Province files statement of defence to former Alberta Health Services CEO’s $1.7-million lawsuit

The provincial government has filed a statement of defence to a lawsuit by former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos.

The province has filed its statement of defence in relation to a $1.7-million lawsuit filed by the former CEO of Alberta Health Services, Athana Mentzelopoulos.

The lawsuit was filed in Edmonton last month, following Mentzelopoulos’s contract termination on Jan. 8, 2025.

She claims she was fired because she authorized an internal investigation and audit into various AHS contracts and procurement processes.

But the province claims that is not the case.

In its statement of defence, the province says, “Presumably to try and leverage her position to extract a large payday, the plaintiff has filled her claim with various allegations of impropriety, interspersed with claims of political intrigue aimed at numerous individuals within and outside government, without any regard for the effect of her attacks on them.”

The province says Mentzelopoulos “fails to disclose the basic fact that the independent investigator she had hired and which had investigated for months, failed to uncover any wrongdoing during her tenure.”

It also says Mentzelopoulos “fails to disclose that even when directed by the minister to report on the conclusions of her investigations in December of 2024, the plaintiff had nothing concrete but had become so infatuated with her investigation and various suspicions that she failed to do her job in carrying out the direction of the province to implement the Health System Refocus.”

According to the province, Mentzelopoulos was fired “because she couldn’t do her job despite having been given many opportunities to do so.”

Before the province’s statement of defence was filed, Mentzelopoulos released a statement in anticipation of it happening.

She says for months prior to her termination, she had been working to review concerns about procurement and potential irregularities that came to her through service providers and AHS colleagues.

“They put their trust in me to help restore integrity in AHS procurement processes, and I in turn put my trust in government to support work that would help ensure best value for Alberta taxpayers,” she said in her statement.

The province’s statement of defence claims performance issues and personality conflicts on the part of Mentzelopoulos.

It alleges occasions the former AHS CEO was unable or unwilling to advance the province’s health system overhaul.

It also alleges verbal altercations with senior government officials.

The province also addresses in its statement of defence allegations by Mentzelopoulos regarding MHCare and the procurement of children’s pain medication, Alberta Surgical Group providing “orthopedic surgery services in a CFS in Edmonton” and RFPs for the “supply of orthopedic surgery services by a CFS” in Red Deer and Lethbridge.

The province denies wrongdoing and ignoring concerns of such in its statement of defence, as Premier Danielle Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange have publicly in recent weeks.

Mentzelopoulos says she’s listened to what Smith and LaGrange have said about her statement of claim in the press.

“Both have criticized me and my tenure at AHS. I am now anticipating the filing of the government’s statement of defence—something I expect will try to expand on these statements and which is no doubt being written to inflict as much harm on me as possible and to deflect from the truth about the procurement issues uncovered by AHS,” Mentzelopoulos said.

“An army of lawyers at Bennett Jones has been hired to defend the government, I assume at great expense to the taxpayer. I am worried there’s a strategy to try to bring me to my knees financially, so I hope we can skip oral questions and proceed directly to trial.”

Mentzelopoulos’s lawsuit aims to recoup the $1.7 million in base salary and benefits she alleges she would have been owed for the remaining years of her AHS contract.

The province says in its statement of defence Mentzelopoulos’s contractual termination pay was $583,443, and that amount is what she bargained for at the time.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

In a statement, Justice Minister Mickey Amery said, “We will resolutely defend against the unproven allegations raised in this matter.”

In the time since Mentzelopoulos was fired, an investigation by Alberta’s auditor general has been announced.

An investigation by the provincial government, headed by a retired judge from outside Alberta, has also been announced.

And an investigation by the Alberta RCMP has been announced as well.