Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has declared herself, her political aides and her government vindicated by a former Manitoba judge’s limited investigation of contract jiggery-pokery at Alberta Health Services.
In a statement released today on the Alberta Government’s website, Ms. Smith declared that the report by Raymond Wyant pins the blame entirely on Alberta Health Services, the province-wide health agency that her government is dismantling as quickly as it can.
“There is no evidence the premier, any minister, political staff member or member of the Alberta Public Service acted improperly in this matter,” her statement crowed.
This is, as Albertans are coming to understand about many of Premier Smith’s statements, not strictly true.
As Mr. Wyant, the former chief justice of the Manitoba Provincial Court, himself explained in his report: “It is important to underscore that this investigation was limited in that … it had specific Terms of Reference (TOR) and I have kept most of my comments in this report directed to those TOR. While other topics and potential collateral issues arose during the course of my investigation, I did not have the mandate to pursue those within my investigation.”
He continued: “Unlike a public inquiry, this investigation did not have the power to subpoena or hear testimony under oath. As a result, people had the opportunity to decline to be interviewed. Some did. Further, because testimony was not under oath, people could decline to answer questions. Some did. Further, because there was not the kind of vigorous examination and cross examination that would take place in a formal setting, I could not come to conclusions on the credibility of information provided verbally by interviewees. In most cases, I perceived, based on my experience, that people were striving to tell the truth and to recall events in as much detail as possible. However, there were occasions where I was left with the impression that might not be the case nor that full and complete information was being provided.”
So based on that, there is no evidence in Mr. Wyant’s report, for reasons that the former judge makes clear may not tell the whole story.
You are free, Dear Readers, to exercise your own judgment about whether or not this report really amounts to a vindication of Premier Smith, her aides and her government.
That said, I would be astonished if one or more Postmedia political columnists is not now typing up a screed with the V-word in the lead in order to assist you in reaching the conclusion desired by the government.
They will have material to work with from the premier’s statement. “Although the judge’s findings clearly indicate that elected officials, senior staff and members of the public service acted appropriately in these matters, I am deeply disappointed with the way these procurements and contracts were dealt with by AHS decision makers and some of its employees,” Ms. Smith’s statement says.
Remember, the allegations that Mr. Wyant was hired to investigate were made by former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos, who was fired by the Smith Government when she tried to launch an internal investigation into what happened. Obviously, this raises certain questions that could not be asked, let alone answered, by Mr. Wyant.
Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s wrongful dismissal lawsuit continues.
Mr. Wyant himself certainly seemed to be concerned about how future readers might interpret his conclusions. “When I find that there was no wrongful interference by any government official in the matters concerning this report, that only means that I found no evidence of such, but I am not in a position to make a final and absolute determination,” he explained. “I can only make conclusions based on the documents I was able to review and the people I interviewed.” (Emphasis added.)
Under the circumstances, it’s hard to fault him for this concern.
The report includes 18 sensible recommendations including creating whistleblower protection for AHS employees, prohibiting one individual from acting for both AHS and a vendor in the same deal, blocking anyone involved in such a transaction from using their personal email address, and ensuring that all contracts over $10 million are reviewed by a procurement lawyer. The recommendations are found on pages 40-42 of the report.
Premier Smith said in her statement that “I am immediately directing the deputy minister of Executive Council, Dale McFee, to work with all impacted ministries and the new health procurement secretariat to implement judge Wyant’s recommendations as quickly as possible so that future health procurement is done transparently, using best practices.”
Since some of Mr. Wyant’s recommendations apply specifically to AHS – which the government is in the process of dismantling – it will be interesting to see if these instructions are interpreted to include the other so-called “pillars” in the UCP’s increasingly fractured public health care system.
Ms. Smith’s statement concludes: “This will include the accelerated implementation of the Activity-Based Funding model for surgical services that will see a standard, non-negotiated fee paid to providers for each completed surgery, thereby increasing transparency and more efficient use of taxpayer dollars going forward.”
This sounds like a classic example of never letting a serious crisis go to waste.
This is because the so-called activity-based funding model in effect turns all hospitals into for-profit institutions, an ideological goal of the UCP Government.
Activity-based funding is commonly used to game the system to ensure that corporate hospitals make more money. “The incentive is to list all of the diagnoses you can possibly list for every patient, as some of these will increase the payment even if it does not change your management one bit,” warned Prof. Jonathan Ross of the University of Toledo in Ohio in a 2013 article.
It is also likely to result in patients being discharged too early because keeping them in hospital impacts the facility’s bottom line.
This is excellent news. Now she can focus on license plates, killing public education and building provincial monuments to herself. Frig me! Bartender…..
