Critics have ‘zero confidence’ that full AHS procurement report will be made public

Public Interest Alberta's Brad Lafortune speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the delay in delivery for a health care procurement report.

Public Interest Alberta Executive Director, Brad Lafortune, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the delay in delivery for a report into health care procurement practices.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: Let’s start on this decision to delay delivery of the interim and final reports from former Judge Wyant.

Your organization has raised a red flag. Why is a four-month delay concerning?

Brad Lafortune: It’s concerning from a number of points. The first is that we’re in the middle of three by-elections right now, and I think Albertans have been waiting a long time to have some transparency and accountability with respect to these allegations that have come out when it comes to private surgery contracts and other contracts in health care.

We were told by the deputy minister of executive council at the time, Chris McPherson, and the premier, that we would have a report from the chief judge in a few months, by the end of May, and now we have at least a three to four month delay which is going to take us past those by-elections, which I don’t think is accidental.

MH: So you would have preferred to have this information available to have what impact on the by-elections?

BL: For transparency and for people to make an informed decision in these by-elections about whether or not they think the government is doing a good job at handling the health care system.

We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars here, potentially, that have been mismanaged. There are a lot of questions about the ethics of this decision, and so we were hoping for that report to come out so that Albertans could have some information.

I would say these reports do take a long time, I’ve worked in government before, but at least we could have an interim report, or an update, some sort of sense of what direction this is headed in and what the judge has found.

MH: Would it not make sense to extend timelines, though, if it is that there is an abundance of information for this former chief judge to get through?

In the interest of thoroughness, would you not want that to play out?

BL: Absolutely. We want to see a fulsome report that deals with all of the information that’s coming in. What we’ve been advocating for at Public Interest Alberta is a fully independent public inquiry under the Inquiries Act that would be completely separated from any internal government processes.

That report might also take some time, but there would be full trust from Albertans that this process was not being undertaken by the Government of Alberta, and by an appointed former judge, to really underscore the independence of that process.

We’ve been saying all along that we’ve had concerns about this internal process, but we were eagerly waiting on the report. To your question, absolutely we want to make sure that we get to the bottom of this, because these are very serious allegations, but when the government announced the investigation, they said this would be enough time to get the answers that we need.

As it turns out, now we might have more questions about what it is that they’re finding because it does need more time, according to Danielle Smith.

MH: With the number of documents apparently at play, the number of interviews that need to be conducted or reviewed, what does that maybe then say to you about where this investigation is at or the investigation itself? Is there something you can take from that?

BL: I think that it points to the direction of just how widespread the concerns are about procurement processes within the Government of Alberta, specifically health care, but we’ve also got concerns about infrastructure spending as well, more generally.

When we saw the Government of Alberta saying that if you’re a staff person within the civil service, we want you to go through our official legal channels in order to submit documentation to the auditor general. We have concerns about the potential for intentional delays and managing the process. Whether it’s the auditor general investigation or the retired judge’s investigation by the Government of Alberta and the senior most officials, including the premier’s office, in trying to manage that process in a way that I think erodes trust in that process for Albertans.

These allegations are very serious, and they do implicate former staff from the premier’s office, potentially the health minister, potentially the premier herself, and so I think there is a concern that I have, and Albertans probably have, about why it is that the government would potentially want to delay this report and also manage the process in developing that report as well.

MH: So in saying that, how confident are you that Albertans will see a see the entirety of the outcome of this report?

BL: We have zero confidence at this time. I think from the get-go the premier herself has been trying to cover up the allegations that have been going on in health care for a long, long time. Her unwillingness to call for a public inquiry which is completely separate and independent from government underlines the interest that the premier has, and her cabinet have, with potentially covering up the seriousness that we have going on in Alberta Health Services and health care procurement practices.

We even have a former minister who has come out and said, ‘I couldn’t, in good conscience, remain at that table’. Peter Guthrie, one of Premier Smith’s now former cabinet ministers came out and said,’ I can’t sit at that table anymore in cabinet in good faith’.

He didn’t make any allegations himself, but in the preceding weeks he has said, ‘I had concerns,’ and if there are legitimate concerns, that should be referred to the RCMP. Our perspective is, in addition to that, there should be a third party public inquiry that will really just instill that confidence in the process for Albertans.

If we have nothing to hide, let’s open up the doors and see what’s there.