Former AHS CEO "kept very detailed notes"

Danielle Smith has no idea what's happening. She, as Premier, was not involved in any wrongdoing.

I caught The Globe and Mail’s Carrie Tait on 880 CHED with Shaye Ganam this morning.

The response yesterday from Health Minister Adriana LaGrange’s office saying that the ministry had been requesting information on the former AHS CEO’s investigation “for nearly eight months” brought us back to April of 2024, when Ministers of the Crown, including the Premier, were being showered with playoff tickets from known, and unknown sources.

Ms. Tait said this morning, though, that Athana Mentzeloplolous kept “very detailed notes” and that her investigation didn’t ramp up until September, so the idea that they were asking for this information months before it got going doesn’t make much sense.

Neither does the Ministerial Order, signed by LaGrange, demanding a contract the AHS CEO says she was questioning, be extended, at higher rates than other Chartered Surgical Facilities were getting.

Mentzelopolous alleges that in a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Health, Andre Tremblay, who was then a board member, but now adds the title of AHS CEO to his belt as well, he asked when they could get payments going back out for these contracts.

She says she told him they could go out right away as long as they met current guidelines for those contracts.

And then the Health Ministry took away her ability to question them.

Danielle Smith says she, as Premier, was not involved in any wrongdoing.

Danielle Smith was oblivious to any improprieties.

In response to a question from a reporter in the U.S., where Canada’s Premiers are presumably talking about the “mutually beneficial relationship” the idiot-in-chief has said he no longer wants, Danielle Smith said that she found out about what was going in her Health Ministry when the public did.

She “still has confidence” in Adriana LaGrange.

She said she was “glad” the Auditor General will be looking into the allegation that he could have had back in January, two days after the Deputy Minister of Health fired the former AHS CEO, and that if there isn’t any wrongdoing, she wants to “find out why AHS is standing in the way Chartered Surgical Facilities”.

Spin me right ‘round.

The Premier’s biggest fans hate AHS.

She can keep them defending her for not knowing what was going on in the Ministry of Health if she puts the target back on AHS.

Of course, Mentzelopolous admitted there were problems with the contracting and procurement process in AHS.

She was trying to find out who owned these companies that she was receiving pressure to give these contracts to.

She wanted to know why they companies were getting higher rates for the same contracts for services than others.

And she wanted to know why the Health Ministry was demanding they get paid more.

Danielle Smith has no clue what was happening.

Danielle Smith wasn’t involved in any wrongdoing.

Her former Chief of Staff worked more closely with AHS.

Mentzelopolous names him specifically as one of the pressure points from the elected party’s offices on these outside contracts.

The Premier’s Chief of Staff, Marshall Smith, made his exit in October, days before the Health Minister removed approvals of Chartered Surgical Facilities from AHS’s purview.

Danielle Smith says she, “and our entire province owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for his service to Alberta.”

Danielle doesn’t know if he was applying pressure to inflate contracts.

Danielle doesn’t know what’s been happening at the Government of Alberta.

There will be investigations — maybe many of them — to give Danielle Smith and Adriana LaGrange some space from this.

As Premier, she wasn’t involved in any wrongdoing.

Danielle Smith doesn’t know if her staff and appointees helped send $600 million of Alberta’s health budget into the wrong hands.

She doesn’t know what they’ve been up to.

She’s just as surprised as we are.

And I’ve got some bridges for sale.

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