whose owner has ties to Mr. Mraiche and was appointed by the government to the board of Invest Alberta, a government agency.
That week in Question Period, Ms. Smith said she wouldn’t comment on what she called “policing matters.”
Over the course of the Globe investigation into political interference at Alberta Health Services, Ms. Tait has been subject to a harassment campaign for her reporting.
Last summer, surreptitiously obtained photos of Ms. Tait in public settings were posted to an anonymous account on X, describing her private movements and meetings with former political staffers with Ms. Smith’s government. The account promised to start “exposing” her sources that have informed her reporting on the health care saga.
The Premier, when first asked about the harassment, said “I’m not talking about that” and laughed as she walked away. In an interview with CTV later in the day, she said, “I condemn it.”
“I have no idea who’s behind it, and so if there’s criminal harassment, I hope that the RCMP finds them, punishes them to the full extent of the law.”