For nearly a year, Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith has waved off any suggestion of a scandal involving Alberta Health Services.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Back in October, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wiped her hands clean of any scandal involving Alberta Health Services (AHS). Seven months earlier, the Premier had tapped retired Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant to probe alleged political interference involving the procurement of children’s medicine from abroad, and contracts for private surgical facilities in the province, both of which had ties to a man named Sam Mraiche, owner of MHCare Medical Corp.
Around that time, former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos (who had been fired in January) filed a lawsuit alleging inflated contracts and political pressure involving the agency and the province’s health ministry (the allegations have not been proven in court). So the government did what any administration with nothing to hide would do: it said it had fired Ms. Mentzelopoulos for “alarming” incompetence, and then launched an inquiry – one that was limited in mandate, devoid of subpoena power, and without the ability to question interviewees under oath. So of course Mr. Wyant’s report did not find any evidence of political interference (Mr. Wyant himself acknowledged the limitations of his probe) and Ms. Smith declared herself and her team vindicated.
That was less than two months ago. This past weekend, The Globe published an investigation detailing the depths of the connection Mr. Mraiche has with members of the United Conservative Party – a relationship more extensive than previously reported. Mr. Mraiche, whose company has won contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars with Alberta’s government, was in the suite with Ms. Smith’s closest inner circle on election night in 2023 to watch results come in. More members of her cabinet than previously known enjoyed box seats for Edmonton Oilers games with Mr. Mraiche, including former Edmonton police chief Dale McFee (now Deputy Minister of the Executive Council), who Ms. Smith said back in March would be looking into the matter to determine if there was any wrongdoing. (No better place to conduct that probe than from within a luxury box.) Various members of Mr. Mraiche’s family were hired by the government when Ms. Smith’s chief of staff was living in a home owned by his sister. Mr. Mraiche has maintained that he acted appropriately.
Who is Sam Mraiche? Inside Alberta’s health care controversy
For nearly a year, Alberta’s Premier has been waving off any suggestion of political malfeasance, displaying the haughty sort of arrogance typical of conservative governing parties in the province. Former premier Peter Lougheed could pack the civil service with his pals and sign a sweetheart deal for a golf course, with little recourse. Ralph Klein survived a scandal involving what seemed like a clear conflict of interest with regard to his wife’s purchase of shares in a Calgary software company (though he was later cleared by the ethics commissioner). Alison Redford fell upward after serving as justice minister, during which time she awarded a contract to a consortium of law firms that included one where her ex-husband was a partner. It wasn’t until she became premier and started using government aircraft as personal jets and planned to build herself a “sky palace” that the arrogance of a decades-old conservative dynasty finally gave way to public outrage.
With the exception of the most disgruntled among the UCP, Danielle Smith is giving Albertans what they want: a new path forward on a hybrid model for health care, the promise of a new pipeline in partnership with Ottawa, and a government that is unafraid to use various tools at its disposal to enact its legislation. That’s why Ms. Smith can cast off this AHS scandal as a pesky little nuisance; she told reporters “you’ll have to ask my advisors” when pressed Monday on how Sam Mraiche ended up in an election-night suite reserved for her inner circle.
Ms. Smith, much like her predecessors, knows that contracts are boring. Procurement processes are difficult to understand, and these sorts of conflict-of-interest scandals are perceived to have no bearing on the lives of everyday Albertans. The Kananaskis golf course lease was won by whom? How much did they bid? What’s Multi-Corp, and how did the Premier promote it? Colleen Klein didn’t pay for her shares up front? Never mind – is the government cutting my taxes, and is it getting more oil to market?
Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi has been calling for a public inquiry into the AHS affair pretty much since its excommunicated CEO started ringing alarm bells earlier this year. And Ms. Smith has been deflecting or otherwise ignoring those calls for just as long. A little extra paid for children’s Tylenol during a crisis, no matter how dodgy the circumstances, doesn’t read the same way to the public as a million-dollar sky palace – and Ms. Smith is behaving as if that reality is governing her response entirely. It’s the same entitlement and insider mentality that has poisoned conservative leadership in the province for decades. Ms. Smith’s party just happens to have a new name.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article misspelled Dale McFee’s surname, and incorrectly said Dale McFee was police chief when Premier Danielle Smith said she had asked him to look into whether any wrongdoing had occurred. At the time, he had already retired from that role.