AB Resistance supports and partners with similarly minded groups across Alberta. A key partner and voice across the network of Albertans seeking to bring back decency and integrity to Albertan politics is Nate Pike, host of The Breakdown. The Breakdown is an investigative commentary podcast that reveals some of the UCP's deepest darkest secrets and brings them to light - so that Albertans who are directly affected by the UCP's actions are aware of them, and can respond accordingly.

In the spring of 2024, Nate and his team began receiving word from various sources that the UCP government had become deeply involved in a tangled web of corruption, lies, and a complete absence of ethics. Over the course of several months the Breakdown team researched these claims, going deeper and deeper, until the final reveal was exposed in a podcast that aired on October 27, 2024. 

This episode - just one of many, many, MANY critically important discussions and commentary provided by Nate - is a compelling and terrifying look behind the curtain into what Danielle Smith and the UCP Caucus have done with Albertan taxpayer money. In collaboration with The Breakdown, we have taken Nate's transcript and provided it here for those who are unable or unwilling to listen to the 80-minute episode. Where possible, we have provided sources and references for the claims provided in the podcast transcript. To listen to the episode in its entirety, please click here.

The work that Nate Pike and his team do are essential to maintaining the fabric of ethics and integrity upon which democracy is founded. We urge you to provide your support to Nate, either with a one time donation or ongoing subscription to The Breakdown Patreon. Without the brave work of Nate, and the insiders who believe that Albertans deserve better than gaslighting and falsehoods, we would have no knowledge of just how conniving and cruel the UCP government is, and how easily they will suck taxpayer coffers dry to line their - and their friends' - pockets. 

On that note, please find below the transcript. Editor comments and images, plus links to sources that verify these claims, have been added where applicable.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Here at the Breakdown, we do our best to make it clear that what we try to do is well researched and well informed commentary. Because we have the highest respect for the work of actual journalism, and we have neither the resources nor the structure of a newsroom, we do our very best to be as upfront as possible with the fact that we do not consider ourselves journalists. What we endeavour to do here is provide well researched commentary.

We strive to be as accurate as we can possibly be. We do all of this so that our commentary and content reflects reality and available facts as much as possible. Everything that we're presenting tonight we wholeheartedly believe to be true and in the public interest. (And, it might even sound a little journalisty - sorry about that.)

In the early days of 2020, at the start of the pandemic, Alberta Health Services [Editor's note: at this time, the Alberta Health Minister was Tyler Shandro.] made the decision to source personal protective equipment, or PPE, from a holding company that was run by someone who, up until that point, predominantly worked in the field of oilfield training, bottled water, and underground utility construction. The company that the orders we're referring to were placed through was Mraiche Holding Corporation. 

A report by independent journalist Kim Siever highlighted that the contact for Mraiche Holding Corporation was a Sam Hassan Mraiche using an email address from another one of his companies. (This was) an oilfield training one - the Carver PA Corporation. Carver PA is a corporation that, by their own description, "specializes in providing training to the petrochemical industry." They claim that "We are the only Recruiting firm in the Petro-Energy sector that has an internal Technical Training and Consulting department."

That initial purchase of PPE was reportedly for $228 million and included masks, gowns, and thermometers. Most of the supplies were made in China and there were some pretty significant quality control issues. In fact, the quality control was so bad it made widespread news.

The masks, delivered under the brand name Vanch, reportedly of such low quality that many didn't even fit the faces of healthcare workers properly. They had nose pieces that unsafely didn't hold their shape and because of that, couldn't create a seal providing the proper protection for healthcare workers braving the pandemic. Perhaps worst of all, many masks came with an odor that healthcare workers claimed was making them sick. 

Many have since pointed out the masks were not made by a single manufacturer, but by multiple manufacturers with varying quality and quality issues. Contrary to the Government of Alberta documentation, Vanch is not the name of the manufacturer. It's the brand name of a Chinese stationery group who sourced the masks from anyone who could meet their order, and then packaged the masks in their Vanch-branded boxes. Nonetheless, AHS continue to use Vanch masks.

So to be clear, at the start of the pandemic, when protection for healthcare workers should have been a foremost concern, a company that had no obvious experience or track record in providing healthcare personal protective equipment received a sole source contract for product that turned out to be incredibly substandard and in other cases allegedly harmful to the very healthcare workers it was supposed to protect. 

And that company was run by Sam Mraiche.

[Editor's note: we encourage you to check out Kim Siever's article which shows that along with substandard product, AHS was paying $0.85 a mask from Mraiche Holding Corp. compared to $0.50 a mask from Acklands-Grainger. So Mraiche Holding Corp. was actually charging 70% more for a lesser quality product, and Albertan taxpayers covered that cost.)

This sole source contract for problematic PPE was, in effect, the birth of a new company called MH Care Medical, operating under the Mraiche Holding Corporation (or Mraiche Investment Corporation) umbrella. And it wasn't the last time that they would deliver problematic product to Alberta at great cost to the taxpayer in a high profile manner. As a fascinating footnote to this part of the story, as the pandemic raged in November of 2020, Sam Mraiche and Aaron Barner of the Metis Nation of Alberta with then minister Josephine Pon to discuss the Indigenous Housing Capital Corporation. Remember that name - Aaron Barner - because he gets to be super relevant.

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Chapter 2: The Tridemic of 2022

Later in the summer of 2022, Canada experienced a tridemic caused by ongoing waves of the Omicron COVID variant, a spike in RSV among children, and an early start to the flu season with a strain of influenza B that particularly affected kids. This caused an unprecedented demand for children's pain and fever medication in the forms of acetaminophen, most commonly known as the broad brand name Tylenol, and ibuprofen, most commonly known as children's Advil and Motrin.

It's also worth noting that over the first half of 2022, most public health measures across Canada, except voluntary vaccination, were abandoned. In August of 2022, Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto recommended parents get prescriptions of those medications to ensure supply in advance of the flu season, even though they are non-prescription over the counter medications and a prescription would not ensure supply if the pharmacist was out of stock. By the time that the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association was able to get out a rebuttal, mass hoarding in advance had already begun emptying shelves in eastern Canada and causing a 53% increase in sales in US pharmacies along the border. 

This caused a nationwide shortage of these two medications heading into the fall respiratory virus season. To make matters worse, the 2022-2023 influenza season started in October, roughly six weeks earlier than expected. As soon as pharmacies got stock, people would clean out shelves to stockpile it at home, even if their kids weren't sick. In September of 2022, Health Canada began working with global manufacturers to adapt their products for the Canadian market. By November of 2022, the federal government had approved the import of nine brand name products from the United States and Australia, resulting in the import of over 4.4 million units over the winter. In parallel, Canadian manufacturers massively ramped up production of these medications under brand names trusted by Canadians, release 13.9 million units by May of 2023. 

Normal demand across Canada for these medications is 300,000 to 400,000 bottles per year. There is no question that the combination of sudden surge in illness in 2022 plus the hoarding emptied retailer shelves. But as sharply as that pediatric influenza B spike began in October, it fell in November, and largely ended over Christmas. Iit became obvious over the month of November that Health Canada pumping the market with imports 10 times the annual demand from multiple manufacturers and countries would catch up to the market by year end, especially with the drop in pediatric influenza and the related calming and hoarding. 

Nonetheless, on December 6, 2022, Premier Danielle Smith and then Health Minister Jason Copping announced that they were signing a deal with Turkish company Atabay Pharmaceutical for 5 million bottles of children's acetaminophen and ibuprofen to supply to Alberta pharmacies at the cost of at least $80 million.

[Danielle Smith]: “Your government is taking action to help provide the medication Alberta families need. I'm happy to announce that we have secured a supply of 5 million bottles of children's acetaminophen and ibuprofen for Alberta families right now. 

Your government is working with Alberta Health Services and Health Canada on the details and logistics to import this medicine, and you can feel confident that we are all moving as quickly as we can so that Alberta families can get what they need, and and it will be available at your local pharmacy in short order once it arrives.”