I would encourage people to google a recent Guardian article: ‘UK government wins 122m pandemic case against Michelle Mone-linked firm over faulty PPE’. It’s very similar to what we have seen in Alberta, with politically-connected businesses paid millions for PPE, then failing miserably in their commitments.
In the British case, large contracts were given to a company called PPE Medpro, which was owned by one Doug Barrowman, coincidentally, married to a conservative peer by the name of Michelle Mone. The PPE did not meet the standard and was never used and – like the dubious PPE supplied to Alberta by MHCare – has since been stored in a warehouse at a cost of millions to the taxpayer.
Exhibiting the typical humanity and morals of a capitalist, Mr. Barrowman has deftly hollowed out his company in order to provide a trust of tens of millions for his wife and daughters. So, the 122 million pound judgement in favor of the people is entirely symbolic.
Here in Alberta it’s unlikely we are ever to get even the faint satisfaction of an unenforceable civil judgement.
I wonder if the weather is nice this time of year in Mar-A-Lago or Panama, and if one should pack sunblock and mosquito spray.
If Judge Wyatt found his investigation into this matter of government corruption wanting, why didn’t he recommend a full public inquiry?
Why on earth do retired judges take these assignments when the terms of reference are so narrow the judge is hobbled, blinkered and with a shadow roll thrown in for good measure. Is it ego or naivety. All this judge has done is give Smith and the UCP an out. This happens all the time and yet these retired judges continue to accept these horse shit assignments.
You raise an interesting point, JE. It does beg the question how many retired judges did the UCP approach before they hired Mr. Wyant?
Judge Wyant at least availed the opportunity to state clearly that he could not possibly get to the bottom of this scandal with the narrow mandate he was given (and accepted—point taken), without authority to compel testimony or opportunity to hear cross examination of it, and that he had good reason to believe pertinent information was being withheld. Insofar as that corollary might well be useful in finally getting to the bottom of this horseshit government’s perfidy—noting that Wyant’s conclusion leaves this forensic opportunity wide open—it speaks well of his ego and dispels any concern about naivety.
Perhaps he’ll learn from this the next time the UCP ask him to delve into nefarious practices.
Depending on what his remuneration is, of course.
Retired judges are the only choice the UPC have. a non retired judge can not be bias or have any polical oppinion.
A quick refresher once again on the revolving door policy at AHS, please. I think it spun so hard it broke the sound barrier when top executives were ejected.
Yes, already Postmedia has declared the Alberta government political establishment and their appointees to be found vindicated, despite Judge Wyant offering that he was quite limited in the question of government interference in the contract work of AHS. So therefore he could offer no opinion on this given his terms of reference. So when will The National Post be renamed to The Rightful Bog Wipe or such?
“Since some of Mr. Wyant’s recommendations apply specifically to AHS ……. fractured pubic health care system.” Typo here – public?
GMG: I think you know the answer to your rhetorical question. Why, yes! Well, for once I was tempted to leave it just as it was. But … no. It’s been fixed. DJC
Well this seems to be a kind of a “mistakes were made” type report which doesn’t really delve into the who were to blame part too much, which to be fair really wasn’t the mandate given to the judge. He does have come up with recommendations to improve AHS processes that could possibly help avoid such problems in the future, but don’t address political interference which could be the real issue, so maybe not.
I do like the judge’s particularly lengthy and detailed disclaimer statement about his investigation vs. a public inquiry, which is clear and needed in this situation. I feel a lot of the wording is somewhat standard or expected, except for the last two sentences of which the last one in particular is quite pointed. So should there ever be a public inquiry, I hope the judge can come and elaborate on the part about full and complete information possibly not being provided. I feel he has probably done the best he could with his limited mandate.
I am not surprised that Smith has tried to spin this as vindication even though no evidence found so far does not equal not guilty. It could just mean that the government has been able to somewhat manage and control what information others get. Interestingly, the former AHS CEO is also claiming this report as vindication. Sorry, I don’t think both her and Smith can be correct in their interpretations which are in conflict. So yes we still need a public inquiry to really get to the bottom of this.
This report was never meant to get to the truth. Marlaina and her stooges carefully drafted the terms of reference so that none of them would have to answer any questions. I don’t understand why this judge agreed to this sham in the first place. How much was he paid to produce this for the UCP? The only way we will ever know what happened is through a full public inquiry with the power to compel testimony. That will never happen under Marlaina’s watch. Hopefully the RCMP are doing something other than twiddling their thumbs.
