Auditor general probing government's purchase of unfinished hotel

Nova Scotia's auditor general is looking into the provincial government's purchase of an unfinished hotel that is now being converted into a patient care facility.

Auditor General Kim Adair does not comment on work in progress, but an update on her office's website lays out the scope of the work. It does not provide a timeline.

"This audit will determine whether the province exercised adequate due diligence in order to obtain value for money in the selection of 21 Hogan Court for conversion to a transitional care facility and whether initial procurements complied with provincial procurement policies."

The Tories paid Cresco Holdings $34 million for the property just off Highway 102 in Bedford in January. Health Department officials have said the conversion of the site into a transitional care unit will cost an additional $15 million.

In an interview at Province House on Tuesday, Colton LeBlanc, the cabinet minister responsible for health-care infrastructure projects, said the project remains on track to be complete early next year. He said it will have 68 beds.

LeBlanc said his department has been responding to questions from the auditor general's office and co-operating with the audit.

"We respect the work of the auditor general and look forward to the findings of the report," he said.

Opposition party leaders welcomed word that Adair was looking into the file. Both Liberal Leader Zach Churchill and NDP Leader Claudia Chender have previously suggested it was a matter worth Adair's attention.

A lot of public money is going into the property and it's important to know things were done the right way, said Churchill.

"The government said it was to address health-care challenges and then we saw a report that said it couldn't do that, it couldn't accommodate health-care needs," he said in an interview.

"So we certainly think that's worthwhile for the AG to look at and we're thankful that she's doing it."

'Many more questions than answers'

A report by Nycum Associates, obtained by CBC, called into question whether the building was appropriate for a health-care facility and noted many challenges that would need to be overcome.

Among them was the concern that even with "costly and time-consuming re-design and renovations," the site would come with restrictions that would "require the patients to fit the profile of a hotel guest."

"Patients awaiting a bed in a long-term care facility would not be eligible," it said.

Chender said there are "many more questions than answers" about the project.

Little is known about it other than the fact that it is "incredibly expensive" and the consultant's report that raised questions about the site's appropriateness for the stated purpose, she said in an interview.

"And the rest is very opaque. And so the idea that we'll finally have some transparency about how this came to be so that in the future we can do things in a transparent way that serves the public is good news."

LeBlanc said the purchase of the property was about making good on his government's commitment to fix health care. Part of that effort focuses on creating more bed capacity in the system, he said.

Once complete, the site at Hogan Court and a second transitional care unit yet to be constructed in Bayers Lake, will house patients who are still recovering but no longer need a hospital bed, or people awaiting a long-term care bed who can no longer wait at home.