They claimed this medication would be available for import in a few weeks if Health Canada practiced the spirit of cooperative federalism. They also claimed parents would be able to keep their kids out of the hospital if they could buy the medication in pharmacies.

[Danielle Smith]: “I, I think one of the reason for this announcement is to make sure that we are providing parents with the medication they need so that they can treat at home and ensure that they can break the fever at home. That's, that's the most important step we can do to to keep the pressure off the hospital.” 

It's important to point out that during this shortage many physicians issued public statements that while these medications provide comfort care, they aren't life-saving, and they don't halt the progression of a virus. They manage the symptoms.

Copping falsely claimed that there was no manufacturer in Canada even though Johnson and Johnson manufactures their version of these products in Guelph. Copping also falsely claimed Health Canada had approved the raw ingredients from the Turkish manufacturers but not the final product. 

Again, the manufacturer was Atabay Pharmaceuticals of Turkey. This is the “Turkish Tylenot” which should be absolutely clear is nothing more than a little bit of clever word play based on alliteration. There were problems from the start - a few of them were pretty funny, most of them were entirely predictable. But  ultimately they were all just infuriating. To start with, Atabay is the company that was started by Dr Oz's family. Yeah, this Dr. Oz. So the jokes on that front pretty much wrote themselves. Alberta has about 700,000 children under the age of 12. The Alberta pharmaceutical Association claimed they could use about 500,000 bottles if received in December as promised by Smith and Copping, but did not commit to buy any while Alberta was ordering more bottles than the entire population of the province. Five MILLION bottles.

Premier Smith and Health Minister Copping were confident that Albertans wouldn't be on the hook for the surplus, and that Alberta would be able to sell the bottles to other provinces. For additional context, 5 million bottles is about 10 to 14 times the entire national demand for children's pain and fever medications. Between Imports and increased domestic production, Health Canada brought in over 18 million bottles that winter. Surplus inventory after the winter was more likely to be a problem than a shortage. Out of the 80 million total budget, the Government of Alberta committed to purchase 70 million worth of meds at $14 a bottle, which is about twice the wholesale price and way more than retail price. The other 10 million was for unspecified internal costs.

The Atabay dosage was not the same as the North American dosage, which is a safety issue triggering advanced warnings from pharmaceutical colleges as well as Alberta Blue Cross. Because of this reason, the Atabay products could only be imported by ‘Exceptional Import’ in a process requiring attestation to the short shortage by Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health. 

But there was also the problem that Atabay hadn't supplied medicine to the Canadian market, and their products that Alberta taxpayers had just paid upwards of $100 million for did not meet Health Canada specifications in many ways: dosage, child safety caps, warnings, dosing devices, packaging, labeling, and more. 

Copping admitted that Alberta taxpayers would have to subsidize the price to other provinces to match their wholesale prices that wholesale cost of $14 a bottle was, and is, significantly more than the normal retail cost of the trusted supply that again had already seen a huge manufacturing increase a month before this deal was even made. The problems continued.

[Journalist] “We have a statement from Health Canada that says they received proposals by Alberta for the importation of ibuprofen and acetaminophen for use in pharmacies and that a decision was provided to you guys in December. What exactly did that decision say?”

[Danielle Smith] “There's a couple of things that we had to do in working through with a new supplier. The, um, Health Canada has to go through and uh examine the manufacturer. They have to examine our import facilities. We had to make sure that the formulation was the same, um, as we would sell for, uh, generic products here. Uh, we had to get French and English packaging approved and we went through all of the those different steps. And so as a result we have our first shipment arriving uh on the weekend. It's going to be for Alberta Health Services use. It's 250,000 bottles. the remaining 4750 bottles (pause)  is 47 - 4750 million bottles are going to be subject to an additional, uh, delay because for retail use you have to have a childproof cap. As I understand that we are working on making sure that that approval process is taking place. And so that'll be the second batch. And as soon as we know when the retail use is going to be available we'll do another another, uh, press release. But the the good news is that our Alberta Health Services hospitals will have the first shipment by this weekend.”

Well.

[Journalist] I'm talking specifically about pharmacies, so those are ‘supposed to be on the shelves by Christmas’ is what you guys said . They aren't on the shelves, so I'm just wondering so how I understand it is that it was actually rejected - that proposal in December - and then you had to put forward a new proposal. Iis that correct?

[Danielle Smith] “No, it was just a, a process we went through. I mean, we respect Health Canada has a role in making sure that we have the safest product possible on the shelf. And the issue that they had was that we when you make a product available for a retail use, it has to have a, a childproof cap. So we're just working with the manufacturer to make sure that that is in place so that we can make it available for retail use. And, look, I don't want to rush Health Canada, certainly want to make sure that, uh, people - as soon as the the supply arrives - that they feel confident in it. It really was just a matter of us meeting the regulatory conditions and that was the last condition we needed to meet.

[Journalist] “So you had to put forward a new application?”

[Danielle Smith]: “Uh, we've been working with them right from the the beginning. We always knew that we would have a certain amount that would that would arrive that would be for AHS use. And then we had to continue working with them to make sure that we had the bottling that met their specifications. One of the specifications was we had to make sure that it was listed in the same, uh, familiar type of formulation that we have in Canada. We had to make sure of French and English, uh, labeling. And this last hurdle is we just have to make sure we've got the childproof cap. So it's been a process that we've been going on. It's just taken a little bit longer than we expected. But the first shipment is arriving this weekend for Alberta Health Services.”

[Journalist]: “Just to confirm, this is the same application that came back in December?”

[Danielle Smith]:”I,  I've been working with this, uh, on this all the way along. We have been working with Alberta Health, uh, with Alberta Health or with Health Canada to make sure that we were meeting all of their compliance. It's a brand new supplier. There's just a couple of hurdles that we needed to get through, and we're, we're almost set through the on the last one.” 

The medication itself didn't even start to arrive until January, but because of issues with the labeling and the dosing, that first shipment of 250,000 bottles could only be distributed to Alberta hospitals where nurses could be trusted to perform the extra work of converting the dosage before administering the medication to patients. Medication for the public to purchase in pharmacies didn't arrive until late March, two months after Health Canada allowed another exceptional import and well after the shortage of the trusted brand name supply had been resolved.

The medication had to be stored behind the counter as the pharmacists were required to teach parents how to adjust the dosage. But the problems didn't stop there. Because of the delay in 9 shipments, and the wrong dosage, no other provinces had any interest in buying them. Also, since Health Canada has not provided regulatory approval for any Atabay product at a national level, any other Province could only get them on a case-by-case application to Health Canada - again, for exceptional import - which again would require a shortage.

Alberta was ultimately only able to import 1.5 million of the 5 million bottles purchased because the shortage justifying the exceptional import had ended, and Health Canada never provided approval for anywhere other than Alberta. New Health Minister Adriana Lagrange directed this massive overbite to Alberta hospitals. This inventory was dumped into AHS books even though AHS never had a shortage, had its own suppliers through 2022 and 2023, and the original stated intent for these medications was that they had been purchased for retail sales in pharmacies.

Perhaps most concerning, though, the medication that was distributed to hospitals for use was only approved for ages two and up. AHS determined that because of its consistency, if used with newborn babies in the neonatal intensive care units, it could place those newborns at a risk of a condition called necrotizing enterocolitis which literally kills the intestines of infants when used through feeding tubes. 

Alberta Health Services discontinued the use of the medication entirely. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. All told, Alberta hospitals only used the medications for only two months before returning to its already established supply. But that only further underscores the question: if the medication was originally purchased with the intent to be distributed in pharmacies for the public to buy, why was it ever redirected to the hospital supply - if not just because Smith needed a cheap victory lap?

Alberta only received 1.5 million bottles of the 5 million bottles that the province paid for of that 1.5 million. Only a total of 4,700 bottles made it to community pharmacies for the public and only 9,000 bottles made it into hospitals across the province. Alberta ended up paying to store the rest of the medication, and has no means by which to get back any of the money spent. Which means that in effect, given that only 13,700 bottles ever made it into any kind of circulation, Danielle Smith paid $ 5,839.42 per bottle using taxpayers money.

