Nova Scotia is violating procurement rules for nursing home beds: AG report

The Nova Scotia auditor general is critical of the government’s monitoring of nursing homes being built.

HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government is violating procurement rules for nursing home beds and isn’t properly monitoring care facilities under construction, says a new report from the province’s auditor general.

Kim Adair said Tuesday the government did not use a competitive bidding process for 4,836 new nursing home beds when it awarded contracts to existing nursing home owners. Adair said the government’s actions raise questions about transparency and value for money.

In 2021, the government set a target of 5,700 new and replacement nursing home beds in 54 new facilities by 2032 at a total operational cost of $8.6 billion over 25 years.

“With billions of dollars at stake Nova Scotians deserve confidence that their tax dollars are delivering best value,” Adair told reporters.

In cases in which facilities were replacing or adding new beds, the report notes that 85 per cent of the beds were not tendered through the province’s normal bidding process. Instead, nursing home owners were given the right-of-first-refusal on the contracts.

The Department of Seniors and Long-term Care said its approach helped maintain stable relationships with existing service providers while saving money on setting up new operations; however, the report says the department provided no proof of the economic benefits.

Adair said the government is breaking its own procurement rules.

“In our view it’s a violation of the legislation,” she said. “There is nothing in the provincial Procurement Act that allows for the right of first refusal to the existing service provider .... they could address any of the concerns that they cited to us through the tendering process.”

Adair said her office also learned that before the creation of the Seniors and Long-term Care Department in 2021, there was no documentation on the need for 1,168 new and replacement beds included in the government’s 5,700 target.

Before 2021, the plan for new beds was administered by the Health Department. And Adair said her audit couldn’t assess more than 1,000 out of 5,700 beds because documentation hadn’t been transferred to the new department. The transfer failure, she said, ran contrary to the law that governs the management and retention of public records.

In its response in her report, the government said the transfer of relevant records between the departments was underway, and Adair told reporters that her office would follow up.

Adair’s report also found that the government, despite having a “robust approval process,” wasn’t following rules around the oversight of construction on nursing homes. The report looked at five new nursing home projects and found that 69 out of 158 approval process documents were not received by the department.

“It is crucial for the department to evaluate progress through approvals, monthly progress reports and formal signoffs so it can verify that projects are progressing,” the report says.

In a statement, Seniors Minister Barbara Adams said her department has already taken many of the necessary steps to address shortcomings identified in the report.

“We will continue to improve the planning and building process for new and replacement long-term care rooms while ensuring transparency, good value for money, and evidence-based decision-making,” said Adams.

Adair’s report says that as of October 2024, Nova Scotia has 7,405 nursing home beds in more than 102 facilities with a wait-list of 1,861 people.

As of April, four of the new nursing homes promised by the government have been completed.

By Keith Doucette

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2025.