Marlaina uses the release of the report to once again push her privatization agenda. She could not care less about public healthcare. She only wants to ensure that a few cronies become wealthy and she will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
The politically corrupt judges go along with this because they get paid major (taxpayer) money.
RCMP? I assumed that Ms. Smith would wait until that venerable institution is replaced by Marlaina’s Mounted Muppets, which org. will issue a RFP for shovels to bury this sucker out behind the Bar-None gas bar on Hwy 14. Squeaky clean, squeaky clean.
Smith’s gloating over her alleged victory begs the question: If she knew she and her minions had committed no wrongdoing, then why did she consistently refuse to call a public hearing from the outset? She would have had nothing to fear from it. Which leads to another question about Smith’s overall record of behaviour in office: when is karma going to come around and bite her ass? Just a rhetorical question.
Danielle Smith isn’t vindicated, and neither are the UCP, no matter how much she tries to gloat and boast about it. Postmedia newspapers put in a misleading headline which makes it look like Danielle Smith has been cleared of any misdeeds, but she isn’t out of the water yet. The way this was rigged, so that Danielle Smith could restrict what powers this former judge that she hand selected has, and how she carefully timed the release date of the investigation findings, before a weekend, when Albertans are preoccupied with municipal elections, makes her look even more guilty. This saga isn’t over yet.
IMO, in his carefully crafted reply (the words in italics above) does suggest that a lot of not nice stuff was being done by Danielle Smith and the UCP. I take it that the fact so many UCP MLA’s, Minister’s and layabouts refused to testify certainly points to the possibility of illegal misbehaviour. After all, it’s the UCP’s modus operandi as the past couple of years have shown.
I have only skimmed the intro to the report but the way I read it Mr. Wyant is saying that he is pretty sure there is malfeasance, almost certainly criminal. His stress on tho AG’s ability to hear testimony under oath clearly show that he thinks he has been lied to and had relevant information withheld. He also points out that the document dumps were intended to hamper or sabotage the enquiry. That reference to the RCMP was also rather pointed.
Overall, it sounds like a very damaging report though the press may or may not present it that way.
JK: I agree with this assessment, for what it’s worth. It’s significant that no cabinet ministers were interviewed by Mr. Wyant. The premier says he never asked. I find this hard to believe, but, hey, anything’s possible. Someone should ask Mr. Wyant about that, though, and if he says he didn’t ask any of them, the logical followup question would be, “Why not?” DJC
Isn’t “some refused to be interviewed” coming across as classic political speak for “I’m not going to name names but you can likely figure out who I’m talking about” ? That was my impression anyway.
Bird: No cabinet members were interviewed. That is all we need to know, I think. DJC
The results of this should be no surprise to anyone. A bogus handcuffed terms of reference usually results in a bogus non result report. The bad contracting has been there for years and no one did anything about it. The question always comes up of how far up the chain does the knowledge of this and inaction go. Seeing Smith at an Oilers playoff game in the private booth seems to me the corruption goes right to the Premier’s office. In spite of what Smith thinks, people indeed are watching and given the opportunity love nothing better to embarrass her. Maybe when Thomas Lukaszuk is done with the Forever Canadian petition, he could start one to demand a public inquiry into the Corrupt Care Scandal so we can get the real truth?
Maple MAGA translation of report: We poked around a bit and found we did nothing wrong. It is amusing how this BS works so effectively in Alberta.
I recall from my RPC days that was this one maxim that everyone was told (ordered) to hold to in the event that there was some bad news coming down the pipeline.
When in doubt, declare victory.
As it turns out, any bit of bad news about someone’s credibility or integrity could be easily washed away by simply spewing a whole batch of what-about-isms or I-reject-your-premise. These two, among a bunch of other responses, were designed to deflect and dispose of justifiable claims against one of the RPC’s own.
The whole ‘Staffer Jaffer’ scandal from days of yore was originally dressed up with all kinds of denials and deflections, until the audio recording was made public. In those days, there was no A.I., so there was no chance of yelling fake news. These days, all news if fake, so believe none of it.
Queen Danielle is playing this in her usual manner, calling it a nothingburger, as well as stressing the well-what-are-you-going-to do about-it? It’s the last one that seems to stymie everyone.
In the end, journalism has just gotten lazy, politicians more brazen in their lying, and any notions of trust in public institutions is immediately considered misplaced. Welcome to this brave new world — politics of self-destruction be damned.
Want more evidence the UCP is shamelessly out to break healthcare?
No notice that there is a 2 month window where we are asked to pre-order our flu shot for 2026!! At https://bookvaccine.alberta.ca/s/preorder
There was a time when they pretended they weren’t anti-vax. No longer.