We call it ‘Tylenot”, but what was the official name of the medication? Appropriately enough, “Pay-rol” (or maybe it's par-ol.) We like Payroll.  Although the Government tried to hide the existence of a middleman who allegedly orchestrated this entire deal, and has since been confirmed to be the importer. MH Care Medical, the company owned by Sam Mariche. They received the $70 million from Alberta Health. It is unknown how much of that they paid to Atabay for the 1.5 million bottles actually shipped. It's also unknown whether the 5 million bottle minimum purchase was required by Atabay, or by MH Care Medical.

Even after the safety debacle with the masks and the PPE, the government still decided to use Mraiche’s company in a sole sourced contract through AHS to obtain children's medication. The products never received regulatory approval, they had the wrong dosage despite a Custom Manufacturing run, and multiple shipments were required to get the safety caps and labeling right - seemingly by trial and error - requiring secure disposal. Again, all paid for by Alberta taxpayers. Some have since speculated that individuals within the UCP government had attempted to purchase the 5 million bottles of Aabay product through in order to bootstrap MH Care Medical into the role of being a national distributor of pharmaceutical products starting with the children's acetaminophen in in the hopes that there was still a shortage when the Imports finally arrived.

The taxpayers carried all the risk of that minimum buy, of the failure to meet the regulatory requirements and of demand drying up by the late arrival of the product all of which occurred. It was an entirely predictable $80 million catastrophe. The mismanagement of the government and MH Care Medical caused both the government and MH Care to fail at establishing MH Care as a distributor of pharmaceuticals, assuming that was their goal. To this day, they only have a Health Canada license to import and not to distribute or retail and do not list any pharmaceuticals for sale. 

Let's use a recent example of how in consistent all of this is with standard practice. Earlier in October of this year Jennifer Lee at the CBC revealed that Adriana LaGrange had let the vaccine distribution contract to physicians offices with a well established company, Acuristix, expire in April of 2024 without any extension or replacement. Alberta Health did not even put without a request for proposal or RFP. This meant that physicians had not been able to administer even Alberta's schedule of routine childhood vaccinations for 7 months, and now couldn't provide the fall 2024 flu covid or RSV shots either.

When questioned about this, LaGrange gave the excuse that the incumbent distributor had unspecified quality and safety issues. 

[Journalist]: “So the contract with the distributor expired months ago back - sort of back in April - and the government's request for an expression of interest was posted in August. So I'm wondering why it took so long, uh, for that to happen, for steps to be taken to find a distributor, so, um, vaccines could go to these clinics in time for the fall immunization campaign. And so that, um, doctors could distribute other publicly funded vaccines as well."

[Adriana LaGrange]: “Well, my understanding is that the reason why the contract was not renewed was because of quality and safety issues with that particular, uh, distributor and so, um, there was there is a process that we have to go through in government, um, to have, um, a um, competitive RFP process that has to be gone through and and so that has been gone through and my understanding is that at this point in time we are looking to supply those roughly 250 clinics with, um, with the product. But we have over 2,000 uh access points for, um, uh, for immunization that are available across this province. Um, those clinics rough represent roughly about 65% of the overall immunization that we provide across the province and it is very important. And so we are working actively to make sure that they do have product, um, via a different route but at this point in time, uh, as I say the contract did end with that distributor because of, um, a, um, safety and, uh, quality issue.” 

We asked the rejected distributor about this, and Accuristix explained the only issue they had over three years of delivering over 800,000 doses of all vaccines was a temporary issue with 1% of the covid-19 doses having a rise in temperature above the ultra Cold Storage requirement. These doses never made it to the public. Accuristix refunded AHS for the cost of the storage, and AHS continued to work with Accuristix after that. 

So one has to wonder: if the vaccine distributor was not provided a chance to renew bid on a new contract because of an issue with 1% of the doses that never even reached the public, and didn't cost taxpayers any money, how is it that Sam Mraiche and MH Care medical keep getting more contracts after their Vanch masks failed to meet the required ASM standard? Most of them wouldn't fit or hold any shape, and many of them caused breathing issues and skin rashes in healthcare workers. And after 100% of the children's acetaminophen product failed to have the standard dosage, was never approved by Health Canada outside of exceptional circumstances, was months too late, and effectively cost $80 million to only get 13,700 bottles to hospitals or pharmacies, why the massive double standard?

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Chapter 3: Sam Mraiche Receives Platinum Jubilee Medal

Just a couple of months after the Tylenot deal was announced Sam received the Queen's Platinum Jubilee medal from UCP Minister Muhammad Yasin in a ceremony that was quickly posted to the MH Care promotional website and their YouTube.

[Video clip] “We have here MLA Mohammad Yassin from Calgary. He is part of a nomination for Sam for the Platinum Jubilee award. I am so pleased today to recognize Sam for the part of work that he has done on behalf of our partners, um, here in this province and we have a government here and this award recognizes about 7,000 volunteers will recognize 7,000 people in Alberta who have done exceptional work in uplifting, helping people.

[Sam Mraiche]: “This this is a very proud moment for me and something that means a lot and this is the land of opportunity where generational change is possible because we were given an opportunity to succeed in this province. It's allowed us an opportunity to go back and give back to, to, to the community. Thank you guys. Thank you.’

There's no advertising like free advertising.

After all, Sam Mraiche has won more than a quarter billion dollars in sole source contracts from Albertans to supply medication that was only used in hospital for two months, was minimally used in pharmacies, that no other Province wanted and masks and other PPE that healthcare workers call at least problematic. We don't know how much he personally profited off of these deals, but we assume Bentley's, private plane flights, and box seats aren't cheap. 

It's also perhaps noteworthy that there's no record that we could find of either MH Care, Carver or of any of Mraiche's subsidiaries involved in the masks or Tylenol registered in the Alberta lobbyist registry that lack of any lobbying footprint stays important for a lot of what we're talking about tonight. Lobbying, in the absence of a public request for a proposal or RFP is one of the more common ways that businesses pitch their wares to government. Lobbying is the process of trying to convince the government that you're the ones that they should be doing business with. And because that business is done with taxpayer dollars, there are rules for how lobbying has to be done, and how it has to be tracked.

So how did the precursor of MH care get involved in the Vanch mask deal, and how did MH Care get involved in the Tylenol deal? We have no idea, but that brings us to what is going to be the centerpiece of this episode: this picture.

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Chapter 4: The Ticket Gift

On May 10th Danielle Smith flew to Vancouver with two staffers and an impressive entourage to watch a game in an elite private Skybox with tickets that were gifted to her by a private citizen. Tonight, we're finally peeling back as many of the layers of this onion as we can - and strap in, because this is going to be a long and wild ride. It's okay to take breaks if you have to.

It was reported very early on that the elite private skybox tickets were gifts to Danielle Smith by a private citizen, one Sam Jaber. The fact that Smith accepted these tickets as a problem in and of itself or at least it would be almost anywhere else in Canada. But let's go back to November of 2023, where Danielle Smith explained the changes that she wanted to make to the conflict of interest rules.

[Editor note: this recording is from Real Talk Ryan Jespersen, a talk show recorded on Nov 1, 2023, with Danielle Smith as his guest. View that recording here.]

[Danielle Smith]: “Oh, I have to tell you um you know I want to be respectful of the position, but there are certain things that, um, we have been told are, uh, that I cannot do. For instance during the, uh, the Stampede I was told I could only be in the Suites for 20 minutes at a time. When I receive ribbon skirts as a matter of protocol it's been questioned whether I'm allowed to keep them. They're probably only valued at $40, but told I can't do dishes in my husband's restaurant even though I'm volunteering to do that. 

So I just have to say that there, I think that there are some tweaks we may need so that we are able to go to that. I think the issue was whether, I mean, I, I don't want to go to a game and then only be able to stay in a in a suite for 20 minutes, right? So, so, I declined. But if we can address some of those issues I think most people expect that as a matter of course as Premier or as a minister, you, you have to do some of these things because it's such a great celebration of everything we have in Alberta. So we have to make some changes to the rules.”

