Government, health authority seek injunction against former Alberta Health Services CEO

A Court of King's Bench judge has reserved her decision on the province's request to compel the former CEO of Alberta Health Services to delete work emails she sent to her private account the day before she was fired.

Lawyers representing the Alberta government and Alberta Health Services argued in an Edmonton courtroom Friday that the nine emails they know about contain confidential information that belongs to AHS. They are seeking an injunction against Athana Mentzelopoulos from sharing the material. 

The government also wants the court to compel Mentzelopoulos to face cross-examination by its lawyers to find out who she has already sent that information to. Mentzelopoulos's lawyer Dan Scott called such an exercise, "a fishing expedition."

The injunction request is tied to a wrongful dismissal lawsuit Mentzelopoulos filed against her former employer and Alberta's health minister earlier this year.

She claims she lost her job, in part, because she had launched an investigation and forensic audit and was taking a second look at the prices in contracts involving the Alberta Surgical Group before extending the agreement.

Mentzelopoulos also widened the AHS investigations to include the procurement of medical supplies.

LaGrange and AHS have denied the allegations in her statement of claim. 

On Friday, lawyer Munaf Mohamed argued for the government that Mentzelopoulos violated her employment contract by forwarding the emails. The document says an employee cannot take confidential information belonging to AHS when they leave the organization.

AHS said in an amended statement of defence that it learned in mid-March that Mentzelopoulos forwarded nine confidential emails to her personal email account on January 7. Mohamed said two of those emails are protected by solicitor-client privilege.

Mohamed also alleged that Mentzelopoulos has purposely avoided cross-examination on what AHS material she has and who she shared it with.

"If she comes under oath and tells us she's deleted it all, no one saw it other than her, I'm not going to have a problem," he told the judge. 

Mohamed said if Mentzelopoulos needs the documents she can access them through discovery as the lawsuit proceeds. 

Scott told the court his client has already deleted the emails. 

Investigations

Mentzelopoulos's allegations about AHS procurement and contracting have led the Alberta auditor general and RCMP to launch investigations. The Alberta government has also hired a former provincial court judge from Manitoba to look at AHS contracting. 

Scott argued the government wants to cross-examine his client because they are trying to find out what she shared with the auditor general.

"They're trying to get a back door into what that investigation is about as well as what the RCMP investigation is about," he said. 

Scott said Mentzelopoulos's employment contract was with Alberta Health Services, not the Alberta government, and allows her to disclose confidential information if it helps AHS. Scott argued she could be trying to protect the health authority from the government.

Scott told the court that Leanne Wagner, an assistant deputy minister with Alberta Health, referenced the content of the emails subject to solicitor-client privilege in a new affidavit filed this week. 

He said privilege over the documents belongs to Alberta Health Services, not Alberta Health, so it isn't clear how she obtained the emails. 

"I'm going to submit she had no more right to see them and read them than I do," Scott said.

MHCare letter 

Some of the allegations in Mentzelopoulos's statement of claim involve the government's interactions with Edmonton medical supply company MHCare and its CEO Sam Mraiche.

Mraiche and MHCare are not named defendants in the wrongful dismissal lawsuit but are mentioned in the court document. 

This week, MHCare sent CBC News and other media outlets a copy of a letter it wrote to Christopher McPherson, the deputy minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade. McPherson asked former Manitoba judge Raymond E. Wyant to lead a government investigation while he was still the deputy minister for executive council. 

The letter said MHCare wishes to "set the record straight."

"MHCare takes the integrity of their company with the utmost seriousness and could not remain silent while being unfairly attacked," the letter states. 

"A heavy accumulation of misleading statements do not add up to a truth. They simply amount to a large amount of misinformation – and a great deal of harm to the reputation of MHCare, its CEO and all others wrongly tainted by such claims."

The letter confirms Mraiche is a part-owner of the chartered surgical facilities in Lethbridge and Red Deer. 

Mentzelopoulos alleges in her original statement of claim that those CSFs were negotiating rates that were significantly higher than another chartered surgical facility in Calgary. 

MHCare calls this a "misleading claim." It said the other CSF is able to subsidize the publicly funded surgeries by performing higher-priced procedures that are not funded by Alberta Health. 

MHCare has faced accusations that it has not fulfilled the $70 million contract to import children's pain medication from Turkey to help ease a shortage in Canada. 

The company said it faced regulatory delays caused by Health Canada throughout 2023 and 2024. The company said it tried to work each issue as it came up and kept AHS and Alberta Health updated throughout the process. 

The original batch of children's acetaminophen from Turkey arrived in January 2023. By then, shortages of children's medication had been abated. 

Alberta Health Services ceased to use the product for use on neonatal patients because the medication was getting stuck in feeding tubes. 

MHCare said the medication is safe and the labels on the product clearly state that the medication should not be used this way.

"The consequence of all this unwarranted scaremongering is that a significant portion of the medication delivered now sits unused, at risk of expiry," the letter said. 

The letter also addresses Mraiche's relationships with government, particularly allegations that he benefits from his relationship with members of the UCP government. It says he is not a partisan nor an insider and was on "familiar terms" with former NDP premier Rachel Notley. 

Mraiche was photographed with Premier Danielle Smith at an Oilers playoff hockey game last year. Some other members of her cabinet said they accepted Oilers tickets from him. 

The letter says Mraiche has been at events with elected officials including Smith, which the letter says is standard business practice in government relations. 

"It is also true that all of these functions fit wholly within established guidelines as dealings with public office holders," the letter states.

"Despite the innuendo and implication, no specific suggestion has ever been made of a breach of these rules by MHCare or Mr. Mraiche – for the simple reason that none has occurred."