It really is only going to get worse.
Albertans may only just be finding out that multiple companies owned by one person, some sole ownership and others in conjunction with other people, has been given more than $600 million dollars to broker supplies and services for Alberta Health Services, but the Ministry of Health has known that the investigation was going on for more than eight months.
How much is $600 million?
It’s more than four months of AISH payments to 77,000 Albertans.
It’s a bi-monthly payment towards the province’s $2.8 billion in debt servicing costs (which are only forecast to go up, by the way, according to budget 2024 pg. 74).
It’s a lot of money.
And it went to one guy and multiple businesses he’s involved in.
As The Globe and Mail’s (a Canadian-owned publication) Carrie Tait continues to follow allegations of the Alberta Health Services procurement and contracting fraud, we are learning that we don’t have to say “allegedly” for absolutely everything that’s in the letter from former AHS President and CEO, Athana Mentzelopolous.
In the article on February 11, Tait shares contents of the letter sent to Mentzelopolous from an Assistant Deputy Minister in Alberta Health, Chris Nickerson, informing her that his “department will be assuming responsibility for conducting due diligence” for Chartered Surgical Facilities (CSF).
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange’s spokesperson Jessi Rampton responded that there was no nefarious reason behind the December 2024 request saying “it was extremely concerning that no substantive information and documentation has been provided to the government after nearly eight months of requesting it.”
So, they knew the former CEO was looking.
Mentzelopolous’ allegations, detailed in the February 5 article, include “(being) repeatedly subject to interference and pressure from various Government of Alberta officials — including the Premier’s then-Chief of Staff Marshall Smith — to sign off on commitments for the new CSF’s, and approve a contract extension for ASG (Alberta Surgical Group) despite significant concerns within AHS around the true ownership and potential costs… and concerns over the significantly increased costs of a new ASG contract.”
As in, she at least suspected the government was compromised.
“Eight months” takes us back to April of 2024 when Ministers of the Crown, including Premier Danielle Smith, were invited to multiple Edmonton Oilers playoff games.
Some of those tickets — at least those offered to Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, Infrastructure Minister Pete Guthrie, and Finance Minister Nate Horner — were supplied by Sam Mraiche, whose company, MHCare Medical, brokered the deal to purchase $70 million worth of Turkish children's pain and fever relief medication, announced by Smith and former Health Minister Jason Copping in December of 2022.
Minister of Sport Joseph Schow, and Minister of Public Safety Mike Ellis also said they attended free games but did not name the person or company who provided them.
In May, the Premier made a trip to Vancouver to watch a game with another set of “free” tickets she received from Invest Alberta. People from MHCare were there, too.
I’m certain we’ll be seeing a resignation from the Health Minister but that’s only the beginning.
The Premier has said she wants an “expedited review” from the Auditor General, but we’re still waiting on the review regarding DynaLife labs, which was requested in October of 2023.
While the Premier may not have been “involved in any wrongdoing”, part of why it got so much worse is entirely because of her own weaknesses, which she has only proven she is incapable of shielding herself from the consequences of, let alone a province full of people who deserve competent leadership.
She will not make it through this, and the longer she’s allowed to remain leader, the worse it will reflect on her caucus.
The Premier is, as someone once said to me, “dangerously malleable”, especially if she likes what she’s being told. It’s not that she doesn’t have a “crazy radar”, it’s that she’s a willing participant in deceiving herself and others if she likes the message or the messenger.
Take her 2014 floor-crossing for example; Preston Manning came out and took credit for giving her really bad advice, but she didn’t have the critical thinking skills to determine it was really bad advice because he’s a mentor to her and she thinks his advice is worth taking.
Which she asked for again when she invited him to chair the province’s COVID-19 Review Panel. And from his recommendation in that panel, spent another couple million on a junk report from science skeptics.
While these are certainly her own problems, it’s a huge problem for Albertans while she is in a leadership role.
I’ve heard she’s a really nice person.
Unfortunately, being Premier of Alberta is an important job and it takes a lot more than being “nice” to do the work competently.
Canadians are facing threats from a hostile foreign government and Danielle Smith has decided she should be the one trying to make things better for Albertans because she “speaks their language”.
Again, I’ll say she cannot be trusted to make good decisions for herself, let alone Albertans, and certainly not for Canadians.
Her caucus can wait until this all comes out, but they shouldn’t be waiting for her resignation; it will only give her time to make a bigger mess.
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If only the Alberta media would stop protecting the corrupt UCP government. Alberta is its own weird little bubble inside of Canada, where the Conservative message is pushed and protected. If the NDP were in power the press would be calling to storm the legislature.
I met Smith once: she waited my table at her restaurant in High River and I can attest that in person she is friendly and folksy. Perhaps we would all have been better served if she had remained waiting tables. Premiering is not for everyone.