[Ryan Jespersen]: “I, I get the no doing dishes thing, uh, because when the premier of Alberta posts a photo doing dishes and the restaurant's up for sale at the same time and then people know that it's the premier's restaurant, or the premier's spouse's restaurant. Maybe, I don't know, maybe that's marketing I don't know what it is but I can understand the justification. 

I can't understand the justification. I remember Jason Kenney, uh, was it the Grey Cup? Wasn't it the Grey Cup,  Jason Kenney wearing the I love Canadian Oil and Gas hoodie when he did the like? Iit doesn't make sense to me. I spoke personally with several government ministers at the Heritage Classic. I know they were there, and the premier can't be there. I mean, I'm going to go so far as to say I heard the commissioner of the National Hockey League was pretty pissed off. Did you hear that?”

[Danielle Smith]: “Well, he did call and asked me if I could go and just said I I didn't think I'd be able to get ethics commissioner approval on that. But to the credit of Explore Edmonton, because I spoke with them yesterday, they did a lot of work with the ethics commissioner to get a number of, of tickets that I think were at a hundred and valued at $170 each. And so they were below the $200 limit. So a number of my colleagues were able to go. 

But you know what? I just, uh, I'm, I'm trying. I want to stay within the rules. But sometimes if the rules, um, haven't kept up with where we find ourselves today we may have to adjust them.”

[Ryan Jespersen]: “Yeah, I think you're trying to get a billion dollar arena built down in Calgary and the commissioner of the league’s - in and the eyes of the hockey world or on the Metro Edmonton region, I'd suggest the premier should be there.”

To be clear, a conflict of interest occurs when an individual becomes unreliable because of a clash between personal interests and professional duties or responsibilities. Another way to say that is if you can't clearly tell what a person's motives are for doing what they're doing because they could have multiple motives including gain for people other than the ones they're supposed to be working for, they're in a conflict - that also includes personal gain. 

Danielle Smith made it very clear that box seats were a high value item for her and she changed the rules and laws to get them. That's a pretty big conflict of interest in and of itself. Nonetheless, Danielle Smith made her sweeping changes to the limits for gifts that MLAs could accept but also made, some pretty drastic changes to the rules for staffers as well. Gifts for elected MLAs used to be limited to a $200 value, with gifted tickets to events capped at $400. Smith completely removed limits for MLAs and ministers, requiring only that the gifts must be reported to the Ethics Commissioner. For context, federal law prohibits MPS from accepting gifts worth more than $40 from industry stakeholders and registered lobbyists. 

For staffers, Smith initiated rules that state that staff could only accept gifts if it was in the performance of their official duties. The gift of the tickets to Smith and then to her staff is a violation of normal practice. And while it may not be a direct violation of the rules that Smith rewrote for herself, there's no doubt that the fact that two of her staff accepted the gifts was a violation. Here's how: 

Sam Jaber is quite literally an employee of Danielle Smith. He was appointed to the board of invest Alberta on November 22nd 2023 by Danielle Smith. Invest Alberta is a Crown corporation which means that it is owned by the people of Alberta and the premier of Alberta. Danielle Smith determines who is appointed to the board who gets to be the board chair and most importantly, who is removed from the board. So an employee of the Premier gifted her thousands of dollars worth of hockey tickets. Extravagant gifts from employees to direct supervisors or employers is a major conflict of interest as it creates the opportunity for decisions to be made about that employes performance - not based on how well they do their job, but the fact that the employer (in this case, Smith) gets things. This is basic ethics and professional practice.

Whether you accept Jaber as an employee of Smith or not, Invest Alberta does have its own code of conduct as required by all Alberta Crown corporations, and Jaber seems to be violating several provisions of that code of conduct. For example, under Section 2.1 - Acceptable Behaviour, i.e.: “do not use your position to promote personal interests or bypass IAC's procedures for personal gain or the benefit of your family friends or colleagues and do not accept or provide gifts or favors in exchange for where it may appear to be in exchange for special treatment or influence.”

Under Section 2.10: “disclosure of conflicts of interest covered individuals must disclose to their code administrator all matters which would create a reasonable apprehension of bias in the performance of their duties under the ACT including any real potential and or perceived conflicts of interest.”

Jaber offering up these tickets in the first place is a demonstration of a clear violation of the Invest Alberta Code of Conduct, because as we'll show, Jaber indeed had friends and colleagues in that box. Smith accepting these tickets demonstrates a clear ethical failure that would never be tolerated in any serious section of the private sector. But Smith didn't just put herself in a compromising position.

She gifted two tickets to two staffers: her executive director of communications, Becca Polak and her Chief of Staff, Marshall Smith. This created a series of major problems. First of all, the rules for staffers are that unless they're acting in an official capacity, staffing ministers or the Premier, they are not to accept tickets to events as gifts. The statement that was released by the Premier's office to The Globe and Mall makes it clear the trip was on personal time. If that's actually true, the gift of tickets from Smith to her staff should have never been accepted, because that's what the rules that Smith herself wrote say when staffers are acting in an official role. If tickets exceeded $500 in market value, which these private, elite skybox seats certainly did, approval is required.

That approval, in another stunning ethical failure, needs to come from the chief of staff to the premier: Marshall Smith. That's right, Marshall Smith - who received the gift of the tickets - would have to approve. The gift he was receiving was acceptable which is in and of itself another massive conflict of interest.

But he didn't even do that.

How do we know?

We filed a freedom of information request to see what tickets and gifts had been approved by Marshall Smith from the time these rules came into effect to the end of August 2024. There are no records of any approvals. So no matter what, the rules that are designed to ensure that staffers behave in an ethical way were broken. And they were broken with Smith as a clear accomplice because she was sitting right beside Becca at that hockey game. And as we've said, she's reportedly the one who gave them the tickets. But that's not all. Because we wanted to verify the account that Daniel Smith's press secretary provided to the Globe and Mail - so we filed another Freedom of Information Act request asking for the details for how travel and hotels were arranged. 

It turns out that despite the fact that the attendance of the game happened on personal time, the arrangements for hotels were booked through government channels and initially paid for on a single government purchasing card, enjoying the tax breaks that come with purchasing for government business. [Editor’s note: see the results obtained by The Breakdown below.]

The statement Smith's office provided to the Globe and Mail was on May 13 and claimed that Premier Smith traveled with two staff. Both paid their own expenses but it wasn't until May 15 that internal government communications clarified that Becca Polak and Marshall Smith needed to be billed for the hotels. [Editor note: see below.]

Even more complicating is the fact that while we received confirmation that Becca Polak  did reimburse taxpayers for her trip we didn't receive anything saying the premier's former Chief of Staff Marshall Smith did.

So no matter what, the premier's Office lied to the Globe and Mail, and to Albertans - no matter what. By passing these tickets on to Becca Polak and Marshall Smith, the premier of Alberta incited them to break the very ethics rules that she had just finished rewriting. And let's be very clear here: they could have followed their own rules by claiming that Becca and Marshall were staffing Smith in an official capacity, and by having Marshall approve the gifts. But all of the available evidence strongly shows they just couldn't be bothered. And worse, when caught, there's a very reasonable argument to be made. They just tried to cover it up.

But that's just the start. Because now, we need to go back to the photo, because the photo appears to be a peek into the sprawling network that Sam Mraiche has built for himself. And we want to be very clear that what we're presenting here is only what we know, and can prove. 

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Chapter 5: The "Small" Business Empire

We're not claiming that it's an exhaustive or complete look at the Mraiche business empire. So who was all here and who was here, but not?

We've got the executive communications director, Becca Polak. We've got Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta. That was the easy ones, but here's where it starts to get wild. In the back row, we have Aaron Barner, senior executive officer for the Metis Nation of Alberta, then Sam Mraiche, then Andrea Sandmeyer, the president of the Metis Nation of Alberta, and then Sam Mraiche’s wife. Also in the picture is David Eby and his family as well as reportedly Iman Hamer, who has been a vice president at MH Care Medical.

