Alberta premier distances herself from health procurement controversy

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she has nothing to hide as the RCMP continues investigating Alberta's health procurement contracts.

Premier Danielle Smith says she has nothing to hide when it comes to the province’s health procurement controversy.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Smith claimed she’s aware of the RCMP and auditor general investigations currently happening, but is keeping her distance.

One of her deputy ministers, Chris McPherson, has been providing officials with pertinent records.

“I think they ended up with two million documents,“ she said. “We set him up as an independent point of contact so that he would be able to correspond directly with councils as well as with those who are seeking the information.”

It’s been less than a week since Mounties executed search warrants at multiple locations tied to the health scandal, including MHCare Medical.

Sam Mraiche, an Edmonton businessman who has been granted more than $600 million dollars in provincial contracts, owns the company.

He’s repeatedly been accused of receiving sweetheart deals from the province, though denies any wrongdoing.

An independent report found last week Mraiche currently has an outstanding balance with taxpayers worth over $49 million. It stems back to a partially unfilled — though heavily publicized and criticized — agreement on children’s pain medication.

“It (was over) an AHS (Alberta Health Services) contract,” Smith said. “As I understand it, they were looking at one pathway to get an alternate product, and it appears they have exhausted that avenue.”

“AHS is now looking at means to be able to recover the outstanding balance.”

Smith didn’t fully explain Tuesday why talk of MHCare paying Albertans back only popped up after the report was released, some three years after the deal.

“There was a lot of sloppiness in how this contract was written, which is why we now have changed our process for strategic procurement,” she said.

Others in the Alberta Legislature aren’t impressed.

“The premier never, ever takes responsibility,” NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said. “She never, ever apologizes. But this shoddy contract is of her own making.”

New auditor general

Also Tuesday: an Alberta Legislature committee has recommended a new auditor general.

Phillip Peters, who is currently the general counsel and ethics officer in the agency, has been suggested to lead the watchdog.

His term would start in late April.

Peters would be responsible for taking over the long-running AG investigation into health procurement.

A representative from that office told CTV News the hope is to have the main interviews and investigating done by the time the new leader comes in. Peters would then likely only need to steer the report writing.