Alberta

The UCP continues its siege of Alberta's systems. The Minister of Health is noted as restricting the Auditor's access to information, and interfered with the Auditor's ability to complete his investigation. The UCP has publicly disarmed the Office of the Auditor General.

From the CBC's Taylor Lambert:

The report from Auditor General Doug Wylie highlights many issues faced during the investigation, including a lack of co-operation from key officials, obstruction of information by AHS and the province, and the destruction of evidence sought by the auditor general.

The provincial government said the DynaLife contract would save millions of dollars a year, but instead cancelled it less than a year later after numerous issues with service delivery and DynaLife’s own financial problems.

The province ultimately purchased DynaLife in 2023 for nearly $100 million and absorbed it into the public provider, Alberta Precision Laboratories (APL).

...

The auditor general’s report notes the many challenges faced during the investigation, particularly with lack of co-operation from key officials and difficulty accessing evidence.

“Our access to information was restricted by AHS and this restriction was supported” by the Ministry of Health, says the report.

AHS asserted privilege over many documents “without, in some instances, clear rationale or evidence,” and had a team of lawyers conduct a line-by-line review of the thousands of documents sought by the auditor general.

The report also says that “records were password protected and inaccessible, missing, or destroyed when key staff were terminated,” noting a particular instance when AHS destroyed notebooks belonging to a former CEO “despite our request to preserve evidence.”