But the key to understanding all of the invisible connections in this picture is the person who isn't even in the picture: the person who made the whole picture possible.

And that person is Sam Jaber.

The man who gave Danielle Smith the Skybox tickets, that she then seems to have regifted. We've already addressed the fact that Sam Jaber is, in effect, an employee of Danielle Smith because he was appointed by her to the board of Invest Alberta in November of 2023. But Mr. Jaber is a great deal more than that.

Mr Jaber is a businessman and accountant who, from everything that we can tell, lives and works in the Edmonton area. But it's the type of business that he seems to be predominantly  engaged in that makes him so important in understanding the hidden dynamics in the picture. 

Because Sam Jaber's primary business appears to be the accounting firm Jaberson and Associates. That business is run out of an industrial office strip mall at 5430 136 Ave NW in Edmonton. The other business run out of that address is Phoenician Accounting and Tax Services, who Jaber also appears to have been the Principal of based on the fact that he regularly cross posts for Jaberson and Associates on The Phoenician Facebook page and is the only public admin of that Facebook page.

Jaberson and Associates and Phoenician share a business address phone number and a client portal that says “Welcome to the Jaberson and Associates client portal” but is hosted on The Phoenician website. And, while Phoenician now seems to be largely defunct, the logo for Phoenician remains on the office. [Editor note: here’s a Google maps street view link.]

It's a little confusing, we know.

There's a lot of accounting services that a qualified accountant can provide. One of them is managing corporate registrations and this is where a lot of the connections in that picture start to make sense. It's common practice for corporations to use their Accounting Office for the storage of their records. That's important to keep in mind for the rest of the story, because there are four numbered companies that jumped out at us that were registered by Sam Jaber in September of 2023, just two months before Jaber was appointed to Invest Alberta. The records address for all four companies are Sam Jaber's offices. All four of these numbered companies use the contact email address [email protected]. 

An online search reveals that Olesea Corcescu used to be a payroll physician for Phoenician Accounting, an accountant with Carver and a senior accountant with MH Care Medical.

The registered office for all four companies is 3001, 14815 119th Avenue Northwest again in Edmonton. In a wild coincidence, that address is also the location of the Carver building, a three-story office block that also serves as the headquarters for MHCare and the Carver PA Corporation!

Weird, huh?

Yeah. That's the same Carver Corporation that Sam Mraiche used as his contact throughout the Vanch debacle before he converted the holding company to MH Care Medical Corporation in 2020.

So to recap, there is now proof that Sam Mriache, whose companies provided controversial products on not one, but two, high-profile occasions, and who has presumably made a boatload of money off of those deals on the taxpayer dime, has a longstanding business relationship 

with Sam Jaber. Sam Jaber gave Danielle Smith expensive Elite Skybox tickets, even though he was her employee, and by any normal business practice, that represents a huge conflict of interest.

 

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Chapter 6: Who is involved in the scandal?

So even with what we've presented just so far, we've got some pretty major problems. But of course, there's a whole lot more. Let's go back to those four companies for a sec, and take a look at who is all involved - because there's four additional names we haven't mentioned yet.

• Dr. D’arcy Durand
• Dr. Kenneth Hawkins 
• Dr. Leslie Scheelar 
• and Blayne Iksew.

Dr.  D’arcy Durand is an orthopedic surgeon who is also the head of the Alberta Surgical Group, a chartered surgical facility. He's been a major advocate for the advancement of private surgical facilities.

Dr. Kenneth Hawkins is an anesthesiologist currently practicing in Edmonton. 

Dr Leslie Scheelar is also an anesthesiologist from Edmonton. 

So let's talk about the Alberta Surgical Group for a few minutes. Alberta Surgical Group was listed in a November 2020 Press Progress article as one of the most prolific lobbyists of Tyler Shandro during his notorious run as Health Minister. From that story: “Alberta Surgical Group Ltd., a private company run by a number of anesthesiologists at the University of Alberta was incorporated in February of 2020. The company has lobbied the government three times since March. In October, the company lobbied to achieve contracted arrangements with Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services in relation to an “unspecified nonhospital surgical facility.”

Corporate records list three doctors as the company's directors, including Dr. D’arcy Durand, an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Hawkins and Dr. Leslie Scheelar from the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry's Department of Anesthesiology.”

In November of 2022, Alberta Surgical Group held a launch event for their new chartered surgical facility in the Ellerslie neighborhood of Southeast Edmonton.New health Minister Jason Copping attended as well as former Justice Minister Kaycee Madu, where they participated in a photo.

[Editor's note: Hey, that's Jayan Nagendran! More on that later.]

Oh, sorry! Not, not that photo - that's, that's Sam Mraiche attending Kaycee Maud's King Council designation. Whoops!

This, this is the photo from that event.

The Ellerslie facility has five operating rooms, and according to ASG, around 5,000 surgeries are expected to be scheduled there each year. Patients will get care under the public system with ASG operating under a contract with Alberta Health Services. The company website lists only two founders - Dr. Durand is surgical director, and Dr. Scheelar is medical director.

And who is that prolific lobbyist from that press progress story who don’t allow prolific lobbying  for Alberta Surgical Group?

The firm P3 Capital Partners Incorporated.

Who's the chairman of P3 Capital Partners?

Doug Horner.

Wait, that last name sounds familiar… 

Doug Horner was an MLA representing Spruce Grove from 2001 to January 2015. He was the president of the treasury board and Minister of Finance until Jim Prentice's cabinet was sworn 

in on September 15, 2014. Doug Horner's family is very politically active in Alberta. His cousin Nate Horner has been the MLA for Drumheller-Stettler since 2019. and a cabinet minister since July 2021. In June 2023 Danielle Smith appointed him president of the treasury board and Minister of Finance - just like his cousin 10 years prior. 

P3 Capital Partners lobbied the following government departments between the start of their  undertaking for Alberta Surgical Group in February 2020 and are still listed as lobbyist of record for the Alberta Surgical Group:

• Alberta Infrastructure 
• Alberta Health Alberta 
• Health Services 
• Alberta Treasury Board and Finance 

What is P3 lobbying the government for?

• A nonhospital surgical facility to achieve contracted arrangements with Alberta Health and Alberta Health Service
• the guideline or directive request for expression of interest of non-hospital surgical facilities services to achieve contracted arrangements with Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services 

So during part of the time Doug Horner's firm has been lobbying Alberta Treasury Board and Finance, among other departments, his cousin Nate Horner has been the president of the treasury board and Minister of Finance. To be clear, there's no direct evidence that the four companies that Mraiche is listed on as a shareholder and owner of with the gentlemen who want to expand chartered surgical facilities in Alberta is part of the lobbying efforts that P3 is undertaking. But, if any of those companies are pursuing, or looking at pursuing any kind of chartered surgical facility - or any business at all with the government for that matter - it's not a great look, is it? 

At the very least, a business partner in four companies with those physicians invited Nate Horner to hockey games, and Nate Horner has confirmed he attended two of those games.

[Journalist]: “You attended hockey games with MH Care - Sam Mraiche. I'm wondering which games you went to and how many.”

[Nate Horner]: “Uh, I did, I did attend two, uh, Oilers games, um, with MH Care. Uh, I went to a game in the first round and a game in the third. I don't have the exact dates, uh, on me, but it's, uh, was all within the the rules and will be disclosed on my ethics commissioner statement.”

[Mediator]: “You have a follow up.”

[Journalist]: “Yeah. Thank you - thank you very much for answering that, Minister. Um, it's been tricky getting ministers to answer that question. Uh, we can't get answers out of the premier's office. It will never be public what games staff went to under the current rules.”

[Journalist]: “Do you think that the current rules need to be revised?”

[Nate Horner]:”Uh, the rules were just revised I can't speculate on…”

[Journalist]: “But do you believe the current version of these rules is adequate, now that we've in retrospect after um the past couple months and seeing the resistance from this government to disclose who went to games and who hosted, do you think the rules are serving Albertans?”

