The Edmonton Law Courts are shown on July 8, 2020.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
A podcaster who has been accused of harassing a potential witness in a high-profile wrongful-dismissal lawsuit against the Alberta government said he was retained by an Edmonton-based lawyer for “unspecified work,” new court records show.
That lawyer, identified in court records made public Tuesday as Bryan Ward, has acted a number of times for Sam Mraiche, an Edmonton-based medical equipment entrepreneur whose companies are at the centre of a procurement controversy that has roiled Alberta politics for the past year.
The controversy broke into public view when Athana Mentzelopoulos, the former chief executive of the province’s health authority, filed a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit against the government of Premier Danielle Smith. Ms. Mentzelopoulos alleged she was fired because she refused to shut down an internal investigation into the agency’s procurement staff and their relationships with Mr. Mraiche’s companies. The matter is now under investigation by the RCMP.
Since launching her lawsuit, Ms. Mentzelopoulos and other individuals connected to the Alberta Health Services probe have been subject to reputational attacks by the podcaster, David Wallace, a self-described political fixer who hosts a show called The Political Dark Arts Report.
Among the people targeted by Mr. Wallace are Globe and Mail journalists Carrie Tait and Tom Cardoso, who have written about the probe, and Sandy Edmonstone, a former board member at AHS who encouraged Ms. Mentzelopoulos to report her findings to the RCMP.
Mr. Edmonstone recently obtained a rare court order to seize evidence from the homes and electronic devices of Mr. Wallace and James Di Fiore, another podcaster who has hosted Mr. Wallace on his show.
An Alberta-based former investment banker, Mr. Edmonstone alleges that Mr. Wallace spread false rumours about him on the podcast and threatened to dig into his private life. Mr. Edmonstone successfully argued that the court order was necessary to find evidence about the “well-funded individuals and organizations” who he alleges are bankrolling the podcasters and trying to intimidate him as a potential witness in Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s lawsuit.
When lawyers descended on Mr. Wallace’s Quebec home in mid-December, armed with the court order, he disclosed that he was “retained by Bryan Ward at Park Law in Alberta to do unspecified work for him,” states a report prepared by the Ottawa law firm that supervised the search.
Public records show Mr. Ward acted as Mr. Mraiche’s counsel in a civil lawsuit, as well as in a dispute Mr. Mraiche had with Elections Alberta. Other records show Mr. Ward acted as a witness in several of Mr. Mraiche’s real estate transactions, and Mr. Ward is also listed as the registered agent for companies owned in part by Mr. Mraiche.
The Globe contacted Mr. Ward and a lawyer for Mr. Mraiche, Scott Hutchison, for comment Monday evening. Neither responded by Tuesday night.
Neither Mr. Wallace nor Mr. Di Fiore responded to a request for comment. Mr. Wallace has denied on his podcast that he works for Mr. Mraiche. He has said on his podcast that he was paid by “three employers,” whom he did not identify.
Lawyers with Conway Baxter Wilson, the Ottawa law firm appointed by the court to oversee the execution of the search, said in their report that two court-appointed solicitors, a bailiff and a security firm employee arrived at Mr. Wallace’s home the morning of Dec. 16.
After being served with the court papers, Mr. Wallace was asked to put on his dining-room table any devices and documents sought by Mr. Edmonstone, according to the report. Mr. Wallace made references to his retainer with Mr. Ward “several other times throughout the execution process,” the report says. The contents of the report have not been proven in court.
Mr. Wallace said he needed legal advice and was provided with a cellphone because the court order prohibited him from using his own device, the report states. It also says Mr. Wallace went into a bedroom to speak privately with Mr. Ward.
Mr. Ward later spoke with the supervising lawyers and confirmed to them that he advised Mr. Wallace to comply with the orders. “At times, Mr. Ward indicated that his firm had retained Wallace and Di Fiore on behalf of a ‘third party’ client,” the report says.
Around the same time, two other lawyers, a bailiff and two Ontario Provincial Police officers executed the order at Mr. Di Fiore’s home in Ontario.
According to the report, Mr. Di Fiore told the search party that Mr. Ward was one of his lawyers.
Mr. Di Fiore objected to the search, arguing that it constituted a violation of freedom of the press, and that one of his phones and a laptop shouldn’t be searched because “those devices were provided to him by CSIS,” the report says.
Eventually, both Mr. Wallace and Mr. Di Fiore handed over their devices, which were returned to them the next day after their contents had been copied.
In addition to the orders permitting the search of the podcasters’ property, Mr. Edmonstone had also convinced the judge presiding over Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s lawsuit, Justice Michael Lema of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, to cite Mr. Wallace and Mr. Di Fiore for potential contempt of court.
At a virtual hearing on Tuesday, Craig Alcock, a lawyer for Mr. Wallace and Mr. Di Fiore, said both sides agreed that the date for his clients’ appearance could be postponed. Mr. Alcock told the court that his clients will apply to set aside the contempt-of-court citation.
Jordan Bierkos, a lawyer for Mr. Edmonstone, noted that, at the end of December, Mr. Wallace posted a video on social media in which he commented on the property searches.
In the video, which has since been removed, Mr. Wallace said that the court case was, for his legal team, “a golden opportunity” to interrogate Mr. Edmonstone.
Mr. Wallace “clearly sees the current proceedings as an extension of his political operative activities,” Mr. Bierkos told the court.
He added: “… If you’re a rat fornicator, everything looks like a rat. This is not about legitimate testing of evidence, I would submit, it’s about prolonging proceedings and creating a spectacle.”
Justice Lema, however, said he was not concerned. He said that, despite what Mr. Wallace claimed, he and the lawyers can ensure questions don’t stray out of bounds when Mr. Edmonstone is questioned about the allegations in his affidavit.