According to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, her government was just trying to be helpful when it instructed thousands of public employees to refer calls from the auditor general about his ongoing investigation into allegations of dodgy health care contracts to a lawyer it had retained.
“The auditor general can ask any employee, former or current, any questions he likes as he is doing the investigation,” Premier Smith assured the Alberta Legislature yesterday in response to a question from the NDP’s Christina Gray, who is Opposition leader as long as the government refuses to call a by-election in Edmonton-Strathcona that would give party Leader Naheed Nenshi a seat in the House.
“We believe our role is to assist in being able to facilitate that access,” the premier added soothingly.
Sorry, but that dog won’t hunt. Responding to Ms. Smith, Ms. Gray wondered: “Does the premier understand how corrupt this looks?”
Similarly, after the news broke on Thursday of the email sent to Alberta Health Services staff and employees of the provincial Health Department by a senior civil servant instructing them to redirect investigators “to our legal counsel,” Health Minister Adriana LaGrange insisted, “this is not about impeding the investigation.”
Ms. LaGrange also claimed that it is standard operating procedure for public employees in Alberta “either have legal counsel present, or ministry senior staff present when participating in interviews.” Presumably she meant government counsel, not their own.
Questions in the Legislature, of course, quickly turned this into a she said/she said dispute. So let’s look elsewhere to understand why the tales told by Ms. Smith and Ms. LaGrange are extremely unlikely.
Our text today comes from the Code of Conduct of the Law Society of Alberta, which states on page 31, “A lawyer must not act or continue to act for a client where there is a conflict of interest, except as permitted under this Code.”
As Edmonton defence lawyer Tom Engel pointed out on social media, the ADM’s suggested response for employees – “Alberta Health has retained legal counsel to represent us in the OAG investigation” – is not true, at least if you take that ambiguous “us” to include the employee.
“AHS retained this law firm but not to represent individual employees,” Mr. Engel stated in his post. “This should be referred to the Law Society, along with the issue of obstructing the AG’s investigation.”
Indeed, the question of conflicts is so important, and there are so many situations in which conflicts could potentially arise, that the society’s Code of Conduct devotes 23 full pages to the topic, and at that I daresay that is not exhaustive.
“A conflict of interest exists when there is a substantial risk that a lawyer’s loyalty to or representation of a client would be materially and adversely affected by the lawyer’s own interest or the lawyer’s duties to another client, a former client, or a third person,” the Code explains. “A substantial risk is one that is significant and, while not certain or probable, is more than a mere possibility. A client’s interests may be prejudiced unless the lawyer’s advice, judgment and action on the client’s behalf are free from conflicts of interest.”
We non-lawyers need not plow through all the situations the document discusses to understand that if a lawyer has been engaged by the government of Alberta to represent its interests in an investigation of this type, it would be impossible in many situations that might arise for that lawyer to properly represent both the interests of his client, the government, and of the government’s employee.
Put simply, Alberta Health (as the Health Department is confusingly known) is a legal entity that has different interests in the AG’s investigation than its employees do.
For example, what if an employee, fearing retribution, asked for her identity to be protected because she has information about a dodgy contract? How can a lawyer representing the department, which is being sued for wrongful dismissal by a former CEO, represent the interests of both the employee and the employer?
Common sense suggests the government’s lawyer simply cannot.
What if an employee wanted to negotiate an agreement to protect himself from future prosecution? His own lawyer might be able to negotiate such a deal. But it’s hard to see how a lawyer representing the employer could have any proper role in that.
Auditor General Doug Wylie’s staff, undoubtedly acting on his instructions, stated forcefully last week that this is not how his office works, or ever has. That is credible.
The suggestions that this is standard operating practice (as per Ms. LaGrange) or that the government isn’t trying to obstruct the AG’s investigation (as stated by the premier) are much harder to believe.
At the very least, if it really is standard operating procedure, it needs to stop right now!
Here endeth the lesson.
Former UCP minister sides with NDP call for full inquiry
Meanwhile, also yesterday, former Infrastructure Minister Peter Guthrie shocked tout le monde political Alberta by siding with the NDP in calling for a full judicial inquiry led by a real judge in to the dodgy contracts affair.
Mr. Guthrie resigned from Cabinet over its handling of the allegations in February, and he was barred from meeting with the UCP caucus for the sin of suggesting that Ms. LaGrange should have been removed from her post.
Still, he’s been allowed to sit on the UCP benches – although that may change soon. But what the heck, as he said yesterday, “I am now at Day 48 of my so-called 30-day suspension, impeding my democratic right to fully represent the people of Airdrie-Cochrane.”