[Nate Horner]: “This feels like resistance.”

[Journalist]: “Yes. I've been trying to get a hold of you for two months. You hung up on me once, Minister. I've been trying to get a hold of you. I've been emailing you. We've reached out repeatedly to the Premier's office without answer. Do you believe, are you comfortable with the current version of these rules guarding your conflicts of interests?”

[Nate Horner]: “Yes.”

[Mediator]: “Thank you, Carrie. Next question.”

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Chapter 7: How is that lobbying not a clear conflict of interest?

How is that lobbying not a clear conflict of interest? Or the very least a profound ethical failing? How does Nate Horner end up at two games with a person that closely connected to companies that are a part of the expansion of privately delivered healthcare in the province of Alberta and neither he nor his staff apparently had any idea?

[Journalist]: “So, well, when you were meeting with Sam Mraiche in his box did you push him to get some sort of value out of the $80 million for the, uh, Tylenol that put children at risk? What did you do in that moment as Finance Minister?”

[Nate Horner]: “I'm not going to comment about any private Alberta citizens. You know, I, I'd, uh, never met the man before, and he offered the ticket, and, uh, and I went. Thanks, we're done.”

When we take take a look at the criteria that have to be in place before MLAs can accept these sorts of gifts, it's very hard to see how any of these circumstances meet that criteria in any way. 

Let's take a look at the Conflict of Interest Act.

Part 2, Section 7: “A Member breaches this Act if the Member or, to the knowledge of the Member, the Member’s spouse or adult interdependent partner or minor child accepts from a person other than the Crown a fee, gift or other benefit that is connected, directly or indirectly, with the performance of the Member’s office.”

So to be super clear, an MLA or minister is not minister is not allowed to accept gifts that are connected directly or indirectly with their office unless they are of certain value in the performance of their duties. in part because Smith changed the regulations, so the gifts of elite tickets can be accepted if the elected official is accepting them in the course of their duties.

Also from the Conflict of Interest act, subsection one: “does not apply to a fee, gift, or other benefit that is accepted by the member the member spouse or adult independent partner or minor child as an incident of protocol or of the social obligations that normally accompany the member's office.” 

If Horner was there in his capacity as a minister, and someone's trying to make the argument that this was an incident of protocol or normal social obligations, you have to wonder what the protocol was that saw him accepting tickets from someone he says he knew nothing about.

[Journalist]: “So, well, when you were meeting with Sam Mraiche in his box did you push him to get some sort of value out of the $80 million for the, uh, Tylenol that put children at risk? What did you do in that moment as Finance Minister?”

[Nate Horner]: “I'm not going to comment about any private Alberta citizens. You know, I, I'd, uh, never met the man before, and he offered the ticket, and, uh, and I went. Thanks, we're done.”

And - if Horner was there in his official capacity - then there are real questions about whether he was being lobbied by Sam. Mraiche isn't registered as a lobbyist, so at a certain point, what is even going on here? We've said it before, and we'll say it again: either her and his staff are unbelievably incompetent, or they're just lying. And we still haven't gotten to blame.

You know the fourth person involved in those four corporations that Mraiche set up with the owners of Alberta Surgical Group?

Because Blayne Iskiw, another partner in these four seemingly medical companies is particularly interesting in his own right. According to his LinkedIn he was formerly involved in strategic and clinical contracting for AHS right up until roughly the same time Sam Mraiche's Turkish Tylenot deal was announced, at which point he jumped ship to MH Care where he has since been a strategic business consultant.

By August of 2024 he became Executive Vice President and spoke publicly for the company at PR events. And if you're bumping on the fact that a potentially key figure in the Tylenot acquisition suddenly jumped to MH Care, immediately after the was dry, you're not alone. We bumped too. We tried to reach out to Blayne to confirm whether or not he was involved in the Tylenot, directly or indirectly, and he didn't reply to us. Do with that what you will.

So to recap: again, Sam Jaber and Sam Mraiche are business buddies. Sam Jaber set up four companies for a group of physicians and anesthesiologists, two of which included Sam Mraiche on the board of directors, and all of which have a numbered company for which Sam Mraiche is the sole shareholder as owning voting shares in varying amounts across those four numbered companies.

Yeah, you heard that right.

2262576 Alberta Limited is a majority shareholder in two of the doctor companies that we talked about earlier, and a part owner in all of the ones that we found. The sole shareholder and owner of 2262576 is none other than Sam Mraiche. 

All of this was done in October of 2023, one month before Sam Jaber was appointed to Invest Alberta by Danielle Smith, and roughly six months before Sam Jaber gave presumably thousands of dollars of playoff tickets to Danielle Smith. It's also worth noting again that it was in November of 2023 that Danielle Smith announced that she would be making those sweeping changes to the conflict of interest act allowing for exorbitant gifts at a level that previously would 

have been illegal and those changes were completed in just a few weeks.

The lobbyist for at least one of the other related companies - Alberta Surgical Group - is the cousin of the current Finance Minister.

The business partner and four other companies with the docs who run the Alberta Surgical Group has gifted tickets to the Finance Minister Nate Horner. 

Danielle Smith accepted tickets from the accountant who set up those four companies.

So if any of these four companies were set up to pursue additional expansion of privately delivered healthcare, it totally appears that Danielle Smith accepted tickets from the company's accountant - who also happens to be one of her employees - and the Finance Minister accepted tickets from a business partner of someone who currently owns a company lobbying his department. And that lobbying is being done by the Finance Minister's own cousin.

You can see why we needed more yarn.

But wait! There's more. 

Because as it turns out all four of those seemingly medical companies set up by Sam Jaber used the Carver Corporation email address. You know, the same kind of email address that Sam Mraiche used when he was first setting up the Vanch masks deal. And their business address is the same building as both Carver and MH Care.

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Chapter 9: The Carver Corporation

So let's talk about the Carver Corporation again for a sec. Carver is a corporation that by their own description specializes in providing training to the petrochemical industry again. They claim “we are the only recruiting firm in the Petro energy sector that has an internal Technical Training and Consulting Department.”

We pulled that description from their website just a few days ago, which is weird because again on November 5th, 2020, then UCP Minister Josephine On put up that Facebook post thanking Sam Mraiche with Carver Corporation and Aaron Barner with the Metis Nation for inquiring about the Indigenous Housing Capital program. 

And, yes, that's almost certainly the same Aaron Barner from the skybox pic. So, right out of the gates we can say that the relationship between Barner and Mraiche seems to go back more than a couple of years.

But how close are they?

Aaron Barner and Sam Mraiche were both named directors for the Metis Strategic Service Corporation in March of 2021. Additionally, Barner's email is listed as the contact info for a number company out of Edmonton which appears to have, as its sole officer,  a relative of his -  although he's not listed on that company, but it's his email address - which seems weird.

And yes, before you ask, it appears that this company was set up by Sam Jaber as well.

But what's really bizarre is that another numbered company has a lease agreement with the Metis Nation of Alberta for a 5-year lease valued at $2.2 million. 

Anyone want to guess what the company that is?

2262576 Alberta Limited.

That's right. The company of which Sam Mriache is the sole shareholder. 

So Sam Mraiche started the Metis Strategic Corporation with Barner in 2021 after they both had a meeting with then Minister Josephine Pon. And somehow, Sam Mraiche has landed a $2.2 million contract from the Metis Nation starting in 2025... 

The Metis Nation of which Barner is senior executive officer…

Aaron Barner who was the business partner of Sam Mraiche in the Metis Strategic Service Corporation… and who is sitting on one side of Sam Mraiche in the skybox while the president of the Metis Nation sits on Sam Mraiche’s other side.

So it's starting to look a lot like it pays to have the right friends. 

But is it more than just Barner and Mraiche winning?