Danielle Smith’s promise to implement Judge Wyant’s recommendations—“immediately,” no less—is tantamount to claiming exoneration à la Donald F tRump while promising to never do it again.
This reminds me of the Mueller Report. Trump’s AG Barr limited Mueller’s investigation – don’t follow the money, don’t interview key witnesses, etc. And then claim full vindication before anyone has actually read the report! Control the narrative. Once again Danielle is mimicking trump.
The fact remains that Alberta Health Services is a government agency operating under an Alberta Ministry of Health that is responsible for setting the policies, legislation and standards that are the AHS mandate, so it seems reasonable to assume that “if Satan casts out Satan, against himself (herself) he (she) was divided, how then does his (her) kingdom stand?”
That is, “There was always widespread skepticism about the motives of various governments when they appointed inquiries, usually in an effort to damp down public controversy and get themselves off the hook for a time, but never about the ability of inquiries to accomplish what they had been asked to do.” Or as stated above,
“When I find that there was no wrongful interference by any government official in the matters concerning this report, that only means that I found no evidence of such, but I am not in a position to make a final and absolute determination,” he explained. “I can only make conclusions based on the documents I was able to review and the people I interviewed.”
So, with the foregoing firmly in mind, obviously and naturally it must be time for Punky Poilievre, the Canadian Clouseau and all around Trumpstein wannabe, to be assigned the case.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-rcmp-trudeau-cover-up-9.6940885
King’s gambit…imho, if you can’t find someone to throw under the bus, hire a “recognized professional ” to find you not guilty by throwing them under the bus before they start the job . Hard to get anything done when you’re being pinned down by the tires.
United Criminal Propaganda
And Skippy is a fluorescent shade of green right now because JT is making the celebrity headlines, just when he’s “campaigning” for his leadership review with the same old slogan propaganda that he’s been using for 3yrs.
I have a stuffed toy that I use for telemarketers, it’s called the annoying thing— that’s what he is.
King’s— PS: anyone who donated to the Cons to give Skippy the $3 million makeover should be demanding their money back; he hasn’t changed at all since his pubescent stint as the ghoul in the gallery, watching JT being being sworn in. The obsession seems ever lasting…sad really. And which Trumpstein? Eric
Einstein said a long time ago that doing the same over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of being an IDIOT.
Well I think that we over a over do this and again this time, we just want to believe we have a democracy and we live under the rule of law.
Well my friends we do not and as far as I know, the rule of law depends on how much money you have.
Danielle Smith can claim whatever she wants and she can use power to hide her lies and secrets and get away with murder, but she has to be careful. This toxicity of a pseudo-democratic system is coming to a head and she may very well find herself under the investigation of a real rule of law where she cannot pull any strings.
I will have no compassion for this crook if that day comes and hopefully there will be no bail either. The result will then be different and we all stop being IDIOTS.
Carlos: This is the kind of political garbage that one would expect from countries like Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, and the like. Danielle Smith would fit right in with that.
You leaving out america for a particular reason or !? The mess that is the phillipines today likely would not exist without the meddling of the American government and their desire to implement the Washington consensus everywhere on the planet.
As far as Mexico goes, don’t even get me started but suffice to say they wouldn’t have a problem with cartel violence if it wasn’t for the river of iron running south; the ATF was definitely implicated in LETTING those guns through intentionally, at least once in the fast and furious operation, and they conveniently ended up in the hands of the Sinaloa cartel, whom the DFS and the CIA had “chosen” to be the victor in the war that broke out between Chapo and his former partners.
I’ve said enough about Russia to last a lifetime and no one who is convinced that Putin is a monster who eats babies will be swayed otherwise but man; for a guy that eats babies his approval ratings are through the roof. Pretty popular internationally as well. Kind of makes Cheeto Mussolini look like an uneducated farce who often has diarrhea coming from both ends.
What is that sulphurous odor that follows Danielle Smith everywhere?
This isn’t over yet. A very strong gut feeling tells me that this is going to get even uglier. Danielle Smith thought she could clear herself, but that will still be impossible.
I can’t tell if Yankee Doodle Dani is so dumb she thinks she’s fooling us, or if she thinks WE’RE so dumb She’s fooling us; either way it’s insulting. What’s next ? Pin the tail on the donkey ? A Trudeau piñata in every mailbox !? What’s next Danielle !?
Until people get a grip on themselves and recognize that money is power, and not a reward in a meritocracy like Barbara Amiel and Creflow Dollar like to tell us, this is what we will get. Only the rich have an incentive to pursue private healthcare, or pretty much private anything for that matter. They have the power to get what they want and their power is only increasing.