BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
Your Data Your Rights
Alberta’s health authority is claiming its fired former executive breached her employment agreement by holding on to confidential emails with information pertaining to allegations in a high-profile court case.
A new affidavit filed Wednesday by Alberta Health Services says the agency is looking to amend its statement of defence in light of the emails, which the agency says it only became aware of last week.
Former AHS head Athana Mentzelopoulos is suing the Alberta government and AHS for wrongful dismissal, alleging she was illegally fired in January to stop her from investigating sweetheart deals and high-level political interference in multimillion-dollar health procurement contracts.
She was fired one year into a four-year contract and is seeking $1.7 million in lost wages and damages. Allegations from all sides have yet to be tested in court.
The new affidavit, filed Wednesday by AHS’ senior vice president of clinical operations Sean Chilton, says the agency discovered last week that Mentzelopoulos had forwarded nearly a dozen emails from her work account to a personal email address the day before she was fired.
Those emails, Chilton claims, “contain confidential information, privileged information, and business records” that Mentzelopoulos was not authorized to keep.
As such, the agency claims the former executive breached her employment agreement and keeping the emails was a fireable offence, which it wants its statement of defence to include.
Wednesday’s filing contains almost entirely redacted copies of the emails in question. The affidavit only discloses subject lines and senders or recipients, which are largely limited to government bureaucrats and AHS officials.
The subject lines point to information about private surgical facilities and freedom of information requests related to a private medical supplier that’s at the heart of Mentzelopoulos’ allegations of political interference and conflicts of interest.
As part of Wednesday’s court filing, Alberta Health Services is also seeking an injunction to stop Mentzelopoulos from using the confidential emails as evidence in court and from sharing them publicly or with the media, which the agency is now accusing her of doing.
The affidavit claims recent reporting done by The Globe and Mail features information contained in the emails.
“AHS has no control over the (Mentzelopoulos’s) use and distribution of this confidential information and business records, and will suffer irreparable harm if (she) were to use the (emails) for her personal benefit rather than for the benefit of AHS,” Chilton’s affidavit reads.
In an email, Mentzelopoulos’s lawyer, Dan Scott, denied that he or Mentzelopoulos committed any wrongdoing in relation to the confidential emails.
He also denied sharing the emails with the Globe and Mail.
A draft version of an amended statement of defence AHS now wants to file is also included in Wednesday’s affidavit.
The draft is largely unchanged, except for a new paragraph that says by keeping and disclosing the emails Mentzelopoulos committed a fireable offence, giving AHS just cause to fire her “after” she was dismissed.
In its original counterclaim AHS, as well as Health Minister Adriana LaGrange in her own defence statement, said Mentzelopoulos was fired for poor job performance, not for her investigation into alleged irregular contracts.
Mentzelopoulos has disputed that defence, saying she was praised by LaGrange for her work.
Since the matter became public last month, the RCMP has launched an investigation, as has Alberta’s auditor general Doug Wylie.
The province has initiated its own third-party investigation, spearheaded by a former judge.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 27, 2025.
You can support trusted and verified news content like this.
FIPA’s news monitor subscribers, donors and funders help make these available to everyone rather than behind a paywall. We appreciate every contribution because it makes a difference.
If you found this article interesting and useful, please consider contributing here.