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Chapter 10: Let's recap

Time for another recap, because yes - this is a lot. But at the end of the day, Sam Mraiche has had over a quarter billion dollars in taxpayer business - with let's go with ‘controversial results.’ His accountant and Company Setter Upper gave Smith super expensive skybox hockey tickets. That same accountant was appointed to a cushy board position with Invest Alberta by Danielle Smith just before Danielle Smith changed the conflict of interest laws so that she could get super expensive skybox hockey tickets.

Sam Mraiche has used that same accountant and Company Setter Upper to set up multiple companies with surgeons and anesthesiologists already in the business of expanding privately delivered publicly funded for-profit healthcare.

The lobbying company that those surgeons and anesthesiologists hired to lobby the government for more government contracts expanding privately delivered publicly funded for profit healthcare is the cousin of the Finance Minister.

The Finance Minister attended two Elite games as a guest of Sam Mraiche, who, again, is in business with those doctors advocating for privately delivered publicly funded for-profit healthcare.

And the Metis Nation of Alberta has signed a $2.2 million contract for a lease with the business partner of senior executive officer for the Metis Nation of Alberta who is, again, Sam Mraiche. 

And apparently everybody just loves hockey.

But healthcare, education, and pretty much everything else in the province of Alberta are collapsing while the Premier of Alberta is living her best life in the middle of all of this. And no one in the UCP government seems to have any concern with what a dumpster fire this, is or cares to hold the premier to account, because somewhere in the midst of all this they seem to have forgotten that they're supposed to work for Albertans first - not an ethically compromised leader and certainly not themselves.

But at least Marshall Smith retired. 

Could it possibly get worse? If you made it this far, you already know the answer.

It should be pretty clear at this point that Sam Mraiche is winning big financially in all of this. He's had two massive deals that were paid for with taxpayers money under two separate premiers, despite the first round of product he delivered reportedly causing harm to healthcare workers and being of very inequality, and the second major round turning into a boondoggle costing Albertans upwards of $100 million.

But does it pay to be a part of Sam Mraiche's Inner Circle? Sure seems to have paid well for Sam Jaber! He's on the board of Invest Alberta, and he's making enough bank that he can give the premier of Alberta an entire skybox worth of tickets for a Stanley Cup semi-final playoff game.

Is there anyone else? Well, it appears that if your family of Sam Mraiche, that relationship certainly doesn't seem to hurt when it comes to getting government jobs. Khalil Mraiche has been identified as family in multiple reports, amd landed a sweet gig as a policy advisor to the UCP government before moving on.

Ahmad Jebara and Mahmoud Jabara pictured here standing beside their Uncle Sam [Editor Note: Sorry, we couldn’t find this image!] also have landed gigs with the UCP government as policy advisers despite having no identifiable substantial background experience in the portfolios they're advising on (largely because since the story started up they both appeared to have deleted their primary LinkedIn, and most of their public facing social media.)

But nonetheless, Mahmoud Jebara whose LinkedIn described him as a bilingual petroleum engineer is a policy advisor to Rebecca Schultz, Minister of Environment and Parks.

Ahmad Jebara, who deleted one of those two LinkedIn we found appears to have described himself as having demonstrated history of working in the logistics and supply chain industry. “Skilled in banking, managerial, finance, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and finance.” Ahmad Jebara is a policy adviser to energy Minister Brian Jean. One of these LinkedIn also has him as an employee of MH Care Medical from 2020 forward. So, even if you're not family, though, having connections with Sam Mraiche seems to at least coincide with sweet appointments.

Jayan Nagendran, another Edmonton-based physician was appointed by Danielle Smith to the Edmonton police commission in July of 2023. In fairness though, the company that both Jayan and Mraiche had together for three years was dissolved a few months prior. But it's a fascinating coincidence given the scope of what we've discussed so far. 

And if you're Danielle Smith, you're definitely winning. Recently former deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk released two letters from two private schools to their students and parents claiming that a mysterious benefactor had stepped forward to pay for memberships and tickets for anyone for those schools over the age of 14 to attend Danielle Smith's leadership review to secure her leadership.

We have not independently authenticated the letters that were brought forth from the former deputy premier of Alberta, but it's worth taking a look at those schools - because Smith has used those school stages to make several unfulfilled promises to the Muslim community around making Muslim holidays observable stat holidays, and introducing Sharia law to Alberta Treasury Branch to make Halal mortgages available outside of the private sector where they're available.

[Danielle Smith speaking]: “One of the exciting initiatives currently underway is exploring the idea of a rentable financing model for purchasing homes in your province, and this was an idea that is spearheaded by members of your community to make sure that these mortgages are compliant with the with the tenets of your faith. As of right nowm our government is collaborating with the council to make an alternative financing model available to families of the Islamic faith looking to purchase a home. By expanding access to these kinds of financing options we're seeking to provide a pathway to all our while respecting their religious rights and beliefs and I look forward to providing updates about this soon, very likely before the end of the year.” 

And, yes, there are historic connections between Sam Mraiche and at least one of the schools. According to this YouTube video he loaned the Edmonton Islamic Academy his Bentley for a school spirit video a few years back, so it feels safe to speculate that he maybe has some ties there.

That school relies heavily on provincial funding and they're currently looking to build one of the largest private religious schools in Alberta. The letter that was released by Lukaszuk directly references Smith's new funding to build private schools - because of course it does.

But again, Smith's funding promises include the government retaining ownership of those buildings with it… which means if Smith greenlights Christian Schools, suddenly the province is in the business of owning chapels. And if the province greenlights Muslim schools, the province is in the business of owning mosques. Something, something, separation church and state?!

That has led some to further speculate that Mraiche could potentially be positioning himself to be the determining factor as to whether or not Smith survives her leadership review. To be clear this is something that Mr. Mraiche vehemently denies. As we're reaching the end of the production of this episode, and after multiple attempts to get comment from Mr. Mraiche, we were contacted by his legal team. They provided us with this statement:

“Mr. Mraiche categorically denies any involvement directly or indirectly with the school's involvement with the upcoming AGM or any supposed participation in any upcoming UCP event.”

But either way, one thing should be abundantly clear. Mraiche has built his business empire over multiple administrations Smith can for sure make things easier for Mraiche and his partners, but it also appears that Smith may need Mraiche far far more than he needs her. 

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Chapter 11: Sam Mraiche

So let's recap one last time. Sam Mraiche is a businessman who, prior to COVID, appears to have been predominantly in the business of training and human resources in the oil and gas sector. As the COVID pandemic shut down business across the world, Mr. Mraiche appears to have developed significant interests in private health care supplies and potentially private health care delivery. in a stunning coincidence with his rise to prominence and conversations in Alberta politics.

At least three people who have been reportedly identified as his relatives have gotten jobs in government as policy advisers. His accountant has been appointed to the board of Invest Alberta by Danielle Smith. Another former business partner was appointed to the Edmonton Police Commission, again by Smith. And he somehow has managed to work his way into business with the senior executive officer of the Metis Nation of Alberta. despite what some could interpret as glaring conflicts of interest.

Oh, and it appears that he's least tangentially related to the alleged bussing in of hundreds of Muslim students to ensure that Danielle Smith survives her leadership review, which, again, he vehemently denies any involvement in. It's also worth highlighting at this point that if the letters that the former deputy premier of Alberta released are accurate, and the schools follow through with the plans that are described in those letters, it's because of no small part that those students were potentially coerced.Because there's waiting lists for those schools, and there's been concerns raised that there's very clearly a ‘if you don't play ball, you don't get to stay’ subcurrent.

It's also worth noting that the far-right media organization True North claims to have a recording of Danielle Smith's former campaign manager Matthew Altheim confirming that he's helping to arrange to have at least 2,000 members of the Muslim Community bussed in. That's, by the way, the same Matthew Altheim whose media production company scored almost 2 million contracts from Smith after being elected. And who has also been identified in managing her social media for her. But, it is True North, so, you know.

Which brings us back to the picture. Because that means with the exception of the BC Premier and his family, almost everyone in this picture has ties to Sam Mraiche’s business empire, including the premier of Alberta. We're still not done, because there are a lot of unanswered questions that are involved in this story, and some of them very much seem to have some smoke - if not actual fire - because some of these answered questions are very much based in established facts.

