Storage of mobile field hospitals will cost taxpayers more than $135 million in 2022, records show..“This is something I was completely unaware of,” said Public Works Minister Helena Jaczek. The storage costs follow a sole-sourced $150 million contract to SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. for field hospitals..“I am not quite sure of the proportion of the $135 million that is required, obviously, for these mobile health units,” Jaczek told the House of Commons government operations committee. “But I just wanted to mention that because that was something I was completely unaware of.”.According to Blacklock's Reporter, cabinet in a budget document Supplementary Estimates (B) referenced a single line item for $135,891,951 marked, “funding to provide supplies for the health system.” Jaczek confirmed the spending was for storage costs..“That $135.9 million was something that is not exactly directed to preventing or treating COVID,” testified Jaczek. “It is actually the storage of four mobile health units that are being warehoused and they are in the possession now of the department.”.“The Department of Public Works only acquired those mobile health units presumably because they were requested by the Department of Health,” said Jaczek. She did not elaborate..Access To Information records show a public works manager, Shawn Gardner, contacted SNC-Lavalin within days of the pandemic’s outbreak on April 3, 2020 and signed the cost-plus $150 million contract. Neither the health minister nor any province requested the hospitals..Gardner has never been questioned at parliamentary hearings over his dealings with the contractor. SNC-Lavalin was paid to supply field hospitals equipped with 200 beds, ventilators, masks, medical gowns and ten days’ worth of medication, back-up generators, water and oxygen tanks, X-ray machines, shower bays and latrines..Access To Information records confirmed the health department was only told of the $150 million contract after the fact. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos in testimony last January 18 at the Commons health committee had no answer when asked why the contract was issued..“What is the status of the mobile field hospitals SNC-Lavalin was contracted to produce?” asked Conservative MP Shelby Kramp-Neuman (Hastings-Lennox, Ont.). “It was an example of the significant level of preparation that we did throughout the crisis,” replied Duclos..“Why have the field hospitals from SNC-Lavalin not been deployed?” asked Kramp-Neuman. Duclos replied he had no information on “the exact nature of the state of that equipment.”.“Did the Prime Minister’s Office approve of this?” asked Kramp-Neuman. “That’s a public works question,” replied Duclos.
