MHCare Medical Corp. is being unfairly attacked and subjected to a flood of misinformation and falsehoods because it is linked to allegations government officials in Alberta influenced health care deals to benefit private outfits, the company says in a letter to the province.
The Edmonton-based medical supply firm, which signed a $70-million deal with Alberta Health Services in 2022 to import children’s medicine from Turkey, says it was compelled to “set the record straight” after The Globe and Mail first reported allegations, now contained in a lawsuit from AHS’s former chief executive, of irregular procurement and contracting practices at the health authority.
MHCare’s nine-page letter marks the first time the company and its owner, Sam Mraiche, have meaningfully addressed allegations that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government tilted AHS’s contracting and procurement practices in their favour. While the pair’s lawyers have maintained that their clients acted properly, MHCare and Mr. Mraiche refrained from providing details about the issues under scrutiny or discussing events from their perspective prior to the April 8 letter.
“MHCare takes the integrity of their company with the utmost seriousness and could not remain silent while being unfairly attacked,” the unsigned letter says.
Alberta’s Official Opposition has spent two months questioning the government about the allegations, which former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos levelled after the government fired her Jan. 8. Ms. Mentzelopoulos is suing AHS and the Health Minister for wrongful dismissal. None of the allegations have been tested in court.
Neither MHCare nor Mr. Mraiche are the targets of Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s lawsuit, but they are central to her allegations. Ms. Mentzelopoulos alleges the government wanted her to sign off on what she considered overpriced contracts for chartered surgical facilities in Red Deer and Lethbridge, for example. The Globe first revealed that Mr. Mraiche owns stakes in those proposed facilities.
“A heavy accumulation of misleading statements do not add up to a truth,” the letter says. “They simply amount to a large amount of misinformation – and a great deal of harm to the reputation of MHCare, its CEO and all others wrongly tainted by such claims.”
It is addressed to Christopher McPherson, the deputy minister who organized Alberta’s third-party investigation into the allegations. Mr. McPherson, in a statement, confirmed that his office received the document and passed it to the former Manitoba judge Alberta selected to lead its investigation.
Sam Blackett, a spokesman for Ms. Smith, said the correspondence was also referred to the Minister of Justice, who provided it to Alberta Auditor-General Doug Wylie, who is also examining allegations of improper dealings at AHS and Alberta Health, the government ministry. The RCMP also launched an investigation in March.
MHCare instructed its law firm to provide the letter to The Globe in the interest of transparency, lawyer Jessie Bakker said in an e-mail.
The document states that Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s allegation that the proposed CSFs in Red Deer and Lethbridge secured contracts with inflated rates for surgical procedures is “verifiably untrue,” arguing the claim is based on an unflattering comparison to another CSF.
“However, that group was only able to offer procedures to AHS at below-standard rates because it subsidizes such procedures with the premium rates it charges for the private surgeries it conducts at the same facilities with the same staff and resources,” MHCare’s letter says.
MHCare did not name the group, but The Globe previously obtained documents detailing what AHS pays some CSFs for certain operations. Calgary’s Canadian Surgery Solutions, which is part of the Clearpoint Health Network, was the only outfit performing surgeries at rates lower than those proposed for Red Deer and Lethbridge.
Clearpoint spokeswoman Sarah Carlisle said her company has not had any contact with MHCare. “They have no knowledge of our operations,” she said in a statement.
MHCare also took issue with Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s allegation that there might be an unnamed equity partner in the Red Deer and Lethbridge CSFs.
“Not only is this incorrect but the claim is contradicted by the registration of owners that was – and remains – publicly available,” the letter says, without providing further information. MHCare said it provided details to AHS’s negotiating team in August.
Documents in Alberta’s corporate registry lack ownership information for 12 per cent of the CSFs in Red Deer and Lethbridge, according to The Globe’s most recent search conducted Thursday.
Ms. Bakker, MHCare’s lawyer, said the information is unavailable on the corporate registry because of a formatting problem.
She said Kenneth Hawkins, a physician in Edmonton, owns the stakes. He and other doctors who invested in the Red Deer and Lethbridge projects also own part of a competing CSF in Edmonton.
“Our client confirms that the ownership has been consistent since incorporation and was confirmed to AHS in July 2024 and [Alberta Health] via Legal Attestation in January 2025,” she said.
Dr. Hawkins did not respond to questions on Thursday or in February. MHCare, when asked in February, did not provide the missing ownership information.
Ms. Mentzelopoulos declined to comment through her lawyer. AHS did not immediately respond to questions about the letter.
The Globe in February reported that AHS in late 2024 pressed MHCare to prove it was working to fulfill the $70-million contract to import medication from Turkey. AHS accused MHCare of providing “limited written documentation” about the status of its regulatory process with Health Canada to import intravenous acetaminophen, and said it could find no information about MHCare’s handling and use of the millions of dollars the health authority paid it in advance.
MHCare’s letter says it kept AHS looped in.
“Formal updates were provided by MHCare to AHS and/or Alberta Health in July 2024, October 2024, and March 2025,” it says. “In addition, informal discussions and interactions took place often with various AHS executives and the pharmacy team as per developments.”
With reports from Stephanie Chambers