A ministerial resignation deepens Alberta’s health services scandal

Open this photo in gallery:

For most people, giving up a seat in cabinet isn’t a decision that’s made lightly.

There’s the prestige and power that goes with the position. And then there’s the money, often tens of thousands of dollars more annually than you make as a standard provincial or federal legislator. So, when someone makes a decision to resign their cabinet post over a matter of principle, it’s notable.

Peter Guthrie took that route earlier this week, stepping down as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s minister of infrastructure over the scandal brewing around surgical contracts awarded by Alberta Health Services.

The controversy was ignited when The Globe and Mail revealed earlier this month the troubling circumstances surrounding the firing of Athana Mentzelopoulos as the CEO of AHS in January. That dismissal occurred after she raised objections about deals being made with firms that were far more expensive for taxpayers than other available options. She was dumped two days before she was scheduled to meet with the auditor-general to further discuss her concerns.

In a $1.7-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit that Ms. Mentzelopoulos would later file, she chronicled how she was allegedly pressured from inside government, including from the Premier’s office, to offer contracts to chartered surgical facilities connected to Edmonton businessman Sam Mraiche for procedures that could be done cheaper through, among others, AHS.

Mr. Mraiche was previously in the news for hosting members of Ms. Smith’s government in a private box for Edmonton Oilers hockey games. Ms. Mentzelopoulos also alleges AHS paid companies with ties to Mr. Mraiche $614-million for other supplies and services.

Those are the broad parameters of the controversy, which is multi-layered and deeply concerning. There have been so many alarms sounded around this story it’s been hard on the eardrums.

The warnings coming from Mr. Guthrie should be particularly concerning for Albertans. He certainly disapproves of Health Minister Adriana LaGrange remaining in her position while the matter is being investigated by the auditor-general. Her alleged role in the entire affair is laid out in vivid detail in Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s statement of claim. The Minister has yet to file a statement of defence.

Ms. Smith said some time ago she would appoint an independent third party to look into the situation, but so far that hasn’t happened. The RCMP is said to also be looking at whether there are grounds for a broader criminal investigation.

Mr. Guthrie said he felt compelled to leave cabinet when it became clear none of his colleagues shared the same level of concern he had about the potential for a much bigger crisis emerging from this drama. Shame on his colleagues. And shame on Ms. Smith for doing her utmost to try and dismiss this debacle as a giant nothing-burger.

“I’m not going to stand by and see potential corruption exist within government and be a part of that,” Mr. Guthrie told The Globe.

Ms. Smith’s attempts to bring revolutionary change to the health care system in Alberta has come at a steep cost. Since becoming Premier, she’s twice dismissed AHS boards. She’s had executives and managers at all levels fired. The amount of severance paid out in just over a couple of years is in the multiple millions of dollars.

Meantime, there appear to be few signs that much is better. People still can’t find family doctors. People still have to wait hours in emergency rooms before being treated. Meanwhile, Ms. Smith has tried to suggest that the allegations we’ve read about the last few weeks stem mostly from disgruntled forces inside AHS who are resistant to change.

Which is preposterous. Ms. Mentzelopoulos, for one, was never ideologically opposed to private clinics taking on some of the work that the Alberta health system was doing. If they could reduce waitlists while not coming at a far greater cost to taxpayers, she was all for it. But that wasn’t the case, she alleges. According to a document referenced in her statement of claim, the fired CEO did say that on top of costing more than the public system, she was concerned chartered (private) surgical facilities could drain staff from hospitals.

“These disruptions will have negative consequences for patients and communities, limiting timely access to emergent, urgent and medically complex surgeries such as cancer, general surgery, orthopedic and vascular surgery,” she wrote in a draft letter to a senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of Health last October.

And yet, somehow we are to believe that Ms. Mentzelopoulos, a career civil servant of impeccable reputation, is the problem here. A disgruntled change resister. Well, if and when her wrongful dismissal case goes to court, look out. People will get a peek inside the government of Danielle Smith like never before. It likely won’t be pretty.