Nenshi says allegations in AHS lawsuit could constitute major scandal
By Alexandra Noad - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on February 15, 2025.
Former chief executive officer of AHS, Athana Mentzelopoulos, has filed a $1.7-million lawsuit against the minister of health for wrongful dismissal after she was fired last month.
Naheed Nenshi, leader of the Alberta NDP party, says he has seen the filed claims in the lawsuit and he says it explains and expands on the allegations.
Nenshi points to the claims in the lawsuit alleging Mentzelopoulos faced political pressure to sign contracts that appeared to exceed the cost of what could be provided by AHS themselves.
The claim alleges Mentzelopoulos received significant pushback as she attempted to perform due diligence regarding the contracts and was ultimately fired in a Zoom meeting with Deputy Minister of Health Andre Tremblay.
Nenshi says while these claims have not been proven, if they are true it “ranks among the largest scandals ever faced by any government in the history of Canada.”
Premier Danielle Smith has come out saying she was unaware of what has been detailed in the allegations.
“If she knew about it, then the premier is complicit and needs to resign immediately,” says Nenshi. “If she didn’t know about it, that means the premier is incompetent and does not know what’s going on in her own government and her own office with the largest, by far, budget item.”
Nenshi adds that these allegations are serious enough that LaGrange should step down immediately.
“These allegations are so serious, the health minister needs to do the right, ethical thing and resign today, if she fails to resign today the premier has to fire her.”
Nenshi is also calling on those mentioned in the allegations to “step aside” until the investigation from the auditor-general is complete and they should not investigate themselves.
“People who are named in the allegations cannot investigate themselves and when the premier was saying that she wants the reports delivered directly to her; premier you’re implicated (11 times in the statement claim),” says Nenshi. “How stupid do you think Albertans are that you’re going to hide these reports that are delivered directly to someone who’s implicated in them?”
He also believes that the gag order on AHS board members need to be released, so Albertans can hear from them what happened.
Nenshi believes it is likely police will also investigate the situation, noting there is currently an auditor-general investigation underway.
“I have incredible faith in our police system, unlike this government that defunds the police at every turn,” says Nenshi. “I have faith in the police and I know that the RCMP would take serious allegations seriously.”
Nenshi says he questions the priority the premier is putting on health care, noting that a large percentage of the population in Lethbridge without a family doctor and no physicians accepting new patients in the last year.
“This is a very big problem and it just shows that Danielle Smith and the UCP not only take Albertans for granted they also take rural Albertans and Albertans in smaller cities for granted, they don’t focus on those issues at all,” says Nenshi. “They have no respect for health care workers, they’re not focused on getting those answers right.”
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I really don’t think this will come close to the attention it deserves . This trend of authoritarian populism shows us bizarre behaviour and obvious corruption so often that what would have (and should have) been a major scandal in the past simply becomes a blip on the radar .
Not this time. It has garnered a lot of attention. Albertans vote for the Conservatives, only because their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents voted for them, and there is nothing Conservative about them. Can Albertans see the difference between Peter Lougheed, and what came after, including the UCP? The Conservatives in Alberta have been doing so many very costly debacles and mistakes, ever since Peter Lougheed was no longer premier of Alberta, which was wrong. This is far too serious to be ignored. What it entails is quite bad.
https://www.abresistance.ca/the_breakdown_ucp_corruption_map
https://www.scribd.com/document/827797277/Statement-of-Claim-Mentzelopoulos
Nenshi, ask yourself why Calgarians don’t like you and would not vote for you! Doctor shortages are North American wide! Not just in Lethbridge. You don’t know anything about Lethbridge!
Your NDP policies destroyed our once great and clean city with your Supervised Drug Consumption Site that we didn’t want, destroyed our businesses downtown and your failed harm reduction policies killed thousands of young people.
My business has never recovered from the issues and people still do not want to come downtown. Before you start attacking another leader who has done great things in this province, reduced the fatal overdoses by almost 40% and proved to be one the best diplomats in dealing with the Trump tariff crisis, you better have a long look at your own track record.
