Village of Carmangay: Sorry, your nursing home will have to close. Below: Former Capital Health CEO Sheila Weatherill, Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne.
Let’s cut right to the chase: If Alberta Health Services can afford to buy out Allaudin Merali, again, it can afford to keep the doors open at the Little Bow Continuing Care Centre in Carmangay.
The Little Bow centre in the village of 275 souls way down in Wildrose country is home to 18 elderly dementia patients. AHS says that at 54 years old, the building just too expensive to renovate and too rickety to keep open. Why, it would cost about a million dollars to fix the roof, make the washrooms wheelchair accessible and do the other work that’s needed!
So the place going to have to close, 36 jobs will be lost in a community that depends on them and the residents will be scattered to the four winds – or, more likely, nearby Alberta towns like Vulcan and Claresholm.
Mr. Merali, meanwhile, is the former Alberta Health Services Chief Financial Officer who got canned Wednesday afternoon when the other top execs at the massive province-wide health agency learned the CBC was about to broadcast an expose on his startling expense account practices in a previous Alberta health sector job.
Actually, CBC investigative reporter Charles Rusnell filed his Freedom of Information request back in May, so it’s hard to imagine the AHS executives and Health Minister Fred Horne haven’t known about this for a while, but never mind that just now.
An awful lot of Albertans were having trouble yesterday getting their heads around the repeated assurances by AHS and government officials that Mr. Merali didn’t actually do anything wrong when as CFO of the now-defunct Capital Health region back between 2005 and 2008 he filled out those suddenly notorious expense accounts – but that he’s now being asked to leave AHS because of it just the same.
What Mr. Merali expensed back then could be pretty startling: regular meals at luxurious restaurants that rarely seemed to cost less than $200, fine wine by the gallon, repairs to his luxury automobile, plus takeout food for meals at home, a muffin here, a can of pop there, a cuppa tea some other place – almost $350,000 worth over three years. In fairness, many of his expenses were obviously legitimate as well.
But the general attitude of tout le monde official Alberta seems to be that – so sad, too bad – under the circumstances there’s not much to do but give Mr. Merali another generous buyout, not at all dissimilar from the one he got from Alberta taxpayers when he left Capital Health when it was absorbed into AHS in May 2008. What’s more, they can’t really talk about it, because it’s a contractual matter. Lawyers, ya know…
Now, when you really think about this, it doesn’t make sense. Either Mr. Merali followed the rules – as Mr. Horne insisted at a news conference yesterday morning – in which case he should still be working for AHS. Or he didn’t, in which case he doesn’t deserve a severance package.
Either way, Alberta’s taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for another buyout, which given Mr. Merali’s presumed salary is unlikely to be much less than half a million dollars and could theoretically be more – even though he only returned to Alberta to work for the Alberta health care system three months ago!
After his well-greased departure from Alberta in 2008, Mr. Merali travelled to a public sector job in Ontario where, lo and behold, he became involved in a public controversy about his expense account activities.
But that doesn’t seem to have been a problem when somebody in Alberta decided they wanted him back. Indeed, just before he took the AHS position, he’d been offered and briefly accepted a job as the province’s comptroller general.
Mr. Horne kept insisting at his highly unsatisfactory press conference yesterday that he would get to the bottom of all the nasty questions arising from this affair and that Albertans would soon have all the answers. But not just yet.
Indeed, at times during the news conference, Mr. Horne seemed like something astronomers might speculate about – a black hole into which information disappears and never comes out again.
“I am outraged, and the government of Alberta is outraged, by what has been revealed here,” the minister stated. But if you wanted to know, say, if Mr. Merali was expensing the same sorts of things in his new position with AHS, well, Mr. Horne didn’t have an answer to that just now. (In fact, the frequently maligned Stephen Duckett put a stop to executives expensing alcoholic beverages during his tenure as CEO of AHS, so at least Mr. Merali wasn’t expensing wine.)
Likewise, if you wanted to know why Mr. Merali was hired when he had a history of this sort of horsing around, well, the minister hadn’t known anything about that. (Apparently no one had any idea about his adventures at Capital Health until they saw the CBC request … whenever that was. Except of course, Sheila Weatherill, the former Capital Health CEO who has sat on the AHS Board since last February and thus should have been aware of the hiring. We’ll get to her in a moment.)
And if you want to know just how big Mr. Merali’s inevitable second buyout will be, well, you’ll have to be patient and wait for that too.
Indeed, if you wish to know what was discussed when Mr. Horne (then a consultant for AHS) broke bread with Mr. Merali at Jack’s Grill back in May 2005, well, Mr. Horne couldn’t recall.
But he did remember one thing – which became the main news hit of the day.
Wednesday night, he said, he got a call from Ms. Weatherill, who herself got a buyout of $1.5 million when she left Capital Health and who had approved all of Mr. Merali’s expenses back in the day. “She offered her resignation,” Mr. Horne said, “and I accepted her resignation.” Since Ms. Weatherill was a volunteer board member, at least we won’t have to cut her another cheque.
