Public health advocate calls for further investigation after Wyant report release

By ZOE MASON on October 22, 2025.

zmason@medicinehatnews.com

The Alberta government released the report resulting from the independent investigation into Alberta Health Service’s procurement of children’s pain medication and chartered surgical facility contracts on Oct. 17.

The 43-page report, conducted by former Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba Raymond E. Wyant, found that AHS did not abide by its policies regarding procurement and that several employees acted in conflict of interest.

According to the report, with respect to the contracts for children’s pain medication, the province has paid nearly $50 million for product it has not received.

The report did not find any evidence of inappropriate action on behalf of the premier or any minister or political staff member. However, Wyant also outlined significant limitations on the purview of the investigation and the powers awarded him as investigator.

Unlike a public inquiry, the Wyant investigation did not have the power to subpoena witnesses to testify under oath or compel the presentation of documents.

“In most cases, I perceived, based on my experience, that people were striving to tell the truth and to recall events in as much detail as possible,” wrote Wyant in the introduction to the report.

“However, there were occasions where I was left with the impression that might not be the case, nor that full and complete information was being provided.”

No senior officials, including Premier Danielle Smith or then Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, testified in the report.

In a statement released last week, the premier said she expects that rigorous processes are in place to protect against conflicts of interest, and that AHS decision makers failed to meet that expectation.

“Although the judge’s findings clearly indicate that elected officials, senior staff and members of the public service acted appropriately in these matters, I am deeply disappointed with the way these procurements and contracts were dealt with by AHS decision makers and some of its employees,” said Smith.

Paul Parks, a Medicine Hat emergency physician and former president of the Alberta Medical Association, says findings of the report call for further investigation.

“The fact that the judge found such significant concerns without having been empowered to get to all of the truth is concerning enough, but there’s no question in my mind, and many of my colleagues, that a public inquiry is definitely needed,” said Parks in an interview with the News on Tuesday.

The premier has denied any wrongdoing related to the scandal. Parks thinks the government is not taking enough accountability.

“This highlights that there’s mismanagement at the highest levels of our health-care system,” he said.

He thinks Albertans should regard the results of the report alongside the ongoing teacher strike.

“The two biggest public services, health care and education, are objectively declining in their ability to provide their services. And the government is refusing to have accountability or transparency about how they’re running things.”

Parks says the repercussions of this scandal may not be immediately obvious to average Albertans, but they will feel the impact nonetheless.

“We’re going to go into an unbelievably difficult fall and winter season, with our hospitals severely overcrowded, we’re going to be severely understaffed and people are going to have bad health outcomes because their system isn’t functioning properly. And here our government just squandered away tens of millions of dollars.”

The premier also said in her statement that procurement is being moved into Acute Care Alberta, a move she says has improved accountability and transparency in mind.

Parks says assigning procurement to only one of the new health agencies would be a mistake.

“There’s no possible way it could go under one of these pillars and not have massive impacts on the rest of them,” he said. “It just highlights that the government doesn’t actually know where it would put these things, or how to actually connect them to all the pillars.”

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