Marshall Smith, former chief of staff to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, in May, 2024. Mr. Smith is suing Athana Mentzelopoulos for claims she made in her own lawsuit against the Alberta government.Megan Albu/The Globe and Mail
The former CEO of Alberta’s health authority is asking a court to throw out a defamation lawsuit launched against her by Premier Danielle Smith’s ex-chief of staff, arguing that allegations she has made about political interference in procurement are protected by legal privilege and were in the public interest.
Marshall Smith, the Premier’s former aide, is suing Alberta Health Services’ onetime head Athana Mentzelopoulos for claims she made in her own lawsuit against the Alberta government, saying she has “mischaracterized, cherry-picked, and taken out of context” portions of their discussions to suggest that he improperly pressed her to benefit certain private companies.
He says this has caused him emotional distress, depression, humiliation and made it difficult for him to find work. He is also suing The Globe and Mail and reporter Carrie Tait for their coverage of Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s allegations.
In her statement of defence against Mr. Smith’s $12-million lawsuit, which was filed in court in July, Ms. Mentzelopoulos said she has not defamed Mr. Smith and that the former political staffer has not suffered any damages. She said her statements about Mr. Smith are immune from legal attack because they were made in the course of her own judicial proceedings.
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One of Mr. Smith’s arguments in his claim is that, despite being identified repeatedly in Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s lawsuit, he is not named as a defendant and therefore has never been given an opportunity to respond.
In her defence, Ms. Mentzelopoulos also said the former chief of staff has “invented attempts to allege harm” and is playing down his involvement in the contracts that caused her concern.
“Mr. Smith did abuse his powers and influence,” she alleges. “His acts were apparently unethical where he, as a political actor, was attempting to insert himself into matters of AHS procurement or human resources or otherwise under the AHS President and CEO’s purview, when those spheres should remain independent of one another.”
Ms. Mentzelopoulos was dismissed from her post in January, about four months after launching an investigation into supply contracts and deals for private surgical facilities. She has said that she was fired two days before she was scheduled to discuss that probe with Alberta’s Auditor-General.
The former CEO is suing the province in a $1.7-million wrongful-dismissal suit, alleging that she was terminated in part because of the investigation she ordered, which was probing her concerns about conflict of interest and contract costs.
Those allegations are now being investigated by the RCMP, Alberta’s Auditor-General and the former chief judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba, Raymond Wyant, who was asked by the province to review the matter.
In an e-mailed statement to The Globe, Mr. Smith, who left his job in October, 2024, alleges that her statement of defence contradicts claims she made in her own wrongful dismissal suit.
“We are shocked at the striking contradictions contained in them. As we are in the process of litigating these matters, we will not be providing any further comments at this time,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.
In The Globe’s statement of defence, which it also filed in court in July, the newspaper says allegations of political interference in the province’s health care procurement system “constitute a matter of significant public interest,” and it plans to continue its reporting.
One of the private companies being investigated during Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s time at Alberta Health Services was an equipment supplier called MHCare Medical, which is owned by Alberta businessman Sam Mraiche. In her statement of claim against the government, Ms. Mentzelopoulos alleged that Mr. Smith told her he “‘would be taken care of for the rest of his life,’ somehow in relation to ‘Sam.’”
In her more recent statement of defence in Mr. Smith’s lawsuit, she alleges that when Mr. Smith made that comment, it was “not in the context of any discussion about procurement issues related to MHCare or the interests of Sam Mraiche in MHCare.” Rather, she says, the comment was made when the two were having a discussion about an anonymous Twitter account that had been critical of the Smith government and Mr. Mraiche.
In an e-mailed statement, Scott Hutchison, a lawyer for MHCare, called this “a retreat from any inference she previously made about MHCare.”
“It is no longer clear what she is even asserting.”
He went on to say that all of MHCare’s dealings with the Alberta health authority were conducted appropriately, and that the company is confident the reviews by Judge Wyant and the Auditor-General will demonstrate that.
Last week, Ms. Mentzelopoulos issued a public letter saying she had yet to be interviewed by Judge Wyant, and was concerned that someone “privy to Judge Wyant’s work” was leaking information to make it appear that she was unwilling to co-operate with the probe.
Christopher McPherson, the senior civil servant given the task by the Premier of helping Judge Wyant launch his investigation, responded with his own public letter. In it, he said multiple attempts had been made to contact her lawyer and confirmed that scheduling for an interview was now under way.