Opposition calls for public inquiry into AHS allegations
By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on February 20, 2025.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com
Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi joined Kathleen Ganley, Alberta NDP MLA for Calgary-Mountain View Wednesday afternoon to respond to the Premier Danielle Smith and Health Minister’s announcement.Â
“We are here today to talk about the press conference the government just held. There was a pretty intense smokescreen there, so we think it’s worth boiling down what’s actually going on,” said Ganley.
The former head of AHS, Athana Mentzelopoulos, alleges in a lawsuit filed a week ago that she was wrongfully dismissed by Tremblay from her job for looking into questionable contracts pushed by government officials as high up as the premier’s office.
The statement of claim alleges Mentzelopoulos was pressured by government officials to sign off on contracts with surgical facilities at unjustified, inflated prices, potentially leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for private clinic owners.
None of the allegations have not been tested in court, and a statement of defence has not been filed.
 “There’s no way that it’s appropriate for the government to investigate. It’s just wrong, and no sort of weird legal wall or whatever it is they’re talking about is going to solve that problem,” said Ganley.
 She said there needs to be a public inquiry for there to be public confidence in this process, and as for the premier saying she didn’t know that there was an investigation going on at AHS, Ganley said this is not how ethical, incompetent government works.
 “As a former minister myself, if there had been an investigation going on for months in my department and I had never told the Premier about it, I would expect to get fired,” said Ganley.
 Nenshi said he was watching the press conference with Ganley, who was the former Minister of Justice, and he had lots of “lawyer questions.” He added that he heard lots of lawyer answers about the challenges that we have seen.
“But let’s reiterate, here’s what Alberta’s New Democrats have been calling for: 1. A completely transparent public inquiry led by a judge, 2. For every single person who’s implicated in this statement of claim to step aside because you can’t investigate yourself, and 3. for all private surgery facility procurements to be paused, because it’s clear that if you’re pulling on the end of this, there is a lot more there and we cannot start allocating these private surgical facility contracts when there’s a question hanging over the procurement,” said Nenshi.
 He added that instead the government did none of those three things. They have not done a single thing to bring forward trust in this process.
 “What we saw from the Premier, as always, was a master class in gaslighting. And deflecting in diffusing and attempting to talk about other things and make people mad about other things and not taking any responsibility,” said Nenshi.
 He said they are used to that, but what they are not used to is that when hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars are at stake.
 “But let’s back up. We’ve known for some time that these private surgical facilities don’t work. We know that wait times for hip and knee replacements remain among the highest in the country, far above benchmark and they haven’t gotten any better despite the perceived need to bring in all these private surgical facilities,” said Nenshi.
 He said that since the government system doesn’t actually work, since there have not been any hip and knee replacement surgeries at the Royal Alexander Hospital in Edmonton for nearly a year in a public hospital.
 “We know it doesn’t work. So why has the government been pushing so hard on these? Well, if the allegations in this statement of claim are true, we know why. The allegations are that there was political favoritism, that there was kickbacks and that there was undue political pressure from government,” said Nenshi.
 He questioned why the Premier is so scared of just coming out with the truth. Why won’t she just call a public inquiry? And Nenshi said it is because she doesn’t want Albertans to know the truth, because the truth is ugly.
 “The truth is so bad that she refuses to take the simple step of removing the people who are implicated and ensuring that we have a full transparent public inquiry that, and this is critical, that reports to the legislature and to the public,” said Nenshi.
 He claims that everything the premier said Wednesday is meaningless, because in the end these reports will report to the Premier, who is herself implicated.
 “So, I ask Kathleen, what exactly is the legal wall? And Kathleen said it doesn’t really mean anything because it doesn’t mean anything,” said Nenshi.
He said the problem with the legal wall is that it is meaningless because the people involved report to others involved in the process.
“The premier said the corporate council for AHS will be in charge, not the CEO of AHS. Who’s the corporate council’s boss? Well, that would be the CEO of AHS. So, she’s asking people to investigate their own bosses. And to whom will the report be sent to? the bosses,” said Nenshi.
He said it would be sent to the AHS CEO, to the Deputy Minister of Health, to the Ministry of Health Adriana LaGrange and ultimately to the Premier.
“So, the challenge is that she basically is creating a system where there is no transparency, where people are investigating their own bosses and who is going to write a report to their boss saying, ‘oh, you were guilty of bad conduct, maybe criminal conduct.’ Obviously, the premier does not want us to know the truth,” said Nenshi.
He said the only thing she announced today that is different from anything Albertans already known is that Andre Tremblay has three jobs only has two now.
“As CEO of AHS, he reports to himself as official administrator and he reports to himself as the deputy minister. Well, now he only has two jobs. It’s still terrible governance and it doesn’t help us get to the bottom of this situation,” said Nenshi.
He added that he doesn’t believe the Premier’s story about not knowing what was going on as she claimed that nobody told her.
 “She didn’t know what her own chief of staff was doing? I have to tell you something, a chief of staff only does what their principal wants them to do, or they’re not a good chief of staff. So only one of two things is true here. She really didn’t know, which means that it didn’t occur to the Minister of Health to tell the Premier about a massive scandal costing hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Nenshi.
 Nenshi says if that is the case the Minister of Health is incompetent and needs to be fired and it also means that Alberta has a premier who has no idea what her ministers are doing, who has no idea what her own chief of staff is doing, and that means she is incompetent, and Albertans need to fire her.
 “Or she’s misleading us and she knew the whole time. Well, if that’s the case, I think it’s a pretty low bar for us to say Albertans deserve a premier who actually tells the truth. So, in the end there really is nothing here. The premier is attempting to gaslight, she’s attempting to bury this thing, she’s attempting to hope that it all goes away,” said Nenshi.
– with files from The Canadian Press
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A fully independent investigation into this is the only way to go. Danielle Smith doesn’t want that, so it speaks volumes.
There is already inquiries ongoing and a lawsuit and all will shed light on the issue. We do not need a public inquiry at this time when our focus needs to be on adjusting to crisis of having a dictator in the US threatening our economy and livelihoods.
But the NDP has always being short-sighted and unable to see real issues.
How is that lawsuit NDP Shannon Phillips launched against the LPS? Another tab the taxpayers have to pickup! The NDP thinks money grows on trees or they can just tax corporations to pay for all their social service programs! I would think at a time like this every MLA, and MP would be trying to work together for a better Canada when the US is trying to kill our economy to take over our country, but once again, the NDP is only trying to make political gains! Attack attack attack!
Another fantastic word salad you concocted. The UCP thinks that money grows on trees. All the UCP have done is carry on with the fiscal ineptitude and poor planning that the Alberta PCs did, ever since Peter Lougheed was no longer premier of Alberta. So far, the UCP have made well over $80 billion in very costly debacles and mistakes, and the UCP have also treated the vulnerable, seniors, medical professionals, teachers, students, rural property owners, the environment and democracy in Alberta with disdain.