Judge Wyant's report on the AHS scandal reads like a 'bad spy' novel
It's comically bad, and it's really bad, and so far, no one is accountable, either.
If you hadn’t been keeping up with the AHS procurement scandal, I can’t blame you. As of today, October 18, 2025, it has been going on for almost three years. It was thanks to The Globe and Mail’s Alannah Smith that the questionable purchase of 5,000,000 bottles of children’s analgesics (pain and fever medications) for $70 million by the Alberta government, announced December 6, 2022, remained in the public view.
However, we also have to hand it to Danielle Smith, whose refusal to be restricted by rules gave us the “x factor” — that salacious kind of gossip that really captured the imagination of the chronically engaged.
Back in 2022, Danielle Smith was a newly-elected premier, brought to power with promises to destroy Alberta Health Services while fixing health care in 90 days. To date, she’s only made good on one of those. That fall, since the pandemic wasn’t over, there was a shortage of pain and fever medication everywhere. Store shelves were empty and parents were panicking. Flu season was now exacerbated by COVID and other respiratory viruses.
Ms. Smith made the announcement in an Edmonton Shopper’s Drug Mart with then-Health Minister Jason Copping. Help was on the way! The stellar procurement department of AHS had a line on more pain and fever medication than we could possibly use. It was going to be costly but someone had to act.
However, there were some snags; because the medication wasn’t from an approved supplier, Health Canada had to approve the product for use. The importer, which was not AHS for some reason, also required a drug establishment licence. Approval for the purported order came by the end of December, our regular suppliers caught up to demand, and the first shipment of children’s pain and fever medication arrived from Turkey two months later, in March.
There were issues from day one. Despite the ministerial order specifications of 32mg of acetaminophen, the product only contained 24mg, requiring a pharmacist to dispense with instructions. The product was also changed to acetaminophen IV, which was not at the time in short supply in Canada. The changes forced Health Canada to restrict use to Alberta only, and then only dispensed by healthcare professionals. The province also only received one shipment, of less than 1.5 million bottles. As regular supply had returned, AHS also gave notice to staff to discontinue use in July.
In the meantime, Alberta had a general election and the UCP remained in power with Danielle Smith as its duly elected Premier. Ms. Smith had already shown disdain for rules and conventions prior to the general. She had interfered with the justice department on behalf of someone charged for his actions during the Coutts blockade. She’d made good on her promise to remove the Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, and the AHS Board. Ms. Smith was forging a new road ahead and rules that simply got in the way were removed.
By the end of 2023, Ms. Smith had decided to relax rules for herself and her ministers. She didn’t like that she had to consider how something could be perceived by the public; she wanted the freedom to spend time with lobbyists, donors, or special interests if they wanted to pay for access. She wanted the freedom to accept gifts of any denomination. What’s the point of being Premier if you can’t benefit personally?
The Skybox Scandal
With those relaxed conflict of interest rules in place, Premier Smith and her Ministers went out on the town. In 2024, the Edmonton Oilers were on a playoff run and some observant folks noticed that the Premier and Ministers were showing up in skyboxes during the games. One name kept coming up in relation to those invites: a Mr. Sam Mraiche, an Edmonton business owner. He wasn’t just any business owner, however. In fact, he owned multiple named and numbered companies, and as it turned out, one of those companies, MHCare, was the same that played importer for the $70 million children’s acetaminophen deal.
By the time Mr. Mraiche was showing up with Ministers and the Premier, more questions were being asked about the deal. What was supposed to be a slightly marked up $14/bottle spend had turned into a whopping $5,000/bottle spend because the province still hadn’t seen the remainder of product supposedly ordered but definitely paid for. Back at AHS, which had a new Board and its third CEO, Athana Mentzelopolous, since Danielle Smith became Premier, the incredible number of red flags piling up in procurement were no longer being ignored.
According to the now-dismissed AHS CEO in her wrongful dismissal claim against AHS, Alberta Health, and then-Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, she had begun an internal investigation into the procurement of acetaminophen, alongside one into contracting with chartered surgical facilities. We didn’t know that yet, though.
In the legacy of the Barbra Streisand Effect, Sam Mraiche launched a defamation suit against Nate Pike and The Breakdown after their October 27, 2024 deep dive into Mr. Mraiche’s companies, their connection with former AHS senior procurement and contracting officer Jitendra Prasad, and his former staffer-turned-AHS senior procurement and contracting officer Blayne Iskiw, who were then-consultants for chartered surgical facilities whose ownership was also tied to, you guessed it, Mr. Sam Mraiche. Unbeknownst to the rest of us at the time, that episode quite likely caught the attention of those inside the GoA as well.