Rob Miyashiro is not without guilt, since he was one of the biggest supporters of the harm reduction policies and the drug site and defunding police as a city councillor and at one point was against an oversight board for the Lethbridge and District Exhibition new Agro building.
Some of us are considering pushing for an investigation into the by-election as well, after reports of large numbers of people without proper ID. I think we should call for an investigation into that. I know that the UCP West doesn’t appear to have called it out, so maybe the public needs to so we can trust the next elections coming up this year! People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones! In fact, I think I am going to get our small group of business owners to consider this, when we meet for coffee later today!
The only other person I change the channel on these days when they speak on the news besides Trudeau and Trump is you Nenshi! But go ahead, make false accusations without basis, and when the truth comes out, you will be the fool once again!
Couldn’t have been said better by someone who actually has skin in the business game.
My, do you ever concoct a fabulous word salad. What great things has the UCP and Danielle Smith done for Alberta? Nothing. So many very costly debacles and mistakes, which now are well over $80 billion, conflicts of interest and ethics breaches, the highest rate of inflation in Canada, the highest power prices in Canada, (which were also caused by Ralph Klein’s deregulation of electricity, TransAlta manipulating power prices and economic witholding from the UCP), the highest rental increases in Canada, in Calgary and in Edmonton, the highest rate of food bank usage in Canada, the highest insurance costs in Canada, along with Ontario, and Alberta has the highest rate of unemployment in Canada.
We still haven’t recovered from Ralph Klein’s senseless cuts to the public healthcare system in Alberta. Ralph Klein closed down hospitals, and got other hospitals demolished, underfunded existing hospitals, and laid off many nurses.
The UCP blew money on scrapping the beneficial superlab that the NDP started to get built. The UCP reversed the positive changes that the NDP made to DynaLife. When the UCP realized they were wrong, they blew a very large amount of money on the DynaLife debacle, which the UCP caused. The UCP blew $80 million on Turkish Tylenol, which couldn’t be used. The UCP blew $253,000 and $2 million on Preston Manning to produce a covid report that is junk. The UCP blew $2 million and added costs on others to produce another very bad pandemic management report for Alberta. The UCP stopped Edmonton from getting a much needed brand new hospital, that the NDP were going to give Edmonton. The UCP hired many more of their Conservative crony friends to help dismantle AHS, which will solve nothing.
There is nothing Conservative about the UCP and Danielle Smith at all. Why are you supporting this?
You might want to think again about how elections have been in Alberta, under the UCP, before you start spouting off about another political party.
UCP members, including a UCP MLA, were given fines for election related infractions, which totalled around $200,000. The former so called ‘premier’ of Alberta went away to Texas on a useless jaunt, and fired the Alberta Elections Commissioner, Lorne Gibson, and his entire staff, who were investigating his leadership race and had issued the fines to UCP members for not following election rules.
Danielle Smith wouldn’t allow by-elections to happen in vacant ridings which lacked an MLA, but she chose to run in the riding of Brooks Medicine Hat, where a UCP MLA, Michaela Frey was, and stepped down, without completing her term as an MLA, just so Danielle Smith could run there. Danielle Smith gave Michaela Frey a well paying, pointless position in return. Calgary Elbow sat without an MLA for months, and Danielle Smith wouldn’t allow a by-election to happen there. Danielle Smith also delayed by-elections to happen in vacant ridings, which lacked an MLA. Danielle Smith also made empty election promises, such as personal tax cuts, which still haven’t happened, just to get the UCP re-elected. In addition, Danielle Smith made a bunch of bad bills, which undermine democracy in Alberta even more, such as Bill 1, Bill 8, Bill 10, Bill 11, Bill 18, Bill 20, Bill 21, Bill 33, Bill 34, and so on.
David Parker and Take Back Alberta, who are associated with Danielle Smith and the UCP, were given over $100,000 in fines for election related infractions.
The ones who should never be throwing stones in glass houses are the UCP.
