Alberta Minister of Infrastructure Peter Guthrie has resigned from his seat at the cabinet table, citing concerns over “the Government of Alberta’s procurement practices across all departments.”
In a letter to his constituents posted on social media, Guthrie announced his resignation from cabinet, but said he will remain a private member of the government caucus, where he can “hold cabinet accountable with honesty and integrity.”
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Guthrie said that as minister of infrastructure, he had “line of sight” into the provincial government’s procurement practices and “inconsistencies” and claimed he recommended improvements that could have prevented some of the issues that have developed into the scandal, and allegations of corruption now facing the UCP government.
His resignation comes almost two weeks after the former head of Alberta Health Services, Athana Mentzelopoulos, filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the province.
In the lawsuit, she alleges she was fired after looking into high-level government interference and questionable multi-million-dollar contracts.
Documents from Alberta Health Services also show a private surgical company at the heart of the scandal was billing taxpayers more than twice as much per procedure as it would cost in a public hospital.
Premier Danielle Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange have denied any wrongdoing and LaGrange has said the dismissal of Mentzelopoulos wasn’t linked to the former CEO’s investigation.
In an emailed statement on Tuesday afternoon, Smith said she has accepted Guthrie’s resignation.
She also described his allegations as “serious” and promised they will be “fully investigated” by both the province’s auditor general and an unnamed “highly credible third party with a strong legal background capable of investigating this matter independently of government.”
The statement repeats Smith’s earlier claims that “AHS has never brought any substantive evidence or documentation related to this matter to the Minister of Health or to government.”
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Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi, said the premier’s contention that she knew nothing about the allegations defies belief.
“So one of two things is going on,” Nenshi said. “Either the premier is not being straight forward when she says she didn’t know about any of this, even though it was discussed at cabinet, even though the executive council that she chairs fired the AHS board, she apparently didn’t ask why they were being fired.”
“Let’s take her at face value,” Nenshi added. “Let’s say that the premier had no idea what was going on — well then we have the premier who has no idea what’s going on. Albertans deserve a premier who knows what’s going on.”
Nenshi also reiterated his call for a judicial-led public inquiry.
“This government must release the fired board members and any fired employees from the gag orders that they were put under when they were fired. So they can tell the public — they can tell Albertans the truth about what happened,” said Nenshi.
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Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt told Global News it is “very rare” for a cabinet minister to resign the way Guthrie did.
“This has been brewing for a while. Guthrie is a free thinker,” Bratt said. “He was a real thorn in the side of Jason Kenney as a backbencher during COVID.”
Bratt noted until now, Guthrie has been in the premier’s corner and it will be interesting to see how Guthrie’s cabinet colleagues react.
“He is well-supported in the base. In fact, he was an initial supporter of Danielle Smith.
“So the question is: are others going to follow or is the cabinet solidarity and team unity going to come together?”