AHS upheaval (again) and then the juicy bits come out
In January of 2025, another AHS CEO was sent on their way (again) and by the end of the month the Board was removed (again) as well. It didn’t really make any waves at the time because the governing parties have been constantly putting their thumbs on the scale in AHS ever since it was created as an “arms length entity” to shield our healthcare decision-makers from exactly that. Danielle Smith, of course, made her intention to apply political interference directly in AHS part of her election platform and had exercised it regularly enough since 2022 that it seemed like business as usual.
At least, it did until February 5, 2025 when The Globe and Mail’s Carrie Tait dropped a bombshell. That day, we learned that former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopolous was suing for wrongful dismissal and as part of her suit, she claimed political interference in her procurement investigation, and that her refusal to drop the investigation led to her firing. Alberta Health Services, now run by the former Deputy Minister of Health who is named in Ms. Mentzelopolous’ suit, who also became CEO after he fired Ms. Mentzelopolous and delivered the Ministerial firing of the Board, called the suit “groundless and vexatious.” The government filed their response in March.
Initially, Danielle Smith claimed she only learned about it all from the papers. She’s just like us, you know. She had no idea what was going on in the government either, you know. Of course, that wasn’t true, it just took some further digging to get her to admit it.
It was a tangled web that included the Premier’s Office and even seeped into Executive Council. In the meantime, Minister of Infrastructure, The Honourable Peter Guthrie, resigned his Cabinet position after being unable to convince his fellow cabinet members that they should take the allegations seriously.
The opposition was demanding a Public Inquiry but the UCP had a better idea: a privately commissioned Judge-led inquiry into what happened “at the time of procurement” without allowing him the ability to compel witness testimony. The Auditor General, who was scheduled to meet with Ms. Mentzelopolous on January 10 (had she not been dismissed two days prior) also has an active investigation (and had to act as intervenor regarding the government’s questioning around documentation Ms. Mentzelopolous had provided his office).
The RCMP also continues an active investigation.
Danielle Smith claims report clears her, Ministers, and political staff
Judge Wyant’s final report was released October 17, after being delayed well past its original June 30 deadline. The Judge noted several limitations of his report, specifically; in the scope allowed by the UCP for his inquiry, an inability to compel testimony, and a 250,000 page document dump. He did not interview the Premier or current Cabinet Ministers. Few of them were in relevant positions “at the time of procurement” which his scope of inquiry was purposefully limited to. He also did not interview Ministers in place at the time of either the acetaminophen or ASG contracts though does not specify who refused to sit for an interview or who sat for interviews but refused to answer questions.
The report details an incredible breakdown of process and basic common sense surrounding the procurement and contracting with both the $70 million acetaminophen deal and chartered surgical facility contracts involving Mr. Sam Mraiche. So great was this breakdown that one of Judge Wyant’s recommendations is to “clearly prohibit one individual from acting or appearing to act for both the vendor and AHS within a single procurement (recommendation 7, page 41). Another, recommendation 12, is to “require that all contracts with a value over $10 million be reviewed by the procurement lawyer” (page 41), because this was not done, even once, for a deal worth $70 million.
It makes sense after you see that interviews with Jitendra Prasad and Blayne Iskiw Judge Wyant found “the two men simply switched sides in the contract negotiations” between Alberta Surgical Group and AHS (page 39), and that there’s virtually no paper trail at all for the acetaminophen deal.
Mr. Prasad claimed that a company in New Delhi quoted the pricing of $14/bottle with a minimum order of 5,000,000 bottles, at $70 million (page 14), yet Judge Wyant could find no correspondence from either a New Delhi company, nor Atabay, quoting those rates (3. page 26).
“As well, I found no supporting documents to corroborate the assertions in the procurement documents that AHS had confirmed these matters with the manufacturer. It appears all information was supplied verbally. I note that the entire PO was for the importation of five million bottles of children’s analgesics at $14 a bottle, for a total of $70 million with an expectation that transportation costs might likely add another $10 million to that cost..”
$70 million. Verbally.
Even worse, no one, apparently, is accountable to AHS and Alberta taxpayers for the $70 million.
Atabay Pharmaceuticals claims they are restricted from speaking to anyone about the deal with their “Canadian importer and distributor, MHCare” (page 20). MHCare claims it may become public at some point but for now, “MHCare is a private corporation who provided a quote, which was then accepted by AHS. AHS was not forced to accept the opportunity” (page 21).
It’s almost comical.
Who knew you could just walk away with $70 million and then claim no one forced them to give it to you? Upon reading the report, I’d have to say that, allegedly, Mr. Sam Mraiche did.
Prior to the completion of payment for the acetaminophen deal, Mr. Mraiche had apparently moved his interests to investing in joint ownership of (2555327 Alberta Ltd and 2555315 Alberta Ltd), and construction of (“the numbered company that owned the land and would build the facility in which the CSF was to be located was owned 75% by the numbered company that was wholly owned by Mr. Mraiche. The other shareholders in the operating companies owned the balance of the shares”), chartered surgical facilities (CSF) that were also bidding on contracts from AHS (pages 30 and 31).
