The UCP government faced a barrage of questions from the NDP on Monday about poor documentation and transparency, following the AG’s report on the AHS and DynaLIFE contract. “We cooperated on our side,” said Premier Danielle Smith. “We provided the documents and we will continue to cooperate.” According to the AG’s report on AHS’s community lab services contract with DynaLIFE, “minimal records were kept of important discussions between AHS executives, the Minister and the Department of Health–including those where key decisions were made.” The NDP has interpreted this finding as evidence that the current UCP government failed to maintain accurate records. Additionally, they have questioned their collaboration with the AG during the report. “There are certain cabinet documents and advice to cabinet that the member opposite should know is always kept confidential until such time as decisions are made, we need to be able to ensure that we get good advice,” Smith said. Smith added that her government is working to ensure that AHS rectifies the mistakes made during the DynaLIFE contract. “We're going to ensure that all of the recommendations from Judge wines report, as well as recommendations from this report, are brought into government practices,” Smith said. “We're just as disappointed, Mr. Speaker, that there were processes missed that ah, just didn't follow the rules, and as a result, we ended up having to make a decision to ensure that patient care was protected, and that's what we did.”.Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services, Adriana LaGrange, has come under fire as the report highlighted numerous mistakes and excessive involvement by the Department of Health during the contract. LaGrange and Smith have acknowledged that the Department of Health made errors, but insist these occurred before LaGrange was appointed minister in June 2023. “I will also remind the House that I was not the Minister of Health at the time, that decisions were made, but we did, the premier and I, as soon as we were elected and as soon as I was appointed, took this situation very seriously,” said LaGrange. According to the report, the AHS started the process of outsourcing community lab services in 2019. In Dec. 2020, AHS issued a Request for Proposal, and they signed an agreement with DynaLIFE in Jan. 2022. The outsourcing began in Dec. 2022, and the contract was terminated in June 2023. “I was tasked, on day one, when I became the Minster of Health in June of 2023 to look at DynaLIFE, because at that time, we were seeing that there was a lack of service, and we wanted to ensure that, in fact, Albertans got the service that they required, Mr. Speaker, so we’re going to continue to make sure that it improves, and it has improved,” LaGrange said.
