The Alberta government has filed its statement of defence in response to allegations of government interference in medical procurements made by the former president of the province’s health agency.
Mentzelopoulos alleges she was pressured by Alberta government officials to sign new deals for chartered surgical facilities (CSFs) and that she was removed from her position because she had launched an internal investigation into AHS contracts and procurement practices. CSFs are private accredited entities that provide publicly funded surgeries.
The former CEO also says she was dismissed two days before she was to discuss her findings with the province’s auditor general. She is seeking $1.7 million in damages, citing breach of her four-year contract, of which she completed one year.
The province denies Mentzelopoulos’ claim that she was removed due to her investigation into procurement practices, saying instead she was removed because she “failed” to fulfill her responsibilities in implementing policy directives related to health care system restructuring.
The defence statement says the province was unaware of the former CEO’s planned meeting with the auditor general at the time her termination was decided in December 2024. It also says the former CEO’s four-year employment agreement contained a termination clause that “expressly” permitted early termination.
The province alleges Mentzelopoulos made the accusations for personal gain, “presumably to extract a larger payment from AHS and distract from her failures to carry out the proper function of her job.”
Commenting on the province’s statement of defence, Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said it doesn’t “give Albertans the answers we need.”
The statement of defence lists AHS and Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange as defendants and Mentzelopoulos as plaintiff.
Province’s Allegations
The province alleges the plaintiff’s employment was not terminated because of the investigation she had begun, but rather because “she failed to perform her role as president and CEO effectively and failed to carry out the mandate she was given to implement the transformation of AHS, which the premier of Alberta mandated the minister to implement.”The province alleges it gave AHS and the plaintiff “extensive” support and guidance in order to complete the refocus on time and on budget, but that the former CEO “refused” to participate in the strategic policy initiative, “failed” to communicate the importance of the health restructuring to the AHS administration, and “failed” to look for administrative efficiencies.
The province alleges that the plaintiff became “so infatuated with her investigation and various suspicions, that she failed to do her job.” The province further alleges the former CEO was opposed to the health system restructuring, saying “presumably” because it would reduce the size of the organization she was leading, and “her own personal prestige.”
“As a result of the Plaintiff’s failure or unwillingness to carry out her core responsibilities as President and CEO, in November and December of 2024 the Province had to reassign a number of other senior administrators from Alberta Health to AHS to do the work that the Plaintiff was supposed to be doing,” reads the document.
“These performance issues had nothing to do with CSFs or investigations into AHS’ historical procurement practices. Confidence was lost in the Plaintiff’s ability to do the job she was hired to do in the timeframe required to complete the Health System Refocus, a central policy initiative of the Province.”
The province says it was aware of the plaintiff’s investigation into procurement practices since August 2024, and that after several months of investigation, the plaintiff failed to provide the province with any “concrete” evidence.
“On January 6, 2025, months and months after she had commenced her ‘investigation’ the Plaintiff provided a letter advising the Province that her investigation had ‘not drawn any firm conclusions,’” reads the document.
“Despite being asked to produce any and all investigation records to permit the Province to carry out further due diligence, the Plaintiff was able to provide nothing more than six corporate searches … and a single email unrelated to any outstanding procurement activities.”
The province further alleges the plaintiff continued her investigation “despite having learned from her investigations that there was no reason to be concerned about a contract extension” for a private surgical centre the plaintiff had raised concerns about, adding that she “hid” those observations from the province.
Mentzelopoulos’ Statement
In her March 13 statement, Mentzelopoulos says Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the health minister have criticized her and her tenure at AHS, but that they have also acknowledged that “my Statement of Claim is serious and deserves investigation.”She says her colleagues at AHS “put their trust in me to help restore integrity in AGS procurement processes,” and that it “grieves” her that the premier and the health minister have “accused me of trying to defy government policy and direction.”
“I am worried there’s a strategy to try to bring me to my knees financially, so I hope we can skip oral questions and proceed directly to trial,” reads the statement.
The former CEO says she briefed the health minister on Dec. 13, 2024, on her findings up to that point, adding that an internal investigation was not yet complete and an external forensic audit had been underway for a month.
She alleges Lagrange “complained” that she was “taking too long” to sign contracts for chartered surgical facilities, and further alleges that the health minister was aware of flawed contracts in AHS and in government, and that LaGrange said “we have to live with it.”
She said the problem was that the contracts she was investigating included some signed by AHS “at the direction of this government,” arguing that anyone who opposed the government’s decisions would face consequences, including termination.
“As CEO of AHS, I came to realize that my career would end either because I went along with this government, or because I did not,” the statement concludes.