In these contract negotiations, as mentioned above, Mr. Prasad and Mr. Iskiw traded places. Mr. Prasad had “retired” from AHS in March of 2022 but was asked to continue providing support to the contracting and procurement department (page 12). Mr. Prasad then submitted a proposal to become a contract negotiations consultant where he would work with contracting related to the Health Contract Secretariat on behalf of contracts including chartered surgical facilities (page 12). Mr. Prasad said he was not paid for advising Alberta Surgical Group (page 15), and Dr. Scheelar, part owner at Alberta Surgical Group (and the numbered companies above) corroborated (page 37).
Dr. Scheelar did say that Mr. Prasad had contacted him to say he was returning to AHS, as Mr. Iskiw was leaving, and suggested to Dr. Scheelar that you might want to reach out to him. Dr. Scheelar said that Mr. Iskiw was working for MHCare and promoting their products to ASG for procurement. He discussed with Mr. Iskiw that ASG needed his help in the procurement process and Mr. Iskiw agreed to help them negotiate. Mr. Iskiw described ASG as a client of his consulting company.
Mr. Prasad was later seconded to Health (page 39), where he remained “until October 30, 2024, when he discovered that he was denied access to his government computer” (page 12).
In late October 2024, AHS received a media inquiry about the purchase of children’s analgesics and the involvement of Mr. Sam Mraiche and MHCare with AHS. The inquiry specifically asked what contractual relationship AHS had with MHCare. Mr. Prasad and Ms. Sokol drafted a response press release that stated, “AHS, based on a review of payments and contract repository, confirms it does not have any contractual relationship with MHCare Medical or Mr. Mraiche personally.”
This statement was not true.
This was brought to Mr. Darren Hedley’s attention by the (AHS) CEO.
At the time, Mr. Hedley was the Associate Deputy Minister of Health and Mr. Prasad reported to him. Mr. Hedley put Mr. Prasad on administrative leave and at the same time AHS put Ms. Sokol on administrative leave.
While on leave, Mr. Prasad contacted Mr. Hedley and offered to retire. This was relayed to the Deputy Minister of Executive Council and after a discussion with the Premier’s Chief of Staff, Mr. Rob Anderson, Mr. Hedley was advised that Mr. Prasad should be reinstated, and he would then submit his decision to retire.
Once he was reinstated, Mr. Prasad provided his formal retirement notice and left at the end of November 2024. I was advised that the rationale for this action was that accepting his retirement meant there would not be any further potential reputational risk to the organization.
No “further potential reputational risk” by letting him stay another month? Solid judgement there by Danielle Smith’s right hand.
Judge Wyant concludes that policies were not followed, rules were not followed, but really, there aren’t any specific rules saying anything that went on is not allowed. He also stated that he cannot speak to whether culpability can be found in others, only that he did not find evidence himself.
It’s my personal favourite once again: an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
One step closer
Obviously, there are still calls for a public inquiry; from the same people who were demanding one in the first place. There is still the auditor general’s investigation, as well as the RCMP investigation, ongoing, and the little matter of the wrongful dismissal suit by former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopolous.
On page 38, Judge Wyant does address some of her claims, as she was contacted and sat for an interview. Based on the number of quotes included in the wrongful dismissal claim, it was evident she had receipts and obviously Judge Wyant thought they were relevant to his review.
I have to wonder if that puts a bit of a dent in the armour of the whole “groundless and vexatious” claims argument put forth by the government.
There’s also the question of who will bear responsibility. While I have no doubt they’ll claim that AHS was bad and therefore AHS had to go and it’s all good now because they did that… but it wasn’t just AHS was it? Mr. Prasad was working in the Ministry of Health when this all went down, and had been there for more than a year.
No one in Adriana LaGrange’s Ministry caught this flagrant conflict of interest? Or maybe they just didn’t care. The Ministry of Health brought him over from AHS to deal with the contracts — they rubber-stamped his position knowing full well he had been managing procurement with AHS.
And what of the Premier’s Office? Let him have another month? Great idea, Rob.
That of course doesn’t even get into the fiasco that happened after October of 2024. It doesn’t explain the firing of the AHS CEO who was obviously onto something. It doesn’t explain the firing of the AHS Board (who allegedly refused to fire the CEO). It doesn’t explain why Danielle Smith and Adriana LaGrange allegedly lied to Cabinet about why the Board had to go.
It doesn’t explain why Danielle Smith and Adriana LaGrange tried to cover it up.
Though, I guess that’s a question for the next investigation to uncover.
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Thanks for this Deirdre, I think I finally understand at least some of this mess and look forward to your reports when the other ongoing probes fill in some of the blanks. Maybe then you could get some interviews with those who should be going to jail.
I heard Nate Pike's "Breakdown" episode when it first came out. It made sense. The censorship of the legal case incensed me, and I'm glad he's allowed to blog again.