Alberta's health authority has alleged that a terminated executive violated

Alberta's health authority has alleged that a terminated executive violated her employment contract by retaining confidential emails related to a prominent court case.

In a new affidavit submitted on Wednesday, Alberta Health Services (AHS) announced its intention to revise its statement of defense following the discovery of these emails, which the agency claims it only learned about last week. Athana Mentzelopoulos, the former head of AHS, is suing the Alberta government and AHS for wrongful dismissal, asserting that she was unlawfully terminated in January to prevent her from investigating questionable contracts and high-level political interference in multimillion-dollar healthcare procurement deals. Mentzelopoulos was dismissed one year into her four-year contract and seeks $1.7 million in lost wages and damages. The various allegations have yet to be evaluated in court. The recent affidavit, filed by AHS's Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations, Sean Chilton, reveals that AHS discovered last week that Mentzelopoulos had forwarded nearly a dozen emails from her work account to a personal email address just before her termination. Chilton contends that these emails contain "confidential information, privileged information, and business records" that Mentzelopoulos was not authorized to retain.

Consequently, AHS claims that her actions constituted a breach of her employment agreement, which they argue is grounds for dismissal. AHS wishes to incorporate this claim into its defense statement. The affidavit includes heavily redacted copies of the emails, revealing only the subject lines and the identities of senders and recipients—primarily government officials and AHS personnel. The subject lines indicate content related to private surgical facilities and freedom of information requests concerning a private medical supplier central to Mentzelopoulos's allegations of political interference and conflicts of interest. In addition to the allegations, AHS is also seeking a court injunction to prevent Mentzelopoulos from using these confidential emails as evidence in court, as well as from disclosing them to the public or the media—a claim the agency asserts she has already contravened, as suggested by recent reporting from The Globe and Mail. Chilton's affidavit states that AHS would suffer irreparable harm if Mentzelopoulos used the emails for personal gain rather than for the benefit of the agency, given that they have no control over her distribution of this confidential information. In a response, Mentzelopoulos's attorney, Dan Scott, denied any wrongdoing on the part of himself or his client regarding the confidential emails and refuted claims of sharing the emails with The Globe and Mail. Also included in the Wednesday filing is a draft of AHS's revised statement of defense, which remains largely unchanged except for the addition of a paragraph asserting that Mentzelopoulos's retention and disclosure of the emails constituted a fireable offense, justifying AHS's decision to terminate her after the fact.

Previously, in its original counterclaim, AHS and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange claimed that Mentzelopoulos was fired due to poor job performance, not due to her inquiries into alleged irregular contracts. Mentzelopoulos has contested this defense, maintaining that LaGrange expressed appreciation for her work. Following the public revelation of this matter last month, the RCMP and Alberta's auditor general, Doug Wylie, have both initiated investigations, while the province has launched its independent third-party inquiry led by a former judge.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on March 27, 2025.