Actual Conservatives don’t support Danielle Smith and the UCP.
https://lethbridgeherald.com/commentary/letters-to-the-editor/2025/01/27/smiths-mar-a-lago-trip-grounds-for-dismissal/
Naheed Nenshi didn’t make these accusations. In fact, he had nothing to do with them at all. Athana Mentzelopoulos was hired by the UCP. She blew the whistle over very bad things she saw happening at AHS, that were connected to Sam Mraiche, and others in the UCP party. Danielle Smith fired her for that.
Albertans never seem to learn, and it shows. When was the last time this province had an actual Conservative government? It’s been many, many years ago. Peter Lougheed was an actual Conservative. He would be very displeased with the antics of the UCP and Danielle Smith, if he were still around.
Under the Alberta PCs, they did so many very costly debacles, ever since Peter Lougheed was no longer the premier of Alberta. The loss of $575 billion, after they permanently altered Peter Lougheed’s excellent oil royalty rate structure. The failure to enforce oil companies in Alberta to remediate their messes, leaving Albertans with a mammoth bill of $260 billion to deal with this. Failure to properly top up the Heritage Savings Trust Fund, like Peter Lougheed did, while using it as their own personal piggy bank. The loss of $150 billion in added revenue, due to bad tax policies.
$100 billion in other very costly debacles, such as Alpac, Novatel, metal smelting plants, pulp and paper mills, like Daishowa and Miller West Pulp, Swan Hills, trying to salvage a sinking shopping mall (West Edmonton Mall), on a failed farmer’s aid fund, on a disability payment debacle, on consolidation of paramedic dispatch services in Alberta, the well over $30 billion electricity deregulation debacle in Alberta, the $10 billion Power Purchase Agreements debacle, on carbon sequestration, on luxury sky palaces, on pricey plane flights, which were full of empty seats, a mega billion dollar lawsuit ploy against the tobacco companies, blew $35 billion on a bitumen upgrader debacle, and so on.
Since the early 1990s, the Alberta PCs failed to properly upkeep infrastructure in Alberta, which left Alberta with an infrastructure debt that is now nearly $30 billion, or even more.
The UCP lost over $10 billion, from corporate tax cuts, which didn’t produce a single new hire, blew well over $7 billion on a pipeline bet gone bad, lost $4 billion on a pension fund debacle, lost nearly $2 billion from the Heritage Savings Trust Fund, and lost even more money from that fund, lost $1.6 billion on an “accounting error”, borrowed $25 billion, without asking Albertans about it, and the UCP have never revealed what they have used the money for, blew a total of $16 billion on 2 very imbalanced “aid packages” for Alberta, blew billions of dollars trying to prop up the Alberta PCs $35 billion bitumen upgrader debacle, cost Albertans well over $100 billion, since June of 2020, with their economic witholding, power price gouging debacle, lost $4 billion, without any paper trail, has coal mining companies suing the UCP for nearly $4 billion, $10.8 billion, and $15 billion, for breaking contract agreements, blew billions of dollars on various voter bribery schemes, blew $20 billion on the R-Star debacle, blew $8.6 billion on new school construction, most of which will be for schools that are outside of the public education system in Alberta, caused the Green Line project in Calgary to rise to a staggering $20 billion cost, and so many more.
The UCP have also treated the vulnerable, seniors, medical professionals, teachers, students, rural property owners, the environment and democracy in Alberta with disdain.
There is nothing Conservative about this at all.
Well said Dwayne. Unfortunately ur facts about the extreme mismanagement and corruption within the UCP will fall on deaf ears of those lemmings that see no evil within Smith’s leadership.
Too late for that now. When UCP MLAs can’t even ignore what has transpired, it shows the magnitude of this is very extreme.
https://www.stalbertgazette.com/alberta-news/alberta-premier-responds-to-cabinet-members-request-to-move-health-minister-10242181
6 UCP MLAs is all it will take to bring the UCP down. It can even be more, but 6 would do it. Because if they are ultra sensitive to what has happened, and have some amount of a conscience, they may sit as independent MLAs, or resign. It’s likely that there will be UCP MLAs jumping ship.