One of the questions that has been posed is that Jaber could have actually been pulling from Sam Mraiche’s playbook with the gift of the skybox tickets, and there's actually some confirmed evidence to support that. It's known that Sam Mraiche has hosted multiple ministers in his own skybox in Edmonton. 

And while the premier's office has kept an incredibly tight lid on MLAs and staff, and preventing them from speaking to media or even answering the both most basic media inquiries, there are allegations that Sam Mraiche’s skybox was a revolving door of ministers, MLAs, and staffers during the regular season and the playoff season. 

And there is truth to this, because as we said earlier Nathan Neudorf has already admitted that Mraiche offered him tickets multiple times, and confirmed that he attended a game against the Canucks as a guest of Mraiche. Nate Horner confirmed that he attended not one, but two games as a guest of Mraiche (although in either a stunning admission of incompetence of either himself and his staff, or straight up lies, he claimed that he had no idea who Mraiche was or what Mraiche’'s history of hundreds of millions of dollars with business with the government was.) You know, Nate Horner, the Finance Minister, not knowing who's gotten over a quarter of a billion taxpayer dollars in business.

[Editor note: On October 30, 2024 the Canadian Press released a report listing which UCP ministers had admitted attending hockey games as guests of Sam Mraiche.  CTV News Edmonton released a report saying that ministers, as well, with ministers listed below:

• Infrastructure Minister, Peter Guthrie
• Utilities Minister, Nathan Neudorf
• Finance Minister, Nate Horner
• Sport Minister Joseph Schow
• Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis

More to come on this in the days ahead!]

Some people have pointed out that at the same time that Khalil Mraiche scored his government job, Marshall Smith was the chief of staff for that department. Others have pointed out that the Tylenot deal came while Marshall Smith was Danielle Smith's Chief of Staff. There's also multiple social media posts of MH Care sending a variety of supplies to Lebanon, including to Aid organizations and according to this translated Facebook post the Lebanese Army. [Editor note: sorry, we couldn’t find this pic!]

There's a lot of really shocking things that should be pretty alarming to all Albertans, but as of yet, Danielle Smith has been incredibly successful in keeping an incredibly tight lid on all of this. As we said, multiple real reporters have reached out multiple times asking for comment, and Smith, the vast majority of her ministers, MLAs, and staffers have remained absolutely tight lipped and have refused to provide any kind of transparency. These questions could all easily be answered, but instead of answering these questions, instead of taking responsibility, it seems Smith's office has demonstrably chosen to just lie. We proved that with our FOIP on the hotels. Smith had her part - her press secretary - tell the world that everyone had paid for their own hotels. But our FOIP proved that at the time that wasn't the case. 

Danielle Smith has lied to Albertans on many occasions. Most of the time, they're just shockingly stupid lies that are easily caught most of the time they're lies designed to lead people to politically expedient places. But this is different. Danielle Smith has lied and refuses to be transparent to what degree, if any, Sam Mracihe or others pull strings inside of the government.

And that should be the number one conversation that all Albertans are having. We can't fix healthcare if we have a government that is being manipulated and maneuvered by private businessmen. We can't fix the economy when public dollars are be being siphoned off to make the uber rich richer - if that's what's happening. We can't fix education when the promise of new private religious schools on the taxpayers dime could be used to determine where money goes because it could save a premiership.

It's worth remembering this isn't the first time that the procurement process appears to have gone sideways. In the early days of 2021, we did a different episode where we highlighted question procurement practices when it came to buying masks for school children. That episode was the result of another flight that we completed that demonstrated that mass procurement didn't go at all as one would expect. 

And to make a very long story short, somehow the company of a UCP donor and supporter of Adriana LaGrange ended up with a pretty juicy contract. The ethics commissioner determined that there are grounds for suspicion and that there is no doubt that The Minister's office had some involvement with that process. And this highlights the greatest problem. It seems inescapable at this point that the UCP has allowed for an erosion of the guard rails that are supposed to ensure that business conducted with taxpayer dollars is done in a way that is in the best interest of taxpayers.

These same guardrails are supposed to ensure that the people making these decisions - again, with taxpayer money - aren't being influenced by anything other than what is the best and most appropriate use of that money. Danielle Smith's sweeping changes to ethics laws and the rules around what elected officials can accept his gifts have only accelerated the erosion. As an additional footnote, and as a fascinating twist, according to the Elections Alberta database, Sam Mraiche and folks who share the same name as his family members have donated almost $25,000 to the Alberta NDP between 2019 and 2020. We have not found any evidence to date that the NDP have made any business decisions based on those donations, but as always, our DMS are open.

But what's next for Mraiche’s circle of associates? In this exhausting crawl down a rabbit hole?

We discovered that on September 9th, 2024 - just a few weeks ago - the Jebara brothers incorporated at one of Mraiche's addresses and using the services of Sam Jaber's accounting firm. Again, a company called Harmony Path Homes, which their website describes as “providing care for seniors and vulnerable Albertans” and also claims on that same website to already be presently providing two group home programs. Also interesting is that Harmony Path Homes’ cites another separate organization that works with disabled children, but when we reached out to that organization, they advised us they don't do any work with Harmony Path Homes. So that's weird, right? We watch with great interest to see if Harmony Path Homes wins any government contracts and if they are competitively bid or sole sourced. We can't help but note that no lobby filing for Harmony Path Homes has yet been filed.

We also can't help but notice as well that both an Ahmad Jebara and a Mahmoud Jebara are still listed on the government of Alberta staff directory as policy advisers to two ministers.

Weird, right?

And that's where the stops for today. We've reached out all of the major players and what we've shared tonight, and while we did not get any responses from any of them or any comment from any of them - above and beyond the comment we received from Mr Mraiche denying any involvement with the UCP leadership review - I did receive a cease and desist letter alleging that our pursuit of this story is in some way motivated by Islamophobia. It's been suggested that I shouldn't publicly respond to that allegation. To hell with that.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Here at The Breakdown, we are proud of our track record of condemning hatred in all of its forms. Conflating the questioning of businesses that have been the beneficiary of well over a quarter of a billion dollars in taxpayers business should not in any way be construed with anything other than a commitment to ensuring transparency from government and providing well-informed commentary.

This episode is not about race, and it's not about religion. In a Venn diagram of corruption. the circle that represents the concerning business practices or abuse of public trusts overlaps with all ethnicities and all faiths. We remain committed to providing well researched and well-informed commentary because we have the highest respect for the work of actual journalism, and we have neither the resources or nor the structure of a newsroom.

We will continue to do our best to make it clear that we do not consider ourselves journalists. We will continue to endeavour to provide well researched commentary. We will continue to strive to be as accurate as possible, and when we are shown that we've made mistakes, we will own them. We will do all of this so our commentary and content continues to reflect reality and facts as much as possible.

Everything that we've presented tonight we wholeheartedly believe to be true and in the public interest… and might even sound journalisty. Again, sorry about that. With all of that said, in our own commitment to ensuring transparency. we will provide everything that we have presented here, all of the supporting documentation to any real journalist who wants access to it. And I want to take a moment to thank everyone on the team for making this episode possible. There have been literally hundreds of hours of research, fact checking and more that have been done by a team of volunteers whose greatest commonality is that we all believe in accountability. I also want to thank all of our patrons and financial supporters. There have been hundreds of dollars spent on pulling corporate records and filing for requests that couldn't have been completed without everyday Albertans making sure that we have the resources that we need to do what we do.

So here comes the plug. If you value 3the kind of content and comment that we try to produce here, you can sign up to be one of our regular patreon supporters at https://www.patreon.com/thebreakdownAB. If a regular commitment isn't your thing, you can also E transfer us at info@ thebreakdownab.ca and finally if you want to get your hands on some of our super dope swag, you can get that at abpoli.ca. Thank you all for listening or tuning in, and as always, keep the conversation going.