So this gets us where, exactly? As a wag of my acquaintance put it: “Health Minister Fred Horne was so outraged Sheila Weatherill authorized Allaudin Merali to spend more than $200 of taxpayers’ money in 2005 on lunch with Fred Horne, back when he was just a health policy consultant, that now he’s punishing Ms. Weatherill by forcing her off the board and using taxpayer money to write a giant cheque to Mr. Merali. This way, we can all be confident everyone has learned their lesson!”
When the dust settles, we’ll have spent about a million dollars in less than five years just getting rid of the same extravagant guy, twice.
But we can’t afford to spend the same amount to keep a residence for vulnerable seniors open in Carmangay!
What’s wrong with this picture?
This post also appears on Rabble.ca.
What is wrong with this picture?
We are governed by crooks. All waiting for the opportunity to get their fat pensions and buy outs to come back again for more. Lawyers just love this situation because they take a cut and so goes the Wheel of Fortune.
This is the Democracy of the elites is what this is called. Get the public money to push us to right so we can have less social programs so that they can have it all. To these people Carmangay is just a nuisance and that 1 million dollars is much better in the hands of Meralli who will now move to BC to have a 3000 oyster lunch with premier Clark and get some consulting position that in a couple of years will give him another half a million when he leaves.
Sheila Weatherill is on her second round and we will soon find out, when she decides to leave how much we will pay for her buy out this time.
This is all abhorrent and those who fight it are the left wing nuts or terrorists. Sooner or later this aristocracy will pay for all this abuse, in the meantime our premier, somewhere in London spending another 84 thousand that will turn into 184 thousand due to some underestimate, is trying to be oblivious to all of this and delegate the problem to someone else. Talk about third world.
I think his lawyers will successfully argue that he has done nothing to merit dismissal for cause from his current job as a senior executive with AHS, and therefore is entitled to severance. This matter relates to a former job, with an employer that no longer exists, and to expenses that were claimed in accordance with admittedly too lax policies at the time.
The real issue here is why did this not come to light during his pre-hire process under AHS, and why was he hired with this kind of track record? Where was the due diligence with respect to vetting him for such a responsible position?
Alberta’s new, official license plate moniker — Fat Cat Country.
And everything else Carlos already said above….except, this aristocracy will only pay for it when the normally brainless public actually gains an ounce of discernment and votes the Conservatives right out of the water.
I should not come back to this twice but I had to respond to Jerrymacgp on the question why Meralli’s record did not come to light during his hiring process. Very simple my friend, they are all eating from the same pot of gold. The fact is that it is hard for us to believe that we are so corrupt but the fact of the matter is that there is no way no one new about his past record. This is all agreed by those on top and so goes the wheel of ‘ I help you and you help me’ type of deal. As much as it is hard for us to believe that in Alberta we have this kind of Mafia, the facts are clear and happening more and more frequently. Now Horne is DUMBFOUNDED on how did this happen? He is on the paper showing is face of surprise. This is all a play and it will continue because we Albertans and Canadians in general have allowed this political class to transform into a Mafia just like in many other countries and they are destroying our democracy and our trust for our own governments. Get Sheila and Horne and whoever out of there and if necessary the premier and the rest of them. This is our money our province and our home and this people do not deserve our trust and have access to our common assets.
Bring the premier back from another junket, stop all the travelling until our finances are under control, our emergency rooms are working, our royalties are real royalties and on and on. Stop teaching others around the world what governance and democracy is about before we get our house in order and stop saying that other are much worse, we really do not care. We have our Canadian standards and those are the ones we have to improve on. Globalization does not mean taking third world behaviour standards to be able to compete.
This is all shameful. It is even more shameful that our own lawyers will be helping these people get away with it and get around the same laws and rules they are suppose to abide by. What kind of system is this? If this is Democracy then it is time to change it.
Mr. Merali must be one of the spawn of the eHealth Ontario scheme, wherein gazillions of health care dollars were spent to electronify Ontario citizens health records – you know the drill, where easy transfer of data among health care providers would have untold benefits for us – and we have precisely nothing to show for it. There were “consultants” flown back and forth from Alberta (Mr. Merali, maybe?) a couple of times a week (gotta get back and see the family, dontcha know?), as well as Florida and gawd knows where else. Seems like they hadn’t heard of the interwebs and conference calls. Or even Skype! There was nepotism and cronyism, friends of the previous regime were hired, and after years and years and untold wealth were squandered, we are left with nothing but the bills.
Now we’re up to our ears in another scandal, the tale of the ORNGE (not sure what it stands for) medivac helicopters. More squandered and unaccounted for millions, more nepotism and cronyism and rumours of kickbacks to the chief guy, Dr. Chris Mazza from the Italian heli manufacturers. Mazza’s girlfriend, a former water-ski instructor, was promoted to VP of the company and paid no-one-knows-how-much (I’m not kidding, there are no records). She earned her salary by researching the helicopters on the internet. (No, I’m not kidding again). The inquiry has just wrapped up for the summer with absolutely no conclusions and no charges but there has been a lot of mud slinging.
What water skiing and medivac helicopter purchasing have in common I’m not sure, unless the helicopters were going to land at speed and at an angle on water.