So Mr. Guthrie tabled a couple of newspaper articles calling for a full judicial inquiry and used the opportunity to say that “if we have nothing to hide, we should take that path.” For this, he is unlikely ever to be forgiven by the premier or her henchpersons.
Mr. Guthrie’s former portfolio is an important part of this story. After all, in the face of allegations of about sketchy surgical contracts, he was obviously in a position to worry similar things might have been going on in other departments.
Lesser Slave Lake MLA Scott Sinclair, who was kicked right out of the UCP Caucus for saying he might vote against the government’s budget, also supported the NDP.
It’s almost comical, the beginning, middle and end to this fiasco.
Our dear leader sure can gaslight for days like the best of them, so obstruction now becomes facilitation. It seems she has learned well from her Trumpian idol.
This is the sort of thing that in the past would have caused a leader with a very weak, but still functioning moral compass to apologize profusely or resign. If Smith were not so shameless or unrepentant, she might now be giving a rousing Nixon like checkers speech, but these days contrition is not as fashionable as total denial. At least she hasn’t tried to fire the Auditor General yet, as far a we know.
I suspect Guthrie is tired of being in overtime in political purgatory and his vote is a dare now to Smith and the UCP. If they fail to act they will seem weak, if they kick him out they will seem vindictive. The UCP may silence some people involved in this scandal, but perhaps not enough. The former CEO of AHS and Guthrie being two they have failed to silence so far.
If some bureaucrats are too afraid to talk to the Auditor General now with the government and its lawyers closely watching, there is always still the time honoured tradition of giving anonymous information to interested reporters. Unfortunately for Nixon, it worked in Watergate and I suspect it may still work.
This is getting worse and worse, as the days go by. Credibility is something that the UCP never had, so they can’t lose that. Danielle Smith has a hard time understanding what conflicts of interest are. There is not a moral bone in her body. Most of the UCP MLAs, except Scott Sinclair and Peter Guthrie, seem to lack any moral compass. The sooner the UCP are gone, the better. However, the NDP will have a lot to clean up, just like they had to try and do from the horrific mess Ralph Klein left Alberta with.
The same premier who like a newly minted US president suggested pardons could be granted on a whim. These clowns’ future view could include an elected judiciary.
But Danielle Smith is the self-named “good cop”, according to the New York Times, which did not mention her side gig to the premier gig, as a dishwasher in a rail car. Too bad they didn’t rename her “Sherlock” re: her nickname “Trash Can Dani” and the incident involving fishing notes out of a garbage bin during her stint as a school trustee. She gets fired from a lot of jobs, they revealed. You don’t say!
I don’t even do the NYT free Wordle these days as part of my boycott of all things USian. I did read that article, thanks to someone else.
Smith and LaGrange keep digging themselves deeper and deeper as this goes along. The actions taken clearly are not those of someone who is innocent or nothing to see here.
And of course you have the not much spoken about Octo 35, whereby the UCP unlisted some optical services and reduced the amount eye doctors get paid for others. This means those on AISH and Seniors no longer get the free eye examinations they once did. It also means if you have glaucoma or retina problems you have to pay a portion of that. In my case that was $80 and is a clear violation of the Canada Health Act.
Did Stormy Danielle and Lagrange really think this would work? Anybody can see that the real purpose behind this was to ensure that front line staff would not be able to reveal any useful information to the Auditor General unless they wanted to be fired. Once again Smith shows her true colors. She obviously believes she can do whatever she wants and that the rules only apply to her enemies. After all, that’s how it works for her idol Trump. I hope the RCMP have awakened from their seven year nap with the Kenney “investigation” and are paying attention.
Lil Davey Parker is too busy co-opting school boards to maintain his strict control over the UCP/TBA government he owns.
Wow. This whole shitstorm is starting to look like a bad scriptwriter’s sequel to Bill van der Zalm’s Fantasy Garden real estate conflict of interest conflated with Tricky Dickie’s Watergate gong show.
As for the delay calling the Strathcona by-election – Smith will delay until 5 months and 29 days. She knows her peril if she flouts the by-election law.
I can always hope for 6 month or longer delay (Smith does have proven history of bad decisions …), because I strongly suspect Lt. Governor Lakhani will pull the pin on Smith given an irrefutable reason.
As the man said, “fools talk, cowards stay quiet, wise men listen”. All they had to do was pay out the remainder of the contract and have her sign a non disclosure, but that was beyond them. If they were too dim to figure out how to make it go away, they are way too stupid to govern a province. Sadly, since this is Alberta I still think nothing will come of this.
Five more defections, and the UCP is handcuffed.
Robert: So, we’re going to see five new members of Cabinet then? DJC