The administrator and interim CEO of Alberta Heath Companies modified AHS’s official guidelines to declare that solely the deputy well being minister might be named CEO of the well being company — a change made whereas he was serving as deputy well being minister.
That each one needed to change days later, after Premier Danielle Smith briefly eliminated Andre Tremblay from his ministry job and appointed a brand new appearing deputy well being minister throughout ongoing investigations into AHS contracting.
When CBC Information requested final week if Tremblay’s time period as CEO was opposite to the company bylaw he’d simply enacted, Well being Minister Adriana LaGrange’s workplace stated she’s ordered Tremblay to revise the AHS bylaws as soon as once more — to declare that the administrator may function CEO throughout this era of main reform within the provincial well being system.
The revised bylaw will permit Tremblay to stay the only particular person in command of AHS, serving as each CEO and as a one-man board of administrators, one thing that’s “problematic,” in keeping with an professional in public administration.
Tremblay, who had served as deputy minister of well being since mid-2023, turned interim CEO of AHS as nicely on Jan. 8, the day that Athana Mentzelopoulos was faraway from the company’s high govt job.
She has since filed a $1.7 million wrongful dismissal swimsuit, claiming she was terminated after she’d approved an investigation and forensic audit into AHS contracts, and that she was “topic to interference and strain” from authorities officers to log off on company contracts with non-public surgical corporations, regardless of issues over their prices.
No allegations have been confirmed in court docket, and statements of defence from AHS and Well being Minister Adriana LaGrange haven’t but been filed. LaGrange informed reporters Wednesday she’s going to file a press release of defence in court docket within the coming weeks.
After three weeks serving as interim CEO alongside his common job, Tremblay added to his titles AHS official administrator — a one-man board of administrators — after LaGrange ousted the prevailing seven-person board.
On Feb. 12, a number of weeks into his tenure with all three jobs, Tremblay handed a proper administrator’s decision, which allowed him to unilaterally change AHS common bylaws.
The decision acknowledged a ministerial order from LaGrange required the bylaw modification.
That change added a single new provision, which acknowledged: “the board [of AHS] shall not appoint some other people, apart from the deputy minister of well being, to function the interim president and chief govt officer of AHS throughout a winding-up interval.”
Though the change was made on Feb. 12, it was backdated to take impact on Jan. 8, the day Mentzelopoulos was terminated.
Winding-up interval refers to the present section of the Smith authorities’s well being care restructuring. AHS’s central well being authority function is being divided up amongst 4 completely different service-specific companies — and on the finish of this wind-up, AHS shall be remodeled right into a hospital service supplier that’s contracted by a brand new provincial company, Acute Care Alberta.
Alberta Well being didn’t present a clear timeline spelling out how lengthy it is going to be earlier than AHS is technically “dissolved” into this new, lesser function.
However earlier than then, Tremblay misplaced one among his three titles.
Final week, Smith introduced that Darren Hedley would turn into appearing deputy well being minister throughout investigations into Mentzelopoulos’s allegations, together with the one carried out by Alberta’s auditor common.
Smith informed reporters this alteration stemmed from a request by her cupboard, whose members have been “not comfy with the mingled function” Tremblay had.
CBC Information requested AHS to elucidate the bylaw change and the way Tremblay may stay company CEO if Hedley was now the deputy minister.
An e mail reply from Christine Myatt, vice-president of communications for AHS, defined that administrator Tremblay was following orders from the minister.
“The bylaw you’re referencing was drafted to align with the ministerial order. If that ministerial order adjustments, AHS will revise its bylaws accordingly,” Myatt wrote.
LaGrange’s press secretary, Jessi Rampton, then informed CBC Information {that a} new ministerial order can be issued, which clarified that the administrator “will function interim president and CEO” — successfully making certain that Tremblay (as administrator) can nonetheless appoint Tremblay (as AHS CEO), even when Tremblay not serves as deputy well being minister.
There was no reply to CBC Information’ e mail to Tremblay searching for remark.
When Tremblay was first named interim CEO, a information launch from LaGrange’s workplace acknowledged a seek for a everlasting chief govt would start “instantly.”
Rampton stated the everlasting function will doubtless be stuffed “as soon as the work to transition AHS to a hospital-based service supplier is accomplished.”
The a number of roles that Tremblay holds, even after shedding the deputy minister function, is “problematic,” stated Evert Lindquist, a professor on the College of Victoria’s College of Public Administration.
It will be extra comprehensible if this was merely a really temporary interim measure, “a type of bridging association,” whereas the federal government discovered a substitute board or CEO, he stated. However this new bylaw appears to maintain this association in place for an prolonged interval.
“There’s an excessive amount of focus of energy in a single particular person,” stated Linquist, editor of the journal Canadian Public Administration.
“There must be an interim board, even when it is only a caretaker board of three credible Alberta residents that the general public has confidence in.”
This particularly holds true, he added, as a result of Tremblay is referred to within the allegations Mentzelopoulos made in her wrongful dismissal lawsuit. Tremblay is just not a named defendant within the lawsuit.
Smith has promised a “authorized conflicts wall” to maintain people whose names are talked about within the lawsuit, together with Tremblay, impartial from oversight and administration of the province’s inner investigation of the allegations.
As a part of that, the AHS interim common counsel will take the lead on assembling paperwork for that probe and the auditor common.
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