After all the money wasted on nothing followed by more nothing, local hospitals decided to make their budgets balance by economizing on food by getting rid of local food suppliers and the people who prepared the meals and instead going for some cheaper mass-produced stuff schlepped down the 401 from Toronto to Kingston, approximately 300 kilometers distant. How does throwing people out of work and cutting into local farmers’ business save money? I don’t know, but it sure looks good on the balance sheet. To heck with the locals. Bad snowstorm, flood, tornado? Well – let the patients eat cake!
And I hope there’s a special circle of hell waiting for the people who take elderly patients with dementia away from familiar surroundings and people, as well as the jobs from the community of Carmangay, and farm them out to somewhere else at a distance from their families, where they don’t know anybody and nobody knows them. It is cruel and inhumane.
How angry am I? I’m not even sure any more.
Lol! This Merali character now knows what Col Khadffhi felt like. One minute they’re rolling out the red carpet for you and the next they’re screaming for your head.
For the sake of argument let’s say he was performing a valuable service in his role of chief “winer and diner” and his expense account, however extravgant, was really a bargain.
That may be difficult to swallow but to put it in persepective let’s consider another one of “our emplyees”, say, a 4th line role player for the Calgary Flames or Edmonton Oilers making $1.2 million a year.
To call him “our employee” is not a stretch, given the blurring of lines between sports and the tax system (all those box suites in NHL arenas are corporate tax write offs for crying out loud)
This player may get maybe three, four, five minutes of ice time a game. Figure that over 82 games and here’s a guy making what, $100,000 – $200,000 an hour. You still want to call Moreli extravagent.
There was the recent uproar over Bev Oda, kicked out of Harper’s cabinent, for ringing up a $16 glass of orange juice on the expense tab.
When you consider there are people racking up thousands of dollars in medical bills because they didn’t get enough vitamins when they were younger, a $16 glass of orange juice seems like a bargain.
It has been an amazing week and an amazing story. There are several interesting issues. First, I should say that I have worked for a major health care union in Alberta for many years, and as such had many dealings with Sheila Weatherill. She is an honourable person and always struck me as honest and cautious. She certainly was so in any dealings I had with her. I am completely convinced she conducted her business in that many at all times. Although her signature appears on many of expense forms, those who are aware of how large organizations work will be aware that there are stamps and electronic signatures. Seriously – does anyone believe that a CEO of a corporation the size of Capital Health spends her days approving expense cheques? I hope not, given the salary they get!
Secondly, I agree with jerrymacgp. I expect AHS would not be able to show just cause. Even if they had any chance – it disappeared when Minister Horne held a news conference to say that Mr. Merali acted within what was acceptable boundaries at the time. And besides, there is no possibility of anyone from AHS suggesting they were not aware of his spending habits. Anyone with access to a newspaper, radio, tv or computer must have heard of the stories from Ontario. But as David pointed out – if there is no just cause – why terminate?
The sad part of this is that it is elderly demented residents who will suffer, while those at the top play with our money in Machiavellian ways, smearing the overpaid but honest in their midst.
Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise.
Who’ll love Allaudin sane.
As David Bowie would say. (showing my age!)
One of the things not mentioned here is that this facility recently PASSED an inspection and was deemed safe and reasonable. Who decided otherwise and on what basis? Which decision is right? Sadly, so long as the beurocracy is involved there won’t be answers.. at least, not honest ones.
I would love to see a Fairy Tale ending here–Mr. Horne admits he has made mistakes and actually talks to the Families of the beloved Residents of Carmangay and actually listens to them–realizes his error and offers an apology and puts some money into the Facility and keeps it open! I would love to see him investigate the whole Health region–perhaps go back to the smaller honest boards that were honest and accountable and get rid of all of the bureaucrats who are sucking the system dry–not the RN’s or front line workers who are always maligned! Let’s get back to fair play and be honest and equal again! For the people and by the people………….is this too much of a fairy tale ending ?
While I am disgusted with the way the community of Carmangay, the patients, and their families have been treated through all this; this may be a chance to push back against the bureaucracy at AHS.
Perhaps someone in the town, or family members could start fundraising; perhaps crowd-funding on the internet, to raise the $500,000 needed to repair the building – if it actually needs repairing. After all, it passed inspection a few months ago and I don’t remember reports of a tornado hitting Carmangay recently.
The $500,000 I postulated is because, if the government estimated $1,000,000 for repairs, you can take it to the bank that the citizens of Carmangay can get it done for half or less.
They should form a society, take over the building, and have the government contract with them to care for the patients.
Unless you think more government is the answer; it’s time to do it ourselves.
The over 40 year stagnation of PC rule has possibly clouded the minds of our elected representatives as to the right and wrong use of our hard earned tax dollars. This unreasonable closure by AHS is not called for nor is it needed. with this government promising better acces to health care on one hand why are they closing the door to a perfectly viablel health care facility with the other hand. All the time smiling in our faces. Is this pay back and possible intimidation for southern Alberta voting Wildrose? What a disgusting way to do business with the lives of Albertas most vulnerable citizens and the ones that helped make this country great. Shame on this government and the way they operate!