Alberta cabinet member urges Danielle Smith to remove health minister

A UCP cabinet minister is urging the premier to remove Health Minister Adriana LaGrange from her post while investigations continue into serious allegations a fired Alberta Health Services CEO has made about major health contracts, CBC News has learned.

Infrastructure Minister Peter Guthrie sent a memo Thursday to his cabinet colleagues urging quick action, and a readiness to hand any potential criminal matters to the RCMP. 

CBC News has obtained a copy of the memo and confirmed the authenticity with a source familiar with its contents.

Former AHS executive Athana Mentzelopoulos has alleged that the government pushed her out of her top job after she launched investigations into what she describes as conflicts of interest and questionable costs of AHS deals with private surgical facilities, as well as with the medical supplier behind the $70-million purchase of children's medicine from Turkey.

Those claims reached the court this week, when she filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the government and AHS. The claims in the lawsuit have not been tested in court.

"Considering the mounting allegations, I would like to reiterate my recommendations from cabinet on Tuesday," Guthrie's memo states, referring to the cabinet meeting held earlier this week.

He lays out five urgent actions. "Remove Andre Tremblay as CEO/administrator at AHS and as DM [deputy minister of the Health Ministry] until such time as an investigation is complete," he writes.

Tremblay was appointed as interim CEO and the one-man board of directors of the massive hospitals agency last month, after Mentzelopoulos and the previous seven-member board were both ejected.

"Min. Adriana LaGrange should be moved to another unrelated ministry until an investigation is complete," Guthrie's memo states.

Two other ministries have key roles in parts of the health system: Mental Health and Addictions, as well as Seniors and Community Supports.

Asked about the memo, the premier signalled on her regular call-in radio show Saturday that LaGrange still has her confidence in the health portfolio.

"I think she's doing such amazing and important work on the refocus of the health care system," she said.

Guthrie's email to his cabinet colleagues also calls on "our government" to fully support Auditor General Doug Wylie in his investigation, and to "require the completion of and access to" the third-party forensic audit that Mentzelopoulos stated in the lawsuit she launched in November.

In December, according to her statement of claim, Mentzelopoulos was instructed by an Alberta Health official to "wind up" an internal investigation.

"If any of the information obtained appears to be criminal in nature, all materials must be turned over to the RCMP immediately," Guthrie's letter states.

"It is my strong recommendation that we do not hesitate any longer and implement these recommendations today," the Thursday memo concludes.

Smith has promised the government will fully support Wylie's investigation. While she didn't answer questions about the forensic audit, her statement added that she's tasked a top civil servant to retain an outside firm to independently investigate if there was any "wrongdoing or ineffective policies." 

That investigation would also look at what happened with the AHS procurement processes, and how the ex-CEO's concerns were or weren't brought to the attention of the minister and premier. 

Smith's statement also said she'll work with LaGrange and cabinet "to ensure that while these investigations are ongoing that we ensure there are no conflicts between these investigations and those who have been named in the accusations."

On the radio Saturday, the premier said not everyone in cabinet shares Guthrie's view. However, she said there was agreement that LaGrange not be involved in any decisions "around this file."

The investigation has "got to be independent," Smith said. "It's got to be overseen by another body."

Smith added that the government's external probe into the many allegations in Mentzelopoulos' lawsuit could take four to six months, based on her conversations with legal professionals.

She also said that she'd asked all cabinet ministers for their recommendations, and wanted their "honest input."

In Calgary on Saturday, two cabinet ministers signalled their support for LaGrange.

Minister of Education Demetrios Nicolaides and Minister of Advanced Education Rajan Sawhney said they disagree with temporarily moving her out of the health portfolio as Guthrie recommended.

"People always have different opinions, and yeah, I just don't agree with his assessment," Nicolaides said.

Before Guthrie's demand went public, LaGrange had faced multiple calls to resign from the opposition NDP and groups including the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and Friends of Medicare.

For her part, LaGrange says she will file a statement of defence in response to Mentzelopoulos's lawsuit. 

In a statement released earlier this week, the health minister said "some claims made are clearly false, while others will need to be investigated further" by the province's auditor general and the government.

Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz on Thursday defended her cabinet colleague staying in the health post while facing the lawsuit and investigations into her ministry's actions.

"There is a lot of work going on to transform the health-care system," she told reporters.

"I think stability is important, but I also think that transparency is too, and that's why Minister LaGrange and Premier Smith have asked the auditor general to look into this."

The premier has stated she only learned through media reports of the concerns within AHS that Mentzelopoulos had raised — the first of which was Feb. 5 in The Globe and Mail. 

The former health agency CEO had informed Auditor General Doug Wylie back in November about the investigations and audits into contracts, and had scheduled an AHS briefing with Wylie's office on Jan. 10. But she was fired